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THKATINS. or TKATINS, an 01 Jor of monks founded 



at Koine i "'"' 



.ell, in Naples, the I^itin name 



! who ul\ i". under 



th,. ),' IV. Thr institution was confirmed nt 



the time of its foundation by thi ' .'incut 



VII.: and a final rule, or CMC "I' regulations, drawn up 

 by a general chr.pt cr of the onlor. was authorised I ;. 

 men! VIII. in 1G04. The Thcatins were principally 

 established in Italy and in Fiance, into which latter 

 country, where they subsisted till the Revolution 01 

 they were broOcM in MVll |.\ Caidin.il Mazarin. \vho 

 bought them th. ti I'an-. near the Louvre, and at 



i.ath left them 800,000 crowns with whieh they 

 built a ehureh. Their dress was a lilaek cloak and cassock 

 with whit. t:ul thc> princi])al peculiarity of tlieir 



ition was that they affected to subsist not only upon 

 alms, but upon alms bestowed upon them without bone 

 for. They procured however considerable support 

 in this way, and they were at one time enabled to maintain 

 -ia. Mingrclia, and other part-, 

 :a. Their history has been written by John H 

 Tufrins. under the title of Annales Theatinorum.' Tiiere 

 were also Thcathi nuns (in French, The<itii'\], so called 

 from having been placed by Pope Gregory XV. under the 

 direction of the Theatin monks, their original and proper 

 designation bavins: been Sisters of the Immaculate Con- 

 ceplion. They were divided into two classes: the one 

 called Theatin nuns of the congregation, founded at 

 Naples by Ursula Benincasa in l.'iXJ : the other, of later 

 institution, called Theatin Nuns of the Hermitagi . The 

 latter were bound by vows of peculiar solemnity and strict- 

 ness, professing to spend their whole time in solitude and 

 prayer. The two societies however were intimately con- 

 ! : their houses adjoined and communicated with 

 one another, and the temporal concerns of those of the 

 Hermitage were managed by those of the Congregation. 

 In 1024 Urban VIII. withdrew these nuns from the juris- 

 diction or superintendence of the Theatin monks, and 

 placed them under that of the Neapolitan nuncio; but 

 the former state of things was restored by Gregory IX. in 

 1608. A notice of a controversy between the Theatins 

 and the Jesuits, whieh was kept up for a great part of the 

 seventeenth century, is given by Bayle, in a note to his 

 article on ' Ignatius Loyola.' 



THEATRE (from the Latin thrtitrum, which is from 

 the Greek Starpov, ' a place for seeing'), a word adopted 

 in all modern lai signify a building appropriated 



todramatic representations. Hie oldest edifices of this class 

 are those of the Greeks and Romans, for it was with them 

 that the European drama originated, and. in point of n- 

 tilde, they surpassed the most spacious of their temples. The 

 enormous extent of many of them, and the prodigious 

 solidity of their construction, are attested by the numerous 

 remains of such edifices, whieh have been explored not 

 only in Greece and Italy, but also in Asia Minor. Of 

 some of them indeed little can now be traced, but others 

 are sufficiently perfect to convey a clear idea of the ar- 

 rangement and general appearance of the structure in its 

 hut is. however, merely us regards the space 

 appropriated to the spectators, for scarcely anything re- 

 mains to explain what is most difficult, and, as regards the 

 dramatic exhibitions, most important of all to understand, 

 namclv. t;. including under that term the 



whole space i-cqniMie I'm the accommodation of tl. 

 formers, and for the pi-cpaiation of the exhibition : 

 the audience. Owing to the want of any evidence of the 

 kind afforded by the buildings them-, 

 litlle that can now he gathered from the scanty no!. 

 antient writers, we are ignorant of many things which can 

 only be conjectured. 



The very eireu mentioned for our ad- 



miration, and in proof of the magnificence and sumptuous- 

 new of some of the antient theatres, also prove how dcsti- 



Of anvthing approaching to scenic illusion an.: 

 effect the performances must have been. Whether it lie 

 at all exaggerated or not, it is evident from what 1'imv 

 //'-/.. xxxv i., c. lii, says of the theatre of 



\va.- a meic architectural farade, mi- 

 ll, though luvislilj embellished vvitiin 



colui.. ..vith no fewer than 3(Mi of the loimer. 



arranged in thn < ti ere. and 3000 of the latter, a most incre- 

 dible number, turpawmg that of a modern audience ; for it 



is difficult to conceive how they could all have possibly been 



introduced. Pliny pe. iil more when he says that 



the middle of th. :ul of the ' 



- Withoi.' to inquire what can be 



'ass.' perhaps n: Mich 



a background to the stage could have been no better than 



an extravagant absurdity, and that 1: .mis! have 



'gmie- upon a stl !i en.irmni. 



tent, with a number of statues behind them. This un..-t 

 always have been in some degree Ii . n m 



moderate-sized antient theatres the - normously 



wide in comparison with what it is in the very la 

 dcrn theat , too was ahva, ;mcnt 



archil. ction, incapable of change, and instead of 



bavin. to the particular performance, it iniist 



:itly have been at variance with it. It has been sup- 

 posed that, besides the permanent scena. the anticnts cm- 

 ployed, oeea-ionally at 1. ib!e painted s 

 lie of being let down before it. Yet v.hile tin 

 be only vaguely interred, the presumption against 

 founded both on its impracticability and it- extreme im- 

 probability. How is it possible to have had painted move- 

 able scenes on canvas, which on the average must 

 been 21X1 feet in width, especially where the s' 

 was so shallow and confined at and without any 

 space for apparatus or machinery over it '.' If again there 

 was any such scenery. "' would have given rise to a branch 

 of painting of which the antients appear to have been 

 nearly altogether ignorant. They seem to have had no 

 idea of other than figure-painting, with scarcely any attempt 

 at expressing background, whereas scene-painting entirely 

 excludes ii -ists entirely of background, either 

 landscape or architecture, and sky, and requires mure than 

 a moderate proficiency in linear and aerial perspective, 

 in regard to both of which the antients appear to have 

 been deficient. If we may judge from those specimens of 

 their painting which have come down to us, they t-ccm 

 scarcely to have aimed at general pictorial effect, or at 

 more than representing figures alone, without anv V 

 background 1o them. If, too, there had been amlliii 

 be.mbling our modern scenery, more explicit mention would 

 probably have been made of it. if only on account of the 

 enormous magnitude of such paintings, whu- 

 imist sometimes have contained a much greater number of 

 square feet than the sides of the largest temples. Yitru- 

 v ins does indeed make mention, in the proem to his seventh 

 book, of Agathai'clms as a scene-painter, and of Demoeritus 

 and Anaxagoras a- v. liter- on sccnography and perspec- 

 tive ; lint it is with his usual dryiiess and obscurity, and 

 with such vagueness of expression, that it is difficult tu 

 draw any conclusion from his words. Of the former he 

 merely says ' sccnam fecit.' which probably means no more 

 than that he was one of the first who introduced some sort 

 of decoration on the scena, or back wall of the stage, where, 

 if there was at any time painting at all, it could only have 

 been MTV partial. "and as :i. uihellishment to that 

 general facade. perhaps in Mich pieces as the I'liiloc- 

 tetes' something was done to give to the centre doorway of 

 the scena the appe:.. 'ii entrance to a cavern, 



iHicient to indicate the locality intended to 1 . 

 pressed. The fixed arrangement of the scena itself, with 

 three distinct entrances assigned to the performers accord- 

 ing to (heir rank in the piece, the centre one being for (he 

 principal characters, the others for those supposed to arrive 

 on one side from the port, on the other from the country. 

 was not only a puerile and awkward conventionalism in 

 itself, but an expedient which shows how imperfect the 

 antien' nst have been, how destitute of all con- 



trivance, notwithstanding its alleged magnificence. What 

 v at all must have been con- 

 fined entirely to two I'frtvree ' f,i< ;<. .n at the sides or 

 ends of the stage, which served as w ing-,' and which w ere 

 upright triangular frames made to revolve upon a central 

 pivot, so that any of the three sides could be turned to- 

 wards the audience : a very scanty cliM :,i the 

 best, and exceedingly limited in effect, it being no more 

 than sufficient to hnii where the action was supposed to 

 take, place : whereas the - bore no more resem- 

 blance to the intended locality of the piece, than do the 

 proscenium and stage-doors in those modern pia_\.h< 



the latter arc sometimes made use of by the per- 

 formers. 



From the use of the term Auleea it has been generally 



