“Diga usted! Do you know me? No? You do not know me? Head and Belly! Blood and fire! I am who I am! Italy trembles at the name of Captain Spavento! Spain reverences me under the name of Matamoros, and I terrify France, when I will, under the name of Fracasse—for I can assure you I am a most redoubtable man. All love me and all fear me, in peace as in war. I think no more of chewing up a prince than an onion.”

This Captain, with his tiger-cat moustachios, his colossal ruff and his plumed hat, audacious without courage and ostentatious without generosity was born, according to some, on the banks of the Guadalquivir, according to others, on the banks of the Garonne. But he is older than he seems. What should he have done on the banks of either of these rivers in times when they were still inhabited by savage tribes? It was in Athens and in Rome under the Cæsars that he first saw the light. Ever since those days it has been his claim to put whole armies to rout by a stroke of his sword; with a glance he will demolish walls, with a breath overthrow the Alps or the Pyrenees.

He drove the goddesses mad with love of him, and betrayed Mars himself. He has changed his shape in the course of centuries, but not his nature. He is always the same boaster, so mendacious that he imposes even upon himself.

After all his boast and brag of his exploits he is seized by the scullions of Periplectomene, receives from them an ignominious correction, and departs beaten, yet satisfied.

The modern Captain’s utterances are very similar:

You see him strutting in the sun along the flagstones of a palace, his nose in the air, his eye on the trail of roast meat, his hand on his terrible rapier, dangerous only to the eyes of those who follow him. To see him bestride the ground you would suppose that the whole earth belongs to him; that if he wished he could overthrow the buildings by a flick. But he is magnanimous. How many insults and canings has he not permitted to fall into oblivion?

It is night! Who goes there? A rival beyond doubt. The Captain will fell him with a glance. No! He despises him too much; he does not consider it worth while; the man is but a simple mortal after all! If it were Jupiter now! We should see fine things. Not one but two men are approaching, and their gait is peculiar. Let him withdraw; it is the more generous behaviour towards these poor fellows who might die of terror at the simple sight of him. “Thus I save their lives,” adds our hero, stretching out his long legs until they look like a pair of compasses and accelerating his walk until it almost becomes a flight.

But at the corner of the street a shower of cudgel blows falls suddenly upon the shoulders of this demi-god. He is knocked down; rogues and vagabonds hasten to strip him of his riches. The famous coat of mail, fashioned out of the gold rings which his many mistresses have compelled him to accept, might have tempted these poor rascals; but, alas! under his slashed doublet, which they disdain, not so much as a shirt do they find. “We are robbed!” says one of the miscreants to his companions, and they vanish, despising their victim.

Hearing no further sound the Captain opens first one eye and then the other, raises his head, recognises that the danger is past, readjusts his rapier and turns his steps to other hunting grounds.

“The Captain,” says M. Frédéric Mercey, “antedates the Spanish dominion; we consider him the contemporary of all those formidable leaders of Italian bands who distinguished themselves at Anghiari and in those famous encounters in which a horse, by turning its head or its tail, might suffice to bring about the loss or gain of a battle. It is Macchiavelli who assures us of this.

“Under the new masters (i.e. the Spaniards) the Captain is transformed into Matamoros; he jabbers in Castilian, assumes the stateliness of Spain, and corrects as far as possible his poltroonery. Not a day passes now on which he does not slay a Moor, confound a necromancer or seduce a princess. His lackey’s garments are made from the material of the turbans of the infidels whom he has decapitated.

“To-day, after having undergone a further transformation, he still loves to entertain us with his prowess. One day, at the siege of Trébizonde, he penetrated alone into the tent of the Sultan, and, seizing him by the beard, he dragged him through the camp, whilst with his disengaged hand, he held off his assailants and compelled the entire infidel army to keep its distance. When he entered the city his cuirass bristled so with arrows that he might have been mistaken for a hedgehog. The hedgehog device on his coat of arms dates from that event....

“His gallantry equals his valour, and when beauty is the object of his onslaught he has such marvellous means of conquest that he never finds her unyielding. He overthrows towers, bursts through iron doors or, like a Greek god, descends upon her in the form of a golden rain. Many of his feats of gallantry have found imitators. Once, for instance, when he galloped along the banks of the Garigliano in the company of the princess Gilyme d’Apremont, she, being weary of his amorous insistence, said in jest: ‘The fire that consumes my knight is very ardent then?’

“‘Cruel, can you doubt it?’

“‘Not at all, but I know a means of relieving you. Fling yourself into the river.’

“‘Not all these waters could extinguish my flame.’

“‘That is but a gallant figure of speech; and I shall not believe it until I see you issuing from those waves still consumed by the same love.’

“‘Is that so, beautiful princess?’ he cries, whereupon the intrepid lover drives spurs into the flanks of his charger and leaps into the middle of the river.

“He ran great risk of drowning, and it was only by abandoning his horse that he was able to regain the shore with the water streaming from him, but still devoured by the same fire. The princess kept her word and rewarded so noble a devotion.

“Like the Captains his ancestors, Matamoros was magnificent in words, but his purse was always empty and under his beautiful richly damascened cuirass he wore but a frayed and tattered leather jerkin.”

The tradition of the theatre informs us that this rôle of Matamoros made the fortune of L’Illusion Comique.[3] The Captain’s formidable boasts and his piteous discomfiture had a comic interest which can scarcely be fully appreciated by us. Boastfulness reigned then in court and town, and even in the Academy; it may almost be said that it had passed into French manners. In witness to this may be cited the illustrious Scudéry, who held his pen in one hand and his sword in the other whilst challenging Corneille to single combat, so as to prove to him that Le Cid was a detestable tragedy; or again that admirable eccentric named Cyrano de Bergerac. Cyrano at least was of no false courage; but if his valour produced high deeds, in what an extraordinary mass of fanfaronading gasconnades were they not served up. Corneille, to give words to his character, needed no more than to translate into verse the prose of this great duellist.

In the encounter in hell between Gaultier Garguille and Tabarin, Gaultier Garguille says:

No type was so successful in Europe in the sixteenth century, and more particularly at the beginning of the seventeenth, as that of the Captain, both in improvised and in written comedy. In Italy, Spain, France and England, the number of pieces in which the Captain, under very different names, played the principal rôle was very considerable. Scarron wrote round this character a sort of tour de force in verse in one act and in one rhyme—ment—entitled Les Boutades du Capitan Matamore, 1646:

The first Italian Captains date from the fifteenth century, and their costumes have varied according to their epochs. At first they wore buff jackets, a long sword, a steel helmet or morion, and they were always masked. These masks were flesh-coloured, with a prominent nose and terrific moustachios.

In Italy and in France the Captains bear such Hispaniolised names as: el Capitano Sangre y Fuego, el Capitano Cuerno de Cornazan, el Capitano Escobombardon della Papirotonda, el Capitano Rodomonte, el Capitano Parafante.

The Germans in the seventeenth century also had their Captain, Horribilicribrifax, who was but a copy of the Milanese Captain Spavento, the Castilian Matamoros, and the French Capitaine Fracasse.

In the sixteenth century the Capitan Spezza-Monti, known in France under the name of Tranche-Montagne, “closed his eyes when fighting his enemies, so as not to see their severed limbs as he sliced them off.”

Callot, in his Petits Danseurs, shows us some of these Italian Captains of the sixteenth century; among others is the Capitan Taglia-Cantoni, dressed in tight garments, wearing an enormously plumed hat, and shod in cannon boots, adorned with lace on the inside. His Captain Zerbino is distinguished by a triumphant panