D II A M A. 



93 



no, whose SopJioniiftet, says Voltaire, w.w tlie first re- 

 gular tragedy which Europe had witnessed after so 

 many ages of barbarism ; or, to quote the more elegant 

 eulogy of Pope, 



\Vhen learning, after the long Gothic night, 

 1'air o'er die western world renewed its light, 

 V>"itli arts arising, Sophonisba rose, 

 The tragic muse returning, vrcpt her woes : 

 \Vith her th' Italian s^-ene iiiv-t learnt to plow, 

 And the first Wars for her were taught to flow. 



Drama. 



Trissino, 

 A. t). 10i 



This tragedy wa^ represented in Pome I HI 5, in the 

 presence of Leo X. to whom it was dedicated, and un- 

 der whose auspices it was written; and, in the year 

 1 r,i)2, when a wooden model of the famous Olympic 

 theatre of Palladio was erected, for trial, in the Palazzo 

 del Ragione, the Sophonisba of Trissino was selected 

 for representation. The historians of Vincenz.i dwell 

 with pride and pleasure on the splendonr of this spec- 

 tacle, ar.d on the great concourse of nobility, from even 

 the most distant parts of Lombardy, who assisted. This 

 tragedy is written in verse sciolto; and the author, fol- 

 lowing the Greek model, conducts his plot with irre.d 

 simplicity ; only interrupting the course of the action 

 with the odes, and occasional observations of a moral- 

 ising chorus. Sophonisba was soon known beyond the 

 Alps ; and, according to Voltaire, it was from the So- 

 phonisba of Trissino that the French learnt the drama- 

 tic rules. Encouraged by the success of Trissino, his 

 coiit'.'inporary and friend Giovanni Ruccelai, nephew 



Ruccf!:J, f Loren/.o <!:; Medici, and cousin-gcrman of Leo X. 



A. D. li!6. entered the dramatic career. In the year 1.516, his 

 lln iiiu'i'l'.i was recited in his garden at Florence, in 

 the , f IA:I>. This tragedy is founded upon a 



story of strong interest in the history of the Lombards, 

 which is related with simplicity and perspicuity in the 

 Isioria Fiorentina of Machiavelli, and splendidly and 

 minutely detailed in the luminous page of Gibbon. Mr 

 Rascoe has observed, on this tragedy, that Ruccclai lias 

 preserved his heroine from the crimes of prostitution 

 and assassination, and has introduced a disinterested 

 lover in the person of Almachilde, who executes vcn- 

 c-e on the king from generous and patriotic mo- 

 Injustice to the author, it must al-o be obser- 

 M-'l, ''orrid incident upon which the tragedy 



is {bonded, is narrated only, and not represented, be- 

 fore the audience. 



The rest of the sixteenth century presents a list of 

 tragic writers, many of whose works are spoken of in 

 the highest terms by Gravina Riccoboni, and other cri- 

 '>f equal authority. Among these, Giambalista 



getonib?. Gf-rombe is entitled to notice, for being the fir.,t who 

 divided the Italian drama into acts and scenes, and ma- 

 king the prologue independent of the piece, which had 

 formerly, according to the Aristotelian canon, formed 

 an awkward integral part of it. C'inthio is memorable 

 for having afforded, in his novels, many materials to 

 Shakespeare. Tusso's Torrismitmta ought not to be for- 

 gotten ; nor Manfredo, the friend of Tasso, who antici- 

 p.Ved the subject of Sanimmis, afterwards adopted by 

 \'o!t .ire. In the course of the same century, the pastoral 

 comedy became popular ; which, whatever the enthu- 

 siastic votaries of Tasso and Guarini may say, introdu- 

 ced representations of life the most affected and unna- 

 tural, and must have contributed to denaturalize the 

 tone of the rising drama. Riccoboni gives the follow- 

 ing general character of the Italian tragedy of the six- 

 h century : The tragedies composed from the year 

 1500 to 1600, or thereabouts, have been found to be 

 too savage, and have not produced pleasure. In short, 



the horrible was pushed to such excess, that it disgust- 

 ed the Italians. Poets were not contented to make 

 sons kill their mothers, and fathers their children, but 

 urns were brought upon the stage, from which the 

 limbs of the massacred innocents were piece-meal pro- 

 duced before the spectators. 



The 1 7th century may, with little injury to the drama- Causes of 

 tic reputation of Italy, be passed over in silence. The Ulc l ' e g e " e - 



rage for the musical drama, which was kindled by some ?"?. ', e 

 ,. . ,7 , . , , Italian dra- 



iavounte productions of Count rulvio I esti, Dr Burney, ma _ 



with all his enthusiasm for music, confesses to have been 

 ruinous to true tragedy. The degeneracy of the Italian 

 stage is, however, ascribed to a cause still deeper than 

 partiality for music, by an eminent critic of that coun- 

 try, whose opinion is well entitled to notice. We al- 

 lude to the Count de C'alsibigi, who, in his letter to the 

 celebrated Alfieri, ascribes it ultimately to the want of 

 proper theatres. " Why," says that critic, " has no 

 Italian author produced a tragedy which may be com- 

 pared with the pieces of the Greek, or even of the 

 French stage, since in every other branch we have 

 poetswithout number? Why, as if despairingof recovery, 

 have they returned back to those musical dramas, which 

 having become ridiculous in the last century, have 

 been since made more tolerable by Apostele Zeno, and 

 afterwards perfected by Metastasio ? Since the Sopho- 

 nixba of Trissino, which was acted at Rome, and since 

 some other tragedies (our first attempts in the art) re- 

 presented at Florence and Ferrara, we have indeed ne- 

 ver wanted poets, who have continued to write new 

 pieces, and who have succeeded in producing them 

 upon the stage. But what kind of stages were these ? 

 sometimes theatres belonging to the court, but most 

 commonly to private noblemen, who caused them to be 

 erected in their palaces and villas. Upon these tem- 

 porary stages, select tragedies were represented a few 

 times by the courtiers of the prince, or by private par- 

 ties of ladies and gentlemen. Thus, Italy having never 

 had a permanent tragic theatre, nor actors by profes- 

 sion, these private representations could only be called 

 transient attempts, from which the art received little 

 or no advantage. It was worse, (Calsibigi continues,) 

 when those companies of actors, who have always 

 reigned upon the Italian stage, got possession of those 

 more or less imperfect tragedies, when they were made 

 public by the press. Every body knows, (says he,) of 

 what absurd and awkward buffoons those wandering 

 troops are generally composed. Every body knows, 

 that the greater part of these barbarous actors, besides 

 being taken from the lowest and most uneducated part 

 of the people, is born in those provinces where our lan- 

 guage is spoken with the least purity, both in the 

 grammar and in the pronunciation. Therefore, these 

 actors lisping a tragedy, produce the same effect upon 

 their hearers, as the tragedies of Racine or Voltaire 

 would produce at Paris, if they were recited in the 

 provincial brogue of Gascony or Picardy. We all 

 know, to what ridiculous, ill-dressed, awkward, and 

 even ugly females, the parts of the Phsedra, Androma- 

 che, Semiramis, and Zara, are given to be torn in 

 pieces in the jargon of Bologna, Lombardy, or Genoa; 

 and to be recited or acted without elegance or grace, 

 in the style of the beggar women in the streets. 

 Thus the entire want of a permanent and well con- 

 ducted theatre, and the more important deficiency of 

 proper actors, hindered our poets from applying them- 

 selves to the composition of real tragedy, and prevented 

 the studious and judicious part of the public from fre- 

 quenting the theatre. Moreover, Italy being divided 

 into so many small states, never has had a great and 



