“He swallows,” says M. Mercey in his Théâtre en Italie, “all the final syllables of his infinitives. He says sape for sapere, and fa for fare; or else he replaces the last syllables of these words by the particle ne, which he uses on all occasions; he thus says fane for fare, sapene for sapere, chine for chi, quine for qui. It also pleases him to transpose his ls and rs; thus when he speaks of his glory he does not say gloria but grolia, etc.”
Giuseppe Berneri has written an entire poem of twelve cantos, in the popular dialect of Rome, on the subject of Meo-Patacca, and this poem, printed in Rome in 1685, would perhaps have fallen into oblivion if Bartolomeo Pinelli, the Roman draughtsman, had not happened to illustrate it in 1823.
Berneri’s poem begins as follows:—“I sing the glory of the bravest young Roman plebeians, the most redoubtable of all the chiefs of their band” (“Il capo-truppa della gente sgherra”)—which is to say, the chief of the quarrelsome, brawling and more or less assassin troupe.
Meo-Patacca is irritated by the audacity of “these infamous sons of dogs of Turks” who dare to besiege the Christian city of Vienna. He conceives the project of going to its deliverance, and halting before the statue of Mark Antony, “whose hand is raised in sign of triumph,” he considers it and says: “Who knows but that one day you will see another statue standing here? Who knows but that a man whom I call I will not show himself worthy of the honour?” His companions to the number of ten, who follow as sheep follow their leader, admire him and already bow down before him. He leads them thus through the ruins of ancient Rome, and fires their courage by war-like speech. To drive out the Turk all that he will need, he says, is a company of five hundred young Trasteverins, well armed with arquebuses, pikes, hangers and slings. He would continue to talk to them, but that the company, weary of saying nothing, interrupts his harangues with Viva Meo-Patacca! Viva! rendered in tones that might disturb the ashes of the ancient Romans of the Campo Vaccino. Amid the acclamations of the mob, he is carried in triumph to his lodgings.
At the beginning of the second canto, all these heroes are ready to set out. It is the hour at which the grocers, the fruit-sellers and other victuallers, set up upon poles their linen sun-blinds before their shops so as to protect them from the heat which, to the profit of the iced-water sellers, becomes intolerable. It is noon, and Meo-Patacca is surrounded by a crowd of women who loudly give tongue to their despair. They are the more or less legitimate wives of the heroes who are about to follow Patacca. After several speeches he comes triumphant out of this contest, which he considers the most severe he was ever engaged in. Nothing now can arrest his valiant arm. They are about to set out when the news arrives of the deliverance of Vienna by Sobieski. Meo-Patacca is by no means sure that he has not had something to do with the rout of the Turks. He convokes his followers and they deliver themselves to great rejoicings. During this they learn that Bude has been taken by assault by the Christians and that the Jews have united with the Turks to repel the attack. “Vengeance! Vengeance upon the Jews!” This phrase, flung into the middle of the mob, is soon no less than a battle-cry and the entire army of Patacca hurls itself upon the ghetto, which it attacks and pillages to the greater honour and glory of God.
It is in the theatre of Palla-Corda, says M. Mercey, that Meo-Patacca, an epic rather than a dramatic hero, figures in a number of little dramas à coups de bâton.
“But he is no longer quite the malicious fellow of other days. The bravo has changed his costume, his character and his estate. Instead of the fungo, the waistcoat and the velvet breeches, with their two lines of silver buttons, he is in foul rags, and occupies, by his patched costume, a middle place between Brighella and Polichinelle.”
During his sojourn in Rome in 1740, the Président de Brosses wrote:
“All the troupes of comedians which I have seen in this country are at least as good as those of Paris. They include characters which we have not; such as Brighella, the first Zanni, who takes the place of Harlequin and wears his mask but with a different costume; for second Zanni they have a sort of ragged Polichinelle, very different from our own, and rather resembling the ancient Pierrot. You could not feel resentment towards him if you saw him in the middle of a synagogue, borrowing money from Jews, who, after having subjected him to a damnable usury, demand of him in addition that he shall become a Jew. It is then that he loses his temper, and with the great cudgel, with which he is armed, belabours them again and again. In a word, they make one laugh. They are excellent comedians playing in wretched comedies.”
From the drawings of Pinelli, it is seen that the costumes of Meo-Patacca and Marco-Pepe are very similar. The hair is gathered into a sort of cloth bag; the neck is naked, although they wear upon their shoulders a sort of scarf which serves for ornament and which is tied in a large rosette upon the breast. A broad girdle once carried a dagger, but weapons having been forbidden, this is now replaced by a stout cudgel. The sleeved waistcoat is buttoned at the side. The breeches are open at the knee as in the time of Berneri; but the garters seem to us more modern as well as the shoes with their steel buckles, which Meo-Patacca can never have worn in the seventeenth century. He wears also the wide-brimmed fungo and the mantle.
