Callot has left us engravings of the principal dancers, buffoons, mimes and masks of the ancient Italian comedy, in his series known as Les Petits Danseurs, but whose real title is I Balli di Sfessania (The Dances of Fescennia). All the world knows that the inhabitants of Fescennia, whose ruins are still to be seen a quarter of a league from Galesa in Piedmont, invented a style of verse which enjoyed a great vogue in Rome, in which satire, allied with a primitive coarseness, called things by their proper names. These verses were laden with raillery, jests and buffooneries; they were accompanied by grotesque dances and improvised scenes, absolutely like the Atellanæ, but of a more trivial humour. In a letter addressed to Augustus, Horace writes:
“The people of Fescennia,” says the Chevalier de Jaucourt, “accompanied their fêtes and public rejoicings by pastoral performances in which comedians declaimed an extremely licentious sort of verse, and went through a thousand buffooneries in the same taste. These verses were imported into the theatre, and held the place of regular drama for over a hundred years with the Romans. The biting satire for which they were employed, discredited them still more than did their primitive coarseness, so that they became really formidable.
“Catullus, seeing that the Fescennian verses were proscribed by the public authorities, and that their coarseness was no longer in the taste of his century, perfected and chastened them in appearance. In their meaning, however, they remained no less obscene, and they became far more dangerous to morals. The frank, rude terms of a soldier are less hurtful to the heart than the fine, ingenious and delicately turned speeches of the man who follows the trade of a gallant.”
The Fescennian actors were still called in Rome Mimi septentrionis. They were either naked or dressed in very tight garments, their waists girt with a scarf whose ends floated in the wind. They danced, accompanying themselves upon castanets very similar to those that are in use to-day.
It is, then, under this title of I Balli di Sfessania that Callot reproduced some fifty actors, dancers and buffoons of the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth centuries. In the main he represents actual personages, derived haphazard from the various Italian troupes, such as the Gelosi, the Accesi, and the Fedeli, who visited Florence when Callot was a student there.
These personages may be divided into two classes, rendered very distinct one from the other by the garments worn by each: that of the jugglers and tumblers, who were exclusively dancers or mimes, and that of the buffoons, zanni and comedians playing given parts.
The members of the former class wear skull caps like the ancient mimes, or else caps decked with long feathers, the half mask with a very long bottle nose, without beard, and tight garments, adorned by a line of large buttons; they recall the costumes in fashion for court fools and buffoons of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In the main they are merely tumblers, addicted to contortionistic poses and wild dances, equilibrists, sword swallowers and strong men. They are the descendants of the real funambuli and acrobates of the ancients, and like them they are phallophores.
Thanks to Callot, we find among these the following types that would otherwise be lost to us: Ciurlo in an extravagant posture, inviting Gian-Fritello, who disdains him, to the dance; Ratsa-di-Boio, abandoning himself to a picturesque dance, whilst several kindred fellows, holding hands, form a ring about a Smaraolo-Cornuto, perched upon stilts, beating a drum; Pasquariello Truonno and Meo-Squaquara imitating by their gestures a sort of cancan; Esgangarato and Cocodrillo as well as Bello-Sguardo, wearing bracelets and hawk-bells on their arms and legs; Razullo scratching, as his name suggests, his guitar, to the sound of which Cucurucu, in fine spectacles, is striking a modest pose. Cicho-Sgarra threatens Collo-Francisco, who trembles before him; Babeo is seen with his friend Cucuba; Cardoni pursued by Maramao; Grillo, a crippled, misshapen fellow; Cucorongna and Pernovalla, each going through contortions; and lastly Coviello, famous for his grimaces and his confused language.
This personage, according to Salvator Rosa, was one of the seven masks of the ancient Commedia dell’Arte. The description which he affords us proves that already in his day the costume of this buffoon had been transformed, and probably by himself, for we know that, under the mask of Coviello, Salvator Rosa earned the applause of all Rome in a character of his own creation, Il Signor Formica. In Hoffman’s tale entitled Salvator Rosa, a pleasant fiction is intermingled with the details of historic reality on the subject of the transformations and disguises of Salvator Rosa.
According to Salvator Rosa, Coviello is a native of Calabria; “his wit is sharp and subtle; he is shrewd, adroit, supple and vain. His accent and dress are those of his country—doublet and breeches of black velvet laced with silver. He wears a mask with encarnadined cheeks and black brow and nose.”
Apart from the mask there is nothing resembling this description in the personage engraved by Callot, nor in all his collection of dancers in extravagant poses, their tight-fitting and ridiculous garments adorned by a row of enormous buttons running the whole length of the body, their hats heavily plumed, their limbs charged with hawk-bells to render the dance noisy as that of savages, each mask adorned by a nose like an elephant’s trunk, some jumping and leaping, some playing the guitar or mandolin, some threatening invisible enemies with their wooden sabres.
