FOOTNOTES:
[1] Cf. ch. xxii.
[2] Quarterly Review (April 1908), 446.
[3] A copy at Berlin of the Strassburg Terence of 1496 has the manuscript note to the engraving of the Theatrum, ‘ein offen stat der weltlichkeit da man zu sicht, ubi fiunt chorei, ludi et de alijs leutitatibus, sicut nos facimus oster spill’ (Herrmann, 300). Leo Battista Alberti’s De Re Edificatoria was written about 1451 and printed in 1485. Vitruvius, De Architectura, v. 3–9, deals with the theatre. The essential passage on the scene is v. 6, 8–9 ‘Ipsae autem scenae suas habent rationes explicitas ita, uti mediae valvae ornatus habeant aulae regiae, dextra ac sinistra hospitalia, secundum autem spatia ad ornatus comparata, quae loca Graeci περιάκτους dicunt ab eo, quod machinae sunt in his locis versatiles trigonoe habentes singulares species ornationis, quae, cum aut fabularum mutationes sunt futurae seu deorum adventus, cum tonitribus repentinis [ea] versentur mutentque speciem ornationis in frontes. secundum ea loca versurae sunt procurrentes, quae efficiunt una a foro, altera a peregre aditus in scaenam. genera autem sunt scaenarum tria: unum quod dicitur tragicum, alterum comicum, tertium satyricum. horum autem ornatus sunt inter se dissimili disparique ratione, quod tragicae deformantur columnis et fastigiis et signis reliquisque regalibus rebus; comicae autem aedificiorum privatorum et maenianorum habent speciem prospectusque fenestris dispositos imitatione, communium aedificiorum rationibus; satyricae vero ornantur arboribus, speluncis, montibus reliquisque agrestibus rebus in topeodis speciem deformati’; cf. G. Lanson, in Revue de la Renaissance (1904), 72.
[4] ‘Tu enim primus Tragoediae ... in medio foro pulpitum ad quinque pedum altitudinem erectum pulcherrime exornasti: eamdemque, postquam in Hadriani mole ... est acta, rursus intra tuos penates, tamquam in media Circi cavea, toto consessu umbraculis tecto, admisso populo et pluribus tui ordinis spectatoribus honorifice excepisti. Tu etiam primus picturatae scenae faciem, quum Pomponiani comoediam agerent, nostro saeculo ostendisti’; cf. Marcantonius Sabellicus, Vita Pomponii (Op. 1502, f. 55), ‘Pari studio veterum spectandi consuetudinem desuetae civitati restituit, primorum Antistitum atriis suo theatro usus, in quibus Plauti, Terentii, recentiorum etiam quaedam agerentur fabulae, quas ipse honestos adolescentes et docuit, et agentibus praefuit’; cf. also D’Ancona, ii. 65; Creizenach, ii. 1.
[5] D’Ancona, ii. 74.
[6] D’Ancona, ii. 84; Herrmann, 353; Flechsig, 51. The scenic wall is described in the contemporary narrative of P. Palliolo, Le Feste pel Conferimento del Patriziato Romano a Giuliano e Lorenzo de’ Medici (ed. O. Guerrini, 1885), 45, 63, ‘Guardando avanti, se appresenta la fronte della scena, in v compassi distinta per mezzo di colonne quadre, con basi e capitelli coperti de oro. In ciascuno compasso è uno uscio di grandezza conveniente a private case.... La parte inferiore di questa fronte di quattro frigi è ornata.... A gli usci delle scene furono poste portiere di panno de oro. El proscenio fu coperto tutto di tapeti con uno ornatissimo altare in mezzo.’ The side-doors were in ‘le teste del proscenio’ (Palliolo, 98). I have not seen M. A. Altieri, Giuliano de’ Medici, eletto cittadino Romano (ed. L. Pasqualucci, 1881), or N. Napolitano, Triumphi de gli mirandi Spettaculi (1519). Altieri names an untraceable Piero Possello as the architect; Guerrini suggests Pietro Rossello.
[7] D’Ancona, ii. 128, from Diario Ferrarese, ‘in lo suo cortile ... fu fato suso uno tribunale di legname, con case v merlade, con una finestra e uscio per ciascuna: poi venne una fusta di verso le caneve e cusine, e traversò il cortile con dieci persone dentro con remi e vela, del naturale’; Bapt. Guarinus, Carm. iv:
[8] D’Ancona, ii. 129.
[9] Ibid. 130.
[10] Ibid. 132, 135. The two Marsigli, with Il Bianchino and Nicoletto Segna, appear to have painted scenes and ships for the earlier Ferrarese productions.
[11] Ibid. 134.
[12] Ibid. 381, from G. Campori, Lettere artistiche inedite, 5, ‘Era la sua forma quadrangula, protensa alquanto in longitudine: li doi lati l’uno al altro de rimpecto, havevano per ciaschuno octo architravi con colonne ben conrespondenti et proportionate alla larghezza et alteza de dicti archi: le base et capitelli pomposissimamente con finissimi colori penti, et de fogliami ornati, representavano alla mente un edificio eterne ed antiquo, pieno de delectatione: li archi con relevo di fiori rendevano prospectiva mirabile: la largheza di ciascheuno era braza quactro vel cerca: la alteza proporzionata ad quella. Dentro nel prospecto eran panni d’oro et alcune verdure, si come le recitationi recerchavano: una delle bande era ornata delli sei quadri del Cesareo triumpho per man del singulare Mantengha: li doi altri lati discontro erano con simili archi, ma de numero inferiore, che chiascheuno ne haveva sei. Doj bande era scena data ad actorj et recitatorj: le doe altre erano ad scalini, deputati per le donne et daltro, per todeschi, trombecti et musici. Al jongere del’ angulo de un de’ grandi et minorj lati, se vedevano quactro altissime colonne colle basi orbiculate, le quali sustentavano quactro venti principali: fra loro era una grocta, benchè facta ad arte, tamen naturalissima: sopra quella era un ciel grande fulgentissimo de varij lumi, in modo de lucidissime stelle, con una artificiata rota de segni, al moto de’ quali girava mo il sole, mo la luna nelle case proprie: dentro era la rota de Fortuna con sei tempi: regno, regnavj, regnabo: in mezo resideva la dea aurea con un sceptro con un delphin. Dintorno alla scena al frontespitio da basso era li triumphi del Petrarcha, ancor loro penti per man del po. Mantengha: sopra eran candelierj vistosissimi deaurati tucti: nel mezo era un scudo colle arme per tucto della Ca. Mg.; sopra la aquila aurea bicapitata col regno et diadema imperiale: ciascheuno teneva tre doppieri; ad ogni lato era le insegne. Alli doi maiorj, quelle della Sta. de N. S. et quelle della Cesarea Maestà: alli minorj lati quelle del Co. Sig. Re, et quelle della Illma. Siga. da Venetia; tra li archi pendevano poi quelle de V. Ex., quelle del Sig. duca Alberto Alemano: imprese de Sig. Marchese et Siga. Marchesana: sopre erano più alte statue argentate, aurate et de più colorj metallici, parte tronche, parte integre, che assai ornavano quel loco: poi ultimo era il cielo de panno torchino, stellato con quelli segni che quella sera correvano nel nostro hemisperio.’ Flechsig, 26, thinks that the architect was Ercole Albergati (Il Zafarano).
[13] D’Ancona, i. 485; Mediaeval Stage, ii. 79, 83, 135.
[14] Ferrari, 50; D’Ancona, ii. 1, give examples of these at Ferrara and elsewhere. The Favola d’Orfeo, originally produced about 1471, seems to have been recast as Orphei tragedia for Ferrara in 1486. It had five acts, Pastorale, Ninfale, Eroico, Negromantico, Baccanale; in the fourth, the way to hell and hell itself were shown—‘duplici actu haec scena utitur’.