Pinelli certainly found his types among his friends and compatriots of Trastevere, and Meo-Patacca in the dress we have described has the air rather of a bravo than of a Pulcinella in rags, such as he was but a few years earlier.
vii
In the poem of Berneri, Marco-Pepe is the only one who dares to stand before the face of Meo-Patacca. He plays the rôle of traitor. Meo-Patacca provokes him; they fight; but from the combat Marco-Pepe gets nothing but dishonour.
In the dramas of Palla Corda, Marco-Pepe is the friend and the sympathiser of Meo-Patacca. He seeks to imitate his hero, who walks behind him, for Marco-Pepe is a boaster, a brawling, boisterous fellow, whom one would suppose capable of swallowing everything; his air is very much more terrible than that of his companion; his voice is very much louder; but if Meo-Patacca becomes angry, or merely clenches his fist, Marco-Pepe disappears as if by enchantment. Meo-Patacca fears nothing; Marco-Pepe fears everything.
These types were still to be seen in Rome in the Emilian Theatre (Triato Mijani) in the middle of the nineteenth century. Tacconi, a hunchback, leader of the troupe, performed one day in the dialect of the hills, another in the dialect of Trastevere, the pieces of which he was always the author. The dramas or heroic pieces, such as Hero e Leandro, Francesca da Rimini, Giulietta e Romeo, were all arranged by him and adapted to the taste of the public.
In Giulietta e Romeo, for instance, we find Romeo, dressed after the fashion of Meo-Patacca, wearing a plumed hat, and trailing a great cavalry sabre, replying as follows to Juliette, who has reproached him in no very choice terms with the death of her cousin-german:
“Silence, child, I will make you understand. Know that yesterday, as I was leaving you at the foot of the staircase, I lighted a cigar. At the corner of the street I heard this foul word: ‘You are smoking it, you ugly carrion!’ (Te la fumi, brutta carogna). Having received this insult, I returned at once, I drew my sabre, and ... but you know the rest, etc.”
viii
The Neapolitans have a very popular type which they name Il Guapo and Il Sitonno (the lad). He represents the popular bully. He is dressed like a Neapolitan of the lower classes, still to be found in certain quarters of the town: a round, wide waistcoat, of cinnamon-coloured cotton velvet, a sort of cap over one ear, light coloured breeches with a red belt round the waist; he carries a long stick, and struts in an insolent and provocative fashion; he speaks of nothing but blows, be they of knife, stick, stone or carbine, and he uses an emphasis full of menacing reticences. Nevertheless, although he is not entirely a coward, his deeds correspond but little with his words and, more often than not, his threats and quarrels terminate, not in the shedding of blood, but in the shedding of wine in the nearest tavern.
In the Piovana of Angelo Beolco (Ruzzante), 1530, an amorous young peasant bears the name of Siton. That beyond doubt is the primitive type of Sitonno, who again is a type of peasant, but one who has become suburban and denaturalised.
“I can find no difference between a lover and a young calf, to which the herdsman, to amuse himself, shall have bandaged the eyes and thrust a thorn into its tail, so that it runs hither and thither without knowing where it is or whither it is going. I am the calf; love is the herdsman, the thorn is the sorrow which I have in my heart, and the bandage over the eyes is my bewilderment. I do not know whither I am going, for I am not where I am. I am here and my heart and soul are with Nina.”
ix
In Bologna the marionette theatres have yet another type which personifies the facchini, the young men of the lower class of the town; this Birrichino, according to the annotations of the poem of Bertoldo Bertoldino e Cacasenno, is derived from a certain idle and mendicant class, which lives by petty thefts and trickeries, exercising in Bologna a still uglier trade. The word is probably derived from buricus of the Latins, or borrico (donkey) of the Spaniards, because, like the gypsies, they follow the trade of horse-dealers, mule-shavers and kindred employments.
Birrichino is mocking, jocund and addicted to practical jokes; he never fails to thrust out his leg at the police officer when the latter enters the stage. He is an elusive, agile and lively being, gifted with a pair of legs which would win a coursing prize from a hare. He is never a thief. If he ever abstracts anything it is not that he may profit by it—it is a joke which he plays upon an enemy to discompose him, and compel him to hunt for the missing thing, for Birrichino always ends by restoring it. He is dressed after the fashion of the people of Bologna. It is questionable whether he may be included among the varieties of Polichinelle.