“C’è un Coviello” (He is a Coviello) is an old Italian saying applicable to a boastful fool. Molière, in his Bourgeois gentilhomme, has made of his Coviello a lackey after the fashion of Scapin, who repeats everything said by his master, if not word for word at least idea for idea. According to some Coviello is a nincompoop who affects to be valiant; according to others he is an astute observer. In reality he is a type that has already passed from fashion. In the early years of the nineteenth century he still appeared from time to time in some marionette scenario to discharge a rôle similar to that of the Captain. His costume also had undergone considerable change: his black hat was adorned by three red feathers, his doublet was slashed with red, his shoes were black, his breeches red and yellow, his cloak red, he wore gloves, cannon boots and the baldric and sword of the Captains. Even his bizarre mask was gone and replaced by a flesh-coloured mask adorned with moustachios.
ii
The dancers in Callot’s second class above mentioned consist of those comedians and buffoons who bring to mind Pulcinella by their simple and ample garments—a wide pantaloon and a sort of blouse, gripped at the waist by a girdle—carrying the wooden sabre and wearing the incomparable plumed hat which takes the form of an enormous cap like that of Fritellino. Also they have beards and masks.
In this fashion does Callot show us, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, Pulcinello talking with Lucretia; Mezzetin playing the guitar to Riciulina (a soubrette of the Gelosi troupe); Guatsetto (a lackey in the Fedeli troupe) and Mestolino grimacing at each other; Fricasso in rags, seeking sword in hand his adversary whilst taking care to turn his back upon him. Bagattino mocking Spezza-Monti, who is furiously endeavouring to draw a sword which has rusted in its scabbard; Fracasso, sword in hand, and very different from the French Fracasse; Gian-Farina, wielding his bat whilst dancing with Franceschina (the famous Silvia Roncagli); Bernovalla, a dancer and tambourine player; Trastullo making a declaration to Lucia, who is commanding him to kiss her slipper; Scapino wrangling about a bottle with Zerbino; Franca-Trippa and Fritellino dancing, the first accompanying himself upon his sabre, the second upon a mandolin.
Franca-Trippa, whose real name was Gabriello di Bologna, was engaged in the Gelosi troupe in 1576 for the parts of Zanni. He went to France in 1577 and played in the scenarii which were the delight of the court of Henri III. at Blois.
The type of Fritellino, or Gian-Fritello, scored in Italy in the sixteenth century a success equal to that enjoyed by Harlequin in the century following.
In 1560, Pietro-Maria Cecchini, known by the name of Fritellino, was playing in the Accesi troupe rôles identical with those that were being filled by Harlequin in the company of the Gelosi; thus, in the scenarii of Arlequin Maître d’Amour and Arlequin Valet Etourdi, the character of Harlequin is played by Fritellino.
Towards 1612, Cecchini was summoned to the court of Matthias, Emperor of Germany. He scored there so great a success that the emperor ennobled him. He published in Venice in 1614 a small treatise: Discorso intorno alle commedie, commedianti e spettatori, which he dedicated to the Marquis Clemente Sanezio, and issued a second edition in 1616 dedicated to the Cardinal Borghesi.
Some years later, in France, the character of Fritellino, then called Fritelin and Fristelin, was entrusted with the rôles of lackey in the Tabarinic farces.
Fritellino is dressed in ample garments, and wears the extraordinary hat which, in the hands of Tabarin, assumed—as we shall see—a great variety of forms. He wears the brown mask of the Bergamese mimes and the mantle traditional to all the Zanni of the sixteenth century, as well as the wooden sabre and purse, which last, always empty, plays so great a part in his existence.
iii
In 1570 an Italian troupe toured in France and even went to Paris to play farces and comedies half in French and half in Italian, and sometimes partly in Spanish. This was the company of Juan Ganassa. In it were to be seen the Doctor in his black robe, Pantaloon with his red shoes, Harlequin in his rags, and the Captain on his long legs. Pagliaccio played the leading part and Tabarino was the Zanni. But this Tabarino was not yet the famous Tabarin who, some fifty years later, with his master Mondor, was to draw such crowds to witness his farces on the Place Dauphine.
The Tabarino of 1570 was probably entrusted to double rôles, such as that of servant with that of father or husband, like many other masks of the Italian comedy.