[15] J. W. Cunliffe, Early English Classical Tragedies, xl; F. A. Foster, in E. S. xliv. 8.
[16] Herrmann, 280, 284; cf. Mediaeval Stage, ii. 208.
[17] Translation by Hans Nithart, printed by C. Dinckmut (Ulm, 1486); cf. Herrmann, 292, who reproduces specimen cuts from this and the other sources described.
[18] Edition printed by Johannes Trechsel (Lyons, 1493); cf. Herrmann, 300. The editor claims for the woodcuts that ‘effecimus, ut etiam illitteratus ex imaginibus, quas cuilibet scenae praeposuimus, legere atque accipere comica argumenta valeat’. Badius also edited a Paris Terence of 1502, with Praenotamenta based on Vitruvius and other classical writers, in which he suggests the use in antiquity of ‘tapeta ... qualia nunc fiunt in Flandria’.
[19] Edition printed by Johannes Grüninger (Strassburg, 1496); cf. Herrmann, 318.
[20] Editions printed by Lazarus Soardus (Venice, 1497 and 1499); cf. Herrmann, 346. The Theatrum and other cuts are also reproduced in The Mask for July 1909.
[21] Flechsig, 84, citing as possibly a stage design an example of idealized architecture inscribed ‘Bramanti Architecti Opus’ and reproduced by E. Müntz, Hist. de l’Art pendant la Renaissance, ii. 299. Bramante was at Rome about 1505, and was helped on St. Peter’s by Baldassarre Peruzzi. But there is nothing obviously scenic in the drawing.
[22] D’Ancona, ii. 394, ‘Ma quello che è stato il meglio in tutte queste feste e representationi, è stato tute le sene, dove si sono representate, quale ha facto uno Mo. Peregrino depintore, che sta con il Sigre.; ch’ è una contracta et prospettiva di una terra cum case, chiesie, campanili et zardini, che la persona non si può satiare a guardarla per le diverse cose che ge sono, tute de inzegno et bene intese, quale non credo se guasti, ma che la salvaràno per usarla de le altre fiate’.
[23] Ibid., ‘il caso accadete a Ferrara’.
[24] Ibid. 102, ‘La scena poi era finta una città bellissima con le strade, palazzi, chiese, torri, strade vere, e ogni cosa di rilevo, ma ajutata ancora da bonissima pintura e prospettiva bene intesa’; the description has further details. Genga is not named, but Serlio (cf. App. G) speaks of his theatrical work for Duke Francesco Maria of Urbino (succ. 1508). Vasari, vi. 316, says that he had also done stage designs for Francesco’s predecessor Guidobaldo.
[25] Vasari, iv. 600. Some of Peruzzi’s designs for Calandra are in the Uffizi; Ferrari (tav. vi) reproduces one.
[26] D’Ancona, ii. 89, ‘Sonandosi li pifari si lasciò cascare la tela; dove era pinto Fra Mariano con alcuni Diavoli che giocavano con esso da ogni lato della tela; et poi a mezzo della tela vi era un breve che dicea: Questi sono li capricci di Fra Mariano; et sonandosi tuttavia, et il Papa mirando con il suo occhiale la scena, che era molto bella, di mano di Raffaele, et rappresentava si bene per mia fè forami di prospective, et molto furono laudate, et mirando ancora il cielo, che molto si rappresentava bello, et poi li candelieri, che erano formati in lettere, che ogni lettera substenìa cinque torcie, et diceano: Leo Pon. Maximus’.
[27] Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, xxxii. 80:
This passage was added in the edition of 1532, but a more brief allusion in that of 1516 (xliii. 10, ‘Vo’ levarti dalla scena i panni’) points to the use of a curtain, rising rather than falling, before 1519; cf. p. 31; vol. i, p. 181; Creizenach, ii. 299; Lawrence (i. 111), The Story of a Peculiar Stage Curtain.
[28] Ferrari (tav. xii) reproduces from Uffizi, 5282, an idealization by Serlio of the piazzetta of S. Marco at Venice as a scenario.
[29] Cf. App. G. Book ii first appeared in French (1545).
[30] De Sommi, Dial. iv (c. 1565, D’Ancona, ii. 419), ‘Ben che paia di certa vaghezza il vedersi in scena una camera aperta, ben parata, dentro a la quale, dirò così per esempio, uno amante si consulti con una ruffiana, et che paia aver del verisimile, è però tanto fuor del naturale esser la stanza senza il muro dinanzi, il che necessariamente far bisogna, che a me ne pare non molto convenirsi: oltre che non so se il recitare in quel loco, si potrà dire che sia in scena. Ben si potrà per fuggir questi due inconvenienti, aprire come una loggia od un verone dove rimanesse alcuno a ragionare’.
[31] Creizenach, ii. 271.
[32] Ferrari, 105, with engravings; A. Magrini, Il teatro Olympico (1847). This is noticed by the English travellers, Fynes Morison, Itinerary, i. 2. 4 (ed. 1907, i. 376), ‘a Theater for Playes, which was little, but very faire and pleasant’, and T. Coryat, Crudities, ii. 7, ‘The scene also is a very faire and beautifull place to behold’. He says the house would hold 3,000. In Histriomastix, ii. 322, the ‘base trash’ of Sir Oliver Owlet’s players is compared unfavourably with the splendour of Italian theatres. A permanent theatre had been set up in the Sala grande of the Corte Vecchia at Ferrara in 1529, with scenery by Dosso Dossi representing Ferrara, for a revival of the Cassaria and the production of Ariosto’s Lena; it was burnt down, just before Ariosto’s death, in 1532 (Flechsig, 23; Gardner, King of Court Poets, 203, 239, 258).
[33] Probably some temporary additions to the permanent decoration of the scena was possible, as Ferrari (tav. xv) gives a design for a scenario by Scamozzi.
[34] Ferrari, 100.
[35] Engravings, by Jean de Gourmont and another, of this type of stage are reproduced by Bapst, 145, 153, and by Rigal in Petit de Julleville, iii. 264, 296; cf. M. B. Evans, An Early Type of Stage (M. P. ix. 421).
[36] Cf. Mediaeval Stage, ii. 217.
[37] Baschet, 6; D’Ancona, ii. 456; H. Prunières, L’Opéra Italien en France (1913), xx; A. Solerti, La rappresentazione della Calandra a Lione nel 1548 (1901, Raccolta di Studii Critici ded. ad A. d’ Ancona), from La Magnifica et Triumphale Entrata del Christianissimo Re di Francia Henrico Secundo (1549).
[38] Cf. ch. xiv (Italians).
[39] D’Ancona, ii. 457.
[40] Brantôme, Recueil des Dames, i. 2 ([OE]uvres, ed. 1890, x. 47), ‘Elle eut opinion qu’elle avoit porté malheur aux affaires du royaume, ainsi qu’il succéda; elle n’en fit plus jouer’. Ingegneri says of tragedies, ‘Alcuni oltra dicio le stimano di triste augurio’.
[41] E. Rigal in Rev. d’Hist. Litt. xii. 1, 203; cf. the opposite view of J. Haraszti in xi. 680 and xvi. 285.
[42] Sainte-Marthe, Elogia (1606), 175.
[43] G. Lanson in Rev. d’Hist. Litt. x. 432. In Northward Hoe, iv. 1, Bellamont is writing a tragedy of Astyanax, which he will have produced ‘in the French court by French gallants’, with ‘the stage hung all with black velvet’.
[44] Lanson, loc. cit. 422. A description of a tragi-comedy called Genièvre, based on Ariosto, at Fontainebleau in 1564 neglects the staging, but gives a picture of the audience as
B. Rossi’s Fiammella was given at Paris in 1584 with a setting of ‘boschi’.
[45] Lanson, loc. cit. 424.
[46] The plan is in J. A. Du Cerceau, Les Plus Excellens Bastimens de France (1576–9), and is reproduced in W. H. Ward, French Châteaux and Gardens in the Sixteenth Century, 14; cf. R. Blomfield, Hist. of French Architecture, i. 81, who, however, thinks that Du Cerceau’s ‘bastiment en manière de théâtre’ was not the long room, but the open courtyard, in the form of a square with concave angles and semicircular projections on each side, which occupies the middle of the block.
[47] Prunières, Ballet de Cour, 72, 134.
[48] Bapst, 147, reproduces an example. This is apparently the type of French stage described by J. C. Scaliger, Poetice (1561), i. 21, ‘Nunc in Gallia ita agunt fabulas, ut omnia in conspectu sint; universus apparatus dispositis sublimibus sedibus. Personae ipsae nunquam discedunt: qui silent pro absentibus habentur’.
[49] Rigal, 36, 46, 53.
[50] The full text is printed by E. Dacier from B. N. f. fr. 24330 in Mémoires de la Soc. de l’Hist. de Paris (1901), xxviii. 105, and is analysed by Rigal, 247. The designs have recently (1920) been published in H. C. Lancaster’s edition; reproductions, from the originals or from models made for the Exposition of 1878, will be found of Durval’s Agarite in Rigal, f.p., Lawrence, i. 241, Thorndike, 154; of Hardy’s Cornélie in Rigal, Alexandre Hardy (1890), f.p., Bapst, 185; of Pandoste in Jusserand, Shakespeare in France, 71, 75; of Mairet’s Sylvanire in E. Faguet, Hist. de la Litt. Fr. ii. 31; and of Pyrame et Thisbé, Corneille’s L’Illusion Comique, and Du Ryer’s Lisandre et Caliste in Petit de Julleville, Hist. iv. 220, 270, 354.
[51] ‘Il faut un antre ... d’où sort un hermite’ (Dacier, 116), ‘une fenestre qui soit vis à vis d’une autre fenestre grillée pour la prison, où Lisandre puisse parler à Caliste’ (116), ‘un beau palais eslevé de trois ou quatre marches’ (117), ‘un palais ou sénat fort riche’ (117), ‘une case où il y ayt pour enseigne L’Ormeau’ (117), ‘une mer’ (117), ‘une tente’ (121), ‘un hermitage où l’on monte et descend’ (123), ‘une fenestre où se donne une lettre’ (124), ‘une tour, une corde nouée pour descendre de la tour, un pont-levis qui se lâche quand il est nécessaire’ (125), ‘une sortie d’un roy en forme de palais’ (127).
[52] ‘Il faut aussy une belle chambre, une table, deux tabourets, une écritoire’ (117), ‘une belle chambre, où il y ayt un beau lict, des sièges pour s’asseoir; la dicte chambre s’ouvre et se ferme plusieurs fois’ (121), ‘forme de salle garnie de sièges où l’on peint une dame’ (126).
[53] Dacier, 119.
[54] Ibid. 119.
[55] ‘Forme de fontaine en grotte coulante ou de peinture’ (Dacier, 127); ‘Au milieu du théâtre, dit la persepective, doit avoir une grande boutique d’orfèvre, fort superbe d’orfèvrerie et autre joyaux’ (136); ‘Il faut deux superbes maisons ornées de peinture; au milieu du théâtre, une persepective où il y ait deux passages entre les deux maisons’ (137).
[56] ‘Il faut que le théâtre soit tout en pastoralle, antres, verdures, et fleurs’ (116), ‘Il faut ... le petit Chastellet de la rue Saint Jacques, et faire paroistre une rue où sont les bouchers’ (116), ‘en pastoralle à la discrétion du feinteur’ (124), ‘Il faut le théâtre en rues et maisons’ (129, for Rotrou’s Les Ménechmes), ‘La décoration du théâtre doit estre en boutique’ (136), ‘le feinteur doit faire paraitre sur le théâtre la place Royalle ou l’imiter à peu près’ (133).
[57] ‘Il faut que cela soit caché durant le premier acte, et l’on ne faict paroistre cela qu’au second acte, et se referme au mesme acte’ (116), ‘un eschaffaut qui soit caché’ (117), ‘le vaisseau paraist au quatriesme acte’ (120). For the use of curtains to effect these discoveries, cf. Rigal, 243, 253, who, however, traces to a guess of Lemazurier, Galerie Historique, i. 4, the often repeated statement that to represent a change of scene ‘on levait ou on tirait une tapisserie, et cela se faisait jusqu’à dix ou douze fois dans la même pièce’.
[58] It is so, e.g., in the design for Agarite.
[59] ‘Non sic tolerari potest, ut longe lateque dissita loca in unum subito proscenium cogantur; qua in re per se absurdissima et nullo veterum exemplo comprobata nimium sibi hodie quidam indulserunt’; cf. Creizenach, ii. 102. Spingarn, Literary Criticism in the Renaissance, 89, 206, 290, discusses the origin of the unities, and cites Castelvetro, Poetica (1570), 534, ‘La mutatione tragica non può tirar con esso seco se non una giornata e un luogo’, and Jean de la Taille, Art de Tragédie (1572), ‘Il faut toujours représenter l’histoire ou le jeu en un même jour, en un même temps, et en un même lieu’.
[60] Mediaeval Stage, ii. 257; Lawrence (i. 123), Early French Players in England. It is only a guess of Mr. Lawrence’s that these visitors played Maistre Pierre Patelin, a farce which requires a background with more than one domus. Karl Young, in M. P. ii. 97, traces some influence of French farces on the work of John Heywood. There had been ‘Fransche-men that playt’ at Dundee in 1490, and ‘mynstrells of Fraunce’, not necessarily actors, played before Henry VII at Abingdon in 1507.
[61] Halle, i. 176.
[62] Halle, ii. 86.
[63] Mediaeval Stage, ii. 196; cf. ch. xii (Paul’s). Spinelli’s letter is preserved in Marino Sanuto, Diarii, xlvi. 595, ‘La sala dove disnamo et si rapresentò la comedia haveva nella fronte una grande zoglia di bosso, che di mezzo conteneva in lettere d’oro: Terentii Formio. Da l’un di canti poi vi era in lettere antique in carta: cedant arma togae. Da l’altro: Foedus pacis non movebitur. Sotto poi la zoglia si vide: honori et laudi pacifici.... Per li altri canti de la sala vi erano sparsi de li altri moti pertinenti alla pace’.
[64] V. P. iv. 115 translates ‘zoglia di bosso’ as ‘a garland of box’, but Florio gives ‘soglia’ as ‘the threshold or hanse of a doore; also the transome or lintle over a dore’.
[65] Murray, ii. 168; cf. ch. xii (Westminster).
[66] Halle, ii. 109.
[67] Cf. ch. viii.
[68] The memorandum on the reform of the Revels office in 1573, which I attribute to Edward Buggin, tells us (Tudor Revels, 37; cf. ch. iii) that ‘The connynge of the office resteth in skill of devise, in vnderstandinge of historyes, in iudgement of comedies tragedyes and showes, in sight of perspective and architecture, some smacke of geometrye and other thynges’. If Sir George Buck, however, in 1612, thought that a knowledge of perspective was required by the Art of Revels, he veiled it under the expression ‘other arts’ (cf. ch. iii).
[69] Mundus et Infans, Hickscorner, Youth, Johan Evangelist, Magnificence, Four Elements, Calisto and Melibaea, Nature, Love, Weather, Johan Johan, Pardoner and Friar, Four PP., Gentleness and Nobility, Witty and Witless, Kinge Johan, Godly Queen Hester, Wit and Science, Thersites, with the fragmentary Albion Knight. To these must now be added Henry Medwall’s Fulgens and Lucres (N.D., but 1500 <), formerly only known by a fragment (cf. Mediaeval Stage, ii. 458), but recently found in the Mostyn collection, described by F. S. Boas and A. W. Reed in T. L. S. (20 Feb. and 3 April 1919), and reprinted by S. de Ricci (1920).
[70] Wealth and Health, Nice Wanton, Lusty Juventus, Impatient Poverty, Respublica, Jacob and Esau, and perhaps Enough is as Good as a Feast, with the fragmentary Love Feigned and Unfeigned.
[71] Trial of Treasure, Like Will to Like, The Longer Thou Livest, The More Fool Thou Art, Marriage of Wit and Science, Marriage between Wit and Wisdom, New Custom, The Tide Tarrieth no Man, All for Money, Disobedient Child, Conflict of Conscience, Pedlar’s Prophecy, Misogonus, Glass of Government, Three Ladies of London, King Darius, Mary Magdalene, Apius and Virginia, with the fragmentary Cruel Debtor.
[72] For details of date and authorship cf. chh. xxiii, xxiv, and Mediaeval Stage, ii. 439, 443. Albright, 29, attempts a classification on the basis of staging, but not, I think, very successfully.
[73] Cf. e.g. Hickscorner, 544; Youth, 84, 201, 590, 633; Johan Johan, 667; Godly Queen Hester, 201, 635, 886; Wit and Science, 969; Wit and Wisdom, 3, p. 60; Nice Wanton, 416; Impatient Poverty, 164, 726, 746, 861, 988; Respublica, V. i. 38; Longer Thou Livest, 628, 1234; Conflict of Conscience, III. i. 2; et ad infinitum. Characters in action are said to be in place. For the platea cf. Mediaeval Stage, ii. 80, 135, but Kinge Johan, 1377, has a direction for an alarm ‘extra locum’.
[74] Cf. e.g. Wit and Science, 193, ‘Wyt speketh at the doore’; Longer Thou Livest, 523, ‘Betweene whiles let Moros put in his head’, 583, ‘Crie without the doore’, &c., &c.
[75] Cf. ch. vii.
[76] Cf. Mediaeval Stage, i. 216, and for the making of ‘room’ or ‘a hall’ for a mask, ch. v.
[77] Cf. M. L. Spencer, Corpus Christi Pageants in England, 184; Creizenach, ii. 101.
[78] Wallace, ii. 48, ‘The Blackfriars stage was elastic in depth as well as width, and could according to the demands of the given play be varied by curtains or traverses of any required number placed at any required distance between the balcony and the front of the stage’; Prölss, 89; Albright, 58; cf. p. 78.
[79] Volpone, v. 2801 (cf. p. 111); White Devil, V. iv. 70:
Cornelia, the Moore and 3 other Ladies discovered, winding Marcello’s coarse’;
Duchess of Malfi, IV. i. 54:
‘Here is discover’d, behind a travers, the artificiall figures of Antonio and his children, appearing as if they were dead.’
[80] Duke of Guise, v. 3 (quoted by Albright, 58), ‘The scene draws, behind it a Traverse’, and later, ‘The Traverse is drawn. The King rises from his Chair, comes forward’.
[81] The Revels Accounts for 1511 (Brewer, ii. 1497) include 10d. for a rope used for a ‘travas’ in the hall at Greenwich and stolen during a disguising. Puttenham (1589), i. 17, in an attempt to reconstruct the methods of classical tragedy, says that the ‘floore or place where the players vttered ... had in it sundrie little diuisions by curteins as trauerses to serue for seueral roomes where they might repaire vnto and change their garments and come in againe, as their speaches and parts were to be renewed’.
[82] There was a traverse in the nursery of Edward V in 1474; cf. H. O. *28, ‘Item, we will that our sayd sonne in his chamber and for all nighte lyverye to be sette, the traverse drawne anone upon eight of the clocke’.
[83] Rimbault, 150, 167. There is an elaborate description of ‘a fayer traverse of black taffata’ set up in the chapel at Whitehall for the funeral of James in 1625 and afterwards borrowed for the ceremony in Westminster Abbey.
[84] The chapel of Ahasuerus come in and sing (860). On the possibility that plays may have been acted in the chapel under Elizabeth, cf. ch. xii.
[85] G. G. Needle, I. iv. 34; II. iv. 20, ‘here, euen by this poste, Ich sat’; Jack Juggler, 908, ‘Joll his hed to a post’.
[86] The manuscript of Misogonus was written at Kettering. The prologue of Mary Magdalene is for travelling actors, who had given it at a university. Thersites contains local references (cf. Boas, 20) suggesting Oxford. Both this and The Disobedient Child are adaptations of dialogues of Ravisius Textor, but the adapters seem to be responsible for the staging.
[87] Cf. ch. xxii.
[88] II. ii. ‘Fowre women bravelie apparelled, sitting singing in Lamiaes windowe, with wrought Smockes, and Cawles, in their hands, as if they were a working’. Supposes, IV. iv, is a dialogue between Dalio the cook, at Erostrato’s window, and visitors outside. At the beginning, ‘Dalio commeth to the wyndowe, and there maketh them answere’; at the end, ‘Dalio draweth his hed in at the wyndowe, the Scenese commeth out’. The dialogue of sc. v proceeds at the door, and finally ‘Dalio pulleth the Scenese in at the dores’. In Two Ital. Gent. 435, ‘Victoria comes to the windowe, and throwes out a letter’. It must not be assumed on the analogy of later plays, and is in fact unlikely, that the windows of these early ‘houses’, or those of the ‘case’ at Ferrara in 1486, were upper floor windows.
[89] There is a reference to a falling curtain, not necessarily a stage one, in Alchemist, IV. ii. 6, ‘O, for a suite, To fall now, like a cortine: flap’. Such curtains were certainly used in masks; cf. ch. vi.
[90] Donne, Poems (ed. Grierson), i. 441; J. Hannah, Courtly Poets, 29. Graves, 20, quotes with this epigram Drummond, Cypress Grove, ‘Every one cometh there to act his part of this tragi-comedy, called life, which done, the courtaine is drawn, and he removing is said to dy’. But of course many stage deaths are followed by the drawing of curtains which are not front curtains.
[91] Inns of Court and University plays naturally run on analogous lines. For the ‘houses’ at Cambridge in 1564 and at Oxford in 1566, cf. ch. vii. The three Cambridge Latin comedies, Hymenaeus (1579), Victoria (c. 1580–3), Pedantius (c. 1581), follow the Italian tradition. For Victoria, which has the same plot as Two Ital. Gent., Fraunce directs, ‘Quatuor extruendae sunt domus, nimirum Fidelis, 1a, Fortunij, 2a, Cornelij, 3a Octauiani, 4a. Quin et sacellum quoddam erigendum est, in quo constituendum est Cardinalis cuiusdam Sepulchrum, ita efformatum, vt claudi aperirique possit. In Sacello autem Lampas ardens ponenda est’. The earliest extant tragedies, Grimald’s Christus Redivivus (c. 1540) and Archipropheta (c. 1547), antedate the pseudo-Senecan influence. Practical convenience, rather than dramatic theory, imposed upon the former a unity of action before the tomb. Grimald says, ‘Loca item, haud usque eò discriminari censebat; quin unum in proscenium, facilè & citra negocium conduci queant’. The latter was mainly before Herod’s palace, but seems to have showed also John’s prison at Macherus. There is an opening scene, as in Promos and Cassandra, of approach to the palace (Boas, 28, 35). Christopherson’s Jephthah, Watson’s (?) Absalon, and Gager’s Meleager (1582) observe classical unity. The latter has two houses, in one of which an altar may have been ‘discovered’. Boas, 170, quotes two s.ds., ‘Transeunt venatores e Regia ad fanum Dianae’ and ‘Accendit ligna in ara, in remotiore scenae parte extructa’. Gager’s later plays (Boas, 179) seem to be under the influence of theatrical staging. On Legge’s Richardus Tertius vide p. 43, infra.