There existed in the nineteenth century in Bologna a type which, like all the others, entered the realm of marionettes, representing the old man under the name of Tabarino or Ser Tabarin. He was nearly always a retired and ignorant merchant, who began all his sentences in Italian but, for want of practice in this language, invariably concluded them in the Bolognese dialect. Usually he was the father of Columbine, and allied with the Doctor. He is the Bolognese Cassandre or Pantaloon. He wears a powdered bag wig; his coat, waistcoat and breeches are snuff-coloured, his stockings red, coming above the knee and over the breeches; he is shod in buckled shoes and crowned by a round hat. He is always an old man of sixty.
The most famous of the Tabarins, the associate of the Italian Mondor, who from 1618 to 1630 attracted all Paris was, according to some, of Italian origin and born in Milan, whilst according to others he proceeded from Lorraine. His real name, however, has remained unknown, eclipsed by the glory of his patronymic. Was it by chance that he assumed that of Tabarino, as he might have assumed that of Burattino or Cavicchio—two other types greatly in vogue in the sixteenth century? Or did he deliberately choose a name that was already known throughout France from a member of Juan Ganassa’s company who had toured there under it?
Another itinerant troupe under the name of the Comédiens de Tabarin, and managed by a certain Tabarini, also toured part of France and of Germany in 1659, and ended by establishing itself at Vienna.
Tabarin, whose name is derived from tabaro (a mantle or a tabard), went, as we have said, to Paris in 1618, and became associated with the charlatan Mondor, who, after the fashion of all charlatans of the sixteenth century, set up his stage under the open skies. Upon this farces were played with the object of attracting the crowd; that object achieved, the merchandise to be sold was put forward with quips and witticisms.
It was in this fashion that the Italian Cabotino (the probable source of the word cabotin, meaning an itinerant actor) acquired so great a reputation in the sixteenth century as a nomadic operator. He played farce from a scenario, sold his drugs during the interludes, and drew teeth at the end of the performance, all to the accompaniment of flutes and violins.
The number of these charlatan directors of theatres is considerable; the most famous were Scarniccia in the eighteenth century, in Italy, Armando Niasi, on the Place du Châtelet, in Paris, and Mondor who came in 1618 to replace, on the Place Dauphine, Jacques May and Dulignac, whose improvisatory wit had been amusing the gay people of Paris ever since 1598.
Tabarin reached the zenith of his glory in 1622. The Place Dauphine, the scene of his exploits, became too small to contain the spectators who flocked thither, far less for the purpose of buying his unguents than to procure a preservative against melancholy.
“The Pont Neuf in the seventeenth century,” writes M. Paul de Saint-Victor, “was the caravanserai of Paris. There you would find encamped beggars, gypsies and comedians; the seven deadly sins kept open fair there; you would behold swarms of those eccentric figures of which the satires and prints of the times have left us such lively portraits, raffinés twirling their moustachios, courtesans in chairs, quacks upon their mules. It was there that you would meet the muddy poet with his owlish eyes and his beard like an artichoke leaf.
“What a pantomime in the manner of Callot! Here two duellists are engaged upon the pavement, there a tooth extractor gropes with his butcher’s forceps in the jaw of a screaming peasant, yonder a hawker of hunting dogs beats his pack, further on a pickpocket appropriates the purse of a passer-by, and beggars, dragging their crutches along the unpaved ground, cling to the doors of heavy coaches and to the poles of chairs.
“But the king of this new Cour des Miracles was Tabarin, the servant of the charlatan Mondor. Their glorious stage was erected on the Place Dauphine, and for more than ten years the people of Paris stood ranged about it, a thousand mouths gaping to consume the nostrums of the empiric and the jests of the buffoon. It had an attendance, a vogue, a success of which some idea may be gathered from the jeremiad which a pamphleteer puts into the mouths of the women of the Rue Dauphine, furious to see their husbands waste their time upon this comedian. ‘My husband does not budge from Tabarin. I spend my days without seeing him; first to this beautiful farce; then to play with other debauched fellows like himself; after playing they must go to the tavern. All the evil proceeds from that dog Tabarin. And whence do you suppose came last year’s illness but from this fine buffoon? Such was the heat on the Place Dauphine that the air was corrupted by it. And that was the reason why the king remained out of Paris for so long, and why we suffered so much poverty.’”
In 1625 Tabarin went to tour the provinces, and retired in 1630, peacefully to enjoy the fortune which he had amassed. He bought a feudal estate near Paris, and died there a very short time after having acquired it. There are two versions of the manner of his death: one has it that he succumbed in a drinking bout, the result of a tavern wager; the other that he was killed whilst hunting. The fact is reported in a book entitled Parlement nouveau, ou centurie interlinaire de devis facétieusement sérieux et sérieusement facétieux, by Daniel Martin, 1637, from which the following is an interesting passage on the subject:—
“Could you tell me the reason why the name of charlatan is given to all vendors of theriacs, distillers, tooth-drawers, vendors of powdered serpents, of unguents and balsams in the market places, of comedians on a table, bench or scaffold.
“Indeed, sirs, this word charlatan means a man who by fine words sells bad merchandise; a cajoler such as was seen in Paris in the year 1623, in a man named Tabarin and an Italian named Mondor, who, having set up a scaffold in l’Isle du Palais, assembled the people by the music of their violins and the farces which they played, whereafter they set about praising their drugs, and said so much good of them that the silly and stupid folk, believing them capable of curing all ills, would strive with one another as to who should be the first to throw his money knotted in the corner of a handkerchief or in a glove on to the scaffold so as to obtain a little box of unguent wrapped in a printed bill, setting forth the virtues of it and the manner of using it.
“I have been told that this buffoon became in a few years so rich with the money of fools that he bought a lordship near Paris, which, however, he did not very long enjoy.
“Why so?
“Because his neighbours, who were gentlemen of good and ancient houses, being unable to endure for their companion a pantaloon, a fool who with his hat metamorphosed into a thousand shapes had made so many others laugh, killed him one day while hunting, it is said.
“His master had not sufficiently impressed upon him a proverb of his native land: ‘A cader va chi troppo sale.’”
“Tabarin had a tragic end,” says M. de Saint-Victor. “His trestles had enriched him; the jests which throughout ten years he had flung to the crowd had come back to him in a shower of doubloons. Pride tempted him. He purchased a feudal estate and set up there as a lord. The gentlefolk thereabouts, indignant of such a neighbour, killed the buffoon one day at the hunt, as though he had been a hare. Poor Yorick!”
Mondor and Tabarin had several competitors, amongst whom were the Sieur Hieronimo and his comedian Galinette la Galina; and Desiderio de Combes and his servant Grattelard, who set up their theatre at the entrance to the Pont Neuf. Desiderio was ugly and misshapen, and his jests were ponderous.
“As for Combes, he is coarse and rustic, he cannot read or write or speak, and the little audience accorded him accounts him what he is, an ignorant charlatan, and the most brazen liar that ever mounted a bench.”
The populace admired Tabarin, who possessed in so high a degree the genius of farce, whilst people of condition were no less amused by him. It is conceived that some habitués of his entertainment, observing the attention which he excited, had the idea to collect his farces and impromptu jests. But they did not disclose themselves.
One only, a certain Guillaume, has issued from obscurity.
“There are five or six rascals” (it is Hortensius who speaks, in the Vraye histoire comique de Francion, 1668) “who earn their living by writing romances; and there was even a college scout, who was in the service of the Jesuits after me, who amused himself by spoiling paper. His first attempt was a Collection of Tabarinic Farces ... a book so successful that twenty thousand copies were sold, whilst it is impossible to sell six hundred of a worthy work.... The name of this scout was Guillaume.... He contrived to get some other works printed. But all his books are fit for nothing but to wrap up pounds of butter.”
So that The Complete Works of Tabarin did not contain a single line written by Tabarin or by Mondor, whose entire repertory was improvised; nevertheless, they were collected from the inspirations of Tabarin.
Neither the comedians of the Hôtel de Bourgogne nor Gaultier-Garguille assisted by Gros-Guillaume and Dame Perrine, who played the most famous farces that one could desire, were able, for the five sous which they charged each spectator, to afford their audiences the amusement and laughter afforded by Tabarin alone, gratis and with only his hat. For be it noted that his was a master hat which assumed all conceivable shapes; it was a veritable first matter, indifferens ad omnes formas. It was the chief property of an entire shop, the very foundation stone of his theatre.
“This venerable and wonderful grey felt came to Tabarin in direct succession from Saturn. This god was the first to wear it, not as wide as it is now, but in a lengthened shape. He wore it when he came to Italy, fleeing before the choler of Jupiter, and gave it then its pointed shape that he might disguise himself. Until then there had been no hats but round ones like that of Mercury. It was from that time forward that pointed hats were worn in the Spanish fashion. Saturn presented it to Tabaron, an ancestor of Tabarin’s, who until then had gone bareheaded. He was glad to find this expedient to protect him from the heat of the sun; it was from this felt hat the invention of the parasol was derived. This hat was handed down from father to son with respect and reverence like a holy reliquary, in memory of Saturn who wore it on weekdays. But some member or other of the Tabarinian race, through negligence or absent-mindedness, permitted it to be lost. It was found and carried to Jupiter, who, unable to conceive of a better present for his Mercury, gave it to him as becoming the only god who wore a hat. Mercury, vain and foolish, had its shape altered, transformed it into a pyramid and attached wings to it. Unfortunately, however, on the first occasion that he wore it, upon taking flight from heaven, the wind got inside it and it was lost. It is said that he would never afterwards wear a high-crowned hat. Janus, who, we are told, was living at that time, was so glad to find it that he put it on, but, having two faces and an enormous head, he so deformed it that it became then as wide as it is now on the head of Tabarin. Janus concealed it under Mount Aventine. Romulus discovered it in the course of building Rome, and it was long preserved at the Capitol. It never issued thence but to figure in the triumphs of the emperors, when they entered Rome laden with spoils and trophies. The high priests were charged with the care of this precious hat, but a member of the Tabarinic race secretly abstracted it, and it was transmitted again from male to male through the Tabarin family. At the time of the expedition of François I. into Italy, the grandfather of the grandfather of Tabarin gave it to a French soldier who was returning home. Desiring to buy a drug which was a sure cure for an ill with which he was afflicted, and having nothing with which to pay for it but this hat, the soldier exchanged it for a medicine to an apothecary of the Place Maubert, who made use of it for filtering honey.
“Tabarin, upon his arrival in Paris, recognised this hat which had been held in such high esteem by his family. Indignant to discover the use that was being made of the head-gear of Saturn, he repurchased it, and if he is the last to own it he can boast that he is the first to have invented how to give it new shapes. With this lunatic and fantastic hat he can represent all manner of hats, and present himself to the eyes of the admiring crowd now as a soldier, now as a courtier, now as a coal-heaver, now as a Dutchman, now as a bear-leader, now as a slinger, now as a servant lately from the wars, etc.
“In brief, Tabarin’s hat, assisted by him who bore it, has caused more people to laugh in one day than ever the comedians of the Hôtel de Bourgogne were able to do with their comedies, tragi-comedies and pastorals.”
The farces of Tabarin are the source of all the trestle repertories of yesterday.
“It is rare to find a pearl amongst these” (says M. Paul de Saint-Victor), “but on the other hand there is no lack of salt. One is overcome with surprise when prowling through this rubbish-heap to come suddenly nose to nose with Molière or La Fontaine. Here a scene of Poquelin, there an apologue from the Bonhomme have been taken from the farces of Tabarin as a pearl is taken from the oyster. The sack in which Scapin encloses Géronte plays its part in three or four of the farces of the booth on the Pont Neuf.”
Tabarin proposes to his master a burlesque question; his master proceeds to resolve it by a doctoral explanation which Tabarin interrupts with his foolery.
Question: How to make fifty pairs of shoes in half-an-hour
Tabarin. It is a great secret. I do not think there is any man in the world who has ever put this invention into practice.
The Master. In truth, Tabarin, the solution of this secret must be very ardently sought. It is one of the most clever inventions seen for a very long time. As for me I am constrained to acknowledge my ignorance save that to arrive at this end I should take a hundred cobblers and I should entrust to each the making of one shoe; then I think that in a very short while I should arrive at what is desired.
Tabarin. That is not what I mean. I mean one man who alone, in less than half-an-hour, should make fifty pairs of shoes. There is nothing easier. You will yourself confess when you shall have learned the secret that it is one of the finest conceivable; cobblers should be able to extract great profit from it. To begin with you must take fifty pairs of new boots (if you desire that your shoes shall be new), and cut them all equally across along the line of the ankle; by this means, instead of fifty pairs of boots which we had before you will find in less than half-an-hour fifty pairs of shoes ready made. Is it not a fine invention?
Who are those who desire to be one-eyed?
Tabarin. My master, the other day I heard a certain fellow say that he would give a hundred crowns to be one-eyed. Who are those that may be considered entitled to express such a wish?
The Master. A man must be quite beside himself to have so great a cupidity in his soul. Sight is one of the first organs of the body, and the most delicate part of it, being of an incredible and admirable construction, in which the Author of the Universe has enclosed all that is rarest and most excellent in this world; for whether we consider the two pairs of nerves which have their sources in the brain, and by which sight is conducted, one of them being stronger to supply movement, the other more delicate to supply sight; or whether we consider the crystalline humour that is in the centre of the eye, and its enveloping tunic which resembles a spider’s web, or the other two humours that surround it and in which the eye seems to swim; if afterwards we come to the consideration and contemplation of the admirable retina and the films which surround the whole body of the eye, the muscles which raise and lower the eyelids, and all the artifice employed by Nature in this admirable construction, we shall conclude that a man is highly imprudent to desire the inestimable loss of the finest part of him.
Tabarin. The men who desire to be one-eyed are the blind. If you do not believe me go to the monastery of the Quinze-Vingts, and I can assure you that you will not find there a single one who would not be delighted to see you hanged.
Who are those who deride doctors and apothecaries?
Tabarin. In your opinion, who are those who deride doctors and apothecaries?
The Master. Some very ill-advised people who, believing that they will never need their services, deride their recipes; they are people of nothing, ignorant of the fact that medicine is an entirely celestial and divine art, which restores and reintegrates Nature in her perfection and her apogee. Medicine is the science of natural sciences, and ignorant are those who despise it.
Altissimus de coelo creavit medicinam, et vir prudens non abhorrebit eam.
Tabarin. I said the same thing lately to a tailor who was making me a pair of breeches: Homerus et vir prudens non abhorrebet eam.
The Master. For my part I think that those who malign doctors are the ignorant, and such folk as think never to need their assistance.
Tabarin. You are wrong, for those who mock them are those who most desire their aid, the people who are ill.
The Master. The people who are ill, Tabarin! How can it happen that a patient should mock a doctor, since he is so sorely in need of one?
Tabarin. Is it not a piece of mockery to put out your tongue half-a-foot to him who comes to visit you?
The Master. Indeed to put out the tongue is a sign of derision.
Tabarin. Very well, when a doctor goes to see a patient to ascertain his ailment, the sick man always puts out his tongue at him. That is pure mockery.
Dialogue between Mondor and Tabarin
Tabarin. My master, let us consider things for once: it is high time that I should become the master. I have been the servant far too long.
The Master. Get along, you rascal, you gallows bird! Do you want to become the master, scullion that you are? You want to give me orders, do you? And what then am I to become? Your servant? Really, it would be a fine sight!
Tabarin. Yes, indeed, I should be a fine sight. Am I not as much a man as you, and as great a master?
The Master. What is one to say to a man who is persuaded of something, and who gets some insolent notion into his mind? Come here, rogue; who keeps you? who nourishes you? who supplies you with all your necessaries?
Tabarin. It was but wanting that you should boast of feeding me! A fine master you! When I came to see you, you made an agreement with me, and you promised to dress me and to nourish me. The devil take me if you’ve observed the hundredth part of that! Every time that I have risen I have been compelled to dress myself. When it was necessary to dine, did you feed me? I have been constrained myself to go to the trouble of putting my fingers in the dish and carrying them to my mouth. I have endured far too much at your hands, but henceforward I shall teach you what it means to be master.
The Master. Is your brain so troubled and your judgment so distorted that you do not know that I am your master?
Tabarin. Not at all, I maintain that I am as great a master as you. Tell me, pray, how you can distinguish between master and servant?
The Master. It is easy to recognise the one from the other, whether at rising or going to bed or even in the street: the master always goes ahead.
Tabarin. I have got you. Now listen. You say that the master is always to be recognised because he walks ahead; tell me now, every time you go to sup in town and that you return after dark by torchlight, which of us two walks ahead?
The Master. It is you, Tabarin, since bearing the torch it is your duty to light my way.
Tabarin. It follows then that I am the master, for I walk ahead. Oh! the fine lackey that follows me then!
The most daring animal
Tabarin. Since you have some slight knowledge of the nature of animals, will you kindly tell me which is the most daring animal, and which the most generous?
The Master. That is a matter beyond all doubt, Tabarin; it is the lion; for just as he is the most furious of all so is he the most daring. The daring and generosity of anything is to be recognised by the heights of the enterprises which it undertakes. Now among all species of animals, of which the number is almost infinite, there is none that shows so great generosity and daring as the lion. He is equipped with a male courage which distinguishes all his actions. There is no other beast, however furious it may be, that dares to stand before his face. In short, to be brief, he is the most daring of all animals.
Tabarin. You are wrong, my master. I do not go so far as to say that you are lying, but it really amounts to no less. The most daring animal on earth is the miller’s donkey, my master, because every day of his life he is amid robbers and knows no fear.
A collection attributed to Tabarin is entitled: “Jardin, récueil, trésor, abrégé de secrets, jeux, facéties, gausseries, passe-tems, compozéz, fabriquéz, experimentéz, et mis en lumière par votre serviteur Tabarin de Valburlesque, à plaisirs et contentements des esprits curieux.”
Here are some brief extracts from it:
To contrive that all those who are at a ball or other assembly shall sneeze at once
Take spurge, pirètre and white hellebore, in equal quantities of each. Reduce the whole to finest powder and blow it through a quill about the room where people are assembled and watch the result.
To contrive that meat brought to table shall seem full of worms
Take a lute cord, cut it into little pieces and put these upon the meat while it is still hot, and the heat will set these pieces jumping and moving as if they were worms.
This is followed by several jests and secrets to amuse the company, such as:
“Recipe to prevent a pot from boiling.”
“How to make an egg run through the room without anyone touching it.”
“How to kill and pluck a bird all in one stroke.”
“How to cut a string into several pieces and immediately to make it whole again.”
“Admirable secret for cutting an apple in four, eight or more pieces without damaging the skin.”
“How to contrive that he or she whom you appoint in drying the face with a cloth shall become black. A very amusing secret,” etc., etc.
Even a prophetic almanac for 1623 appeared under the name of Tabarin with admirable predictions for every month of the year. It is a collection of sentences and predictions after the manner of La Palisse.
“First of all should no timber or faggots arrive in port we shall be in danger of paying high prices for fuel, etc. The month of March will commence immediately after the last day of February, and the weather will be very variable. The month of April will follow after, etc. In the month of June the grass will be cut. In July there will be a great war between dogs and hares. Bulls will be twice as big as sheep and donkeys will be as stupid as usual, whilst diminishing nothing in the length of their ears. In the month of October the Normans will be busy in their orchards. The month of December will be the last month of the year. In this year no rustics will be ennobled,” etc., etc.
All such prognostications, like many others of Tabarin, come in direct line from Rabelais, who himself imitated in his Pantagrueline prognostication the collection of facéties of Henri Bebelius.
“This year the blind will see very little, the deaf will hear very badly and the dumb will not speak at all. Many sheep, bulls, pigs, geese, pullets and ducks will die. Fleas will mostly be black. There will be horrible sedition between dogs and hares, between cats and rats, between moles and eggs. In all this year there will be but one moon, and it will not be a new one. In winter, according to my little judgment, those who sell their furs to buy wood will not be wise. Should it rain do not be melancholy, for there will be the less dust on the roads. Keep yourselves warm, avoid catarrhs and drink the best.”
The costume of Tabarin was composed of his mirific hat, of a felt which was red rather than grey, of a short cloak in old green serge, and jacket and trousers of linen.
iv
Burattino is a famous mask of the Gelosi troupe. It was somewhere about 1580 that this personage appeared in Florence and scored so great a success that very soon he passed into the marionette theatres, and his name became the denomination of all marionettes, Fantoccini, Puppi, Pupazzi and Bamboccie. In 1628 a piece was even written about this personage by Francesco Gattici, entitled Le Disgrazie di Burattino (The Misfortunes of Burattino).
In the scenarii of Flaminio Scala, Burattino is a comical character, addicted to tears, a glutton, a coward and always a dupe. He is a servant, sometimes of Captain Spavento, sometimes of Isabella and sometimes of Pantaloon. In fairy plays he intrudes upon the action to deliver his jests, which have absolutely no connection with the plot. He is a sort of ancient Stenterello. In L’Innocente Persiana, Burattino is the servant of the Prince of Egypt, and his rôle consists of losing and finding his master. In some plays he is a courier bearing letters, booted, wearing a wide felt hat, and carrying a whip; he loses his letters, or permits them to be stolen from him, which disheartens him, and, crossing his legs, he refuses thereafter to be entrusted with any commission.
At other times he is a gardener, the father of Olivetta, an indolent girl, little given to work. He reproaches her with being unable to do anything. “How,” he cries, “at your age and as big as you are, and, my faith, fit to be married, you still do not know how to use a mattock or how to plant a cabbage!” Thereupon he submits her to a course of burlesque horticulture, naming to her one after another the garden implements, and telling her how to use them.
Very often he is an innkeeper, and married to Franceschina, who leads him by the nose. The Captain, having dined at his inn, departs after having paid. Burattino is so surprised that he takes up a spade, shoulders it, and thus escorts the Captain home to do him honour; but he is careful to take with him Grillo, the pot-boy, so that he shall not be compelled to return alone. When he gets back he perceives Pantaloon whispering with his servant Pedrolino; the latter, perceiving Burattino, with whose wife he is in love, raises his voice and reproaches Pantaloon with attempting to betray the wife of that poor fellow Burattino. Pantaloon beats his servant for having disclosed his intentions before the husband and departs. Burattino comforts Pedrolino who has suffered for the sake of the honour of his friend the innkeeper; he takes him inside, feeds him, and then, with the greatest confidence, entrusts him with the vigilance of his wife during his absence.
No sooner has our innkeeper departed than Madame Franceschina makes unmistakable advances to Pedrolino. It is Pantaloon who seeks to convince Burattino of the treachery of his friend and of his wife. Furious, the innkeeper demands an explanation of Franceschina, who assures him mockingly that he is mistaken. He believes her and returns to his affairs, but Pantaloon, grown jealous on his own account, returns to the assault, and compels the husband to surprise the two lovers. Burattino seeks various ways of vengeance; he decides for poison and spends half the piece seeking a suitable one; being unable to find any, he decides to call the watch, and it is before the justice that he demands explanations of his wife and Pedrolino. The result is that Burattino is persuaded that he misunderstood what he heard and what he saw, which was no more than a pleasantry. He believes and begs forgiveness of his wife, whom he continues to account virtuous.
The actor who played the rôle of Burattino in the Gelosi troupe must very long have been absent from it, for he is not found to be included in a whole series of scenarii which must cover a space of some six to eight years.
v
Cavicchio was in the Gelosi troupe in the sixteenth century, a sort of imbecile and rustic servant. His rôles are short, and they consist mainly in his coming on to sing and to relate some story after the fashion of the peasants.
In Gli Avvenimenti Comici, Cavicchio is carrying soup to the harvesters when he pauses before Mezzetin and Harlequin, who, dressed as labourers, are making love to Lisetta, a young shepherdess. He mocks them, and from injurious expressions they come to blows. But the shepherdess and her friends, who arrive at the noise, separate the brawlers, and compel them to make friends. Lisetta, desiring to cement the harmony between Mezzetin and Harlequin, exacts from them a promise that, for love of her, they will eat Cavicchio’s soup in the position that she shall indicate. Lisetta then places them back to back and ties their arms. She then places the bowl on the ground, bidding them eat, and departs, enjoining Cavicchio to give them drink after they have finished the soup. Mezzetin and Harlequin then attempt to pick up the soup, but each of them, every time that he stoops, lifts his companion upon his shoulders, which is a source of jests for Cavicchio, who looks on with bursts of laughter. Harlequin ends by picking up the bowl and runs off eating, carrying Mezzetin on his back.
In the third act it is night; Cavicchio is in his hut with his children who are weaving baskets whilst he sings to the accompaniment of a hornpipe, so as to maintain the family gaiety. Hearing a noise without, he takes up a lamp and goes outside, to find himself face to face with a military patrol. He cries out and calls his wife to his aid, but the captain having reassured him, Cavicchio takes up his hornpipe and sets them all dancing, his wife, his children, the soldiers and even the captain.
vi
Ficcheto is a simpleton who wearies his master, the innkeeper, and his customers by gross proverbial comparisons and ponderous quotations. To listen to him you would suppose that he had been in the Doctor’s service, and that he had profited by his lessons. Extremely timid, he goes greatly in fear of thieves, and so as to deceive them he never sleeps in the same part of the house on two consecutive occasions; every evening he is engaged in removing his bed. His master, intrigued by these nightly removals, inquires the reason.
“It is on account of thieves,” replied Ficcheto. “They will be finely trapped——”
“I hope so indeed,” replies his master, a man of sense.
“I say that they will be finely trapped. A rolling carcass gathers no flies, as my father was wont to say.... And then again I like to sleep as far from you as possible, for, as the proverb has it: Who lies down with dogs gets up with fleas, and then——”
“That will do!” says his master, pushing him rudely aside. “Sleep where you will.” And thereupon Ficcheto begins once more to transport his mattress.
Among the less known Italian buffoons may be cited Gian Manente and Martino d’Amelia.
In La Calandra of the Cardinal of Bibbiena, the servant Fessenio compares Calandro, the ridiculous and deceived husband, to these two buffoons. “The thing that above all others makes me laugh at the expense of Calandro,” he says, “is that he believes himself to be so beautiful and lovable that all the women that see him are immediately enamoured of him, as if the world did not possess such another model of perfection. In short, as a popular proverb runs, if he ate hay he would be a bull; in his own way he is almost as good as Martino d’Amelia or Giovanni Manente.”
“He is more simple than Calandrino,” is a proverb based upon the two models of Boccaccio in which the simplicity of the painter Calandrino impinges upon imbecility. Far Calandrino qualcheduno means to make a fool of someone. Bibbiena gives this popular name to the old man of his comedy La Calandra.
Cortavoce, also called Courtavoz, was one of the first Italian mimes to go to France in 1540. His costume with its grey hood and his long cardboard nose earned him the surname of the pilgrim.
Rabelais, describing in his Sciomachie (1569) the fêtes held in Rome on the occasion of the birth of a dauphin of France, speaks of “Bergamese mimes and other matachins, who came to perform their jests and somersaults” before the court of Rome. Among others he cites Il Moretto, the archbuffoon of Italy.
Il Moretto is also cited several times by Ludovico Domenichi in his collection of Facétie, 1565, as a famous utterer of witticisms and a master of his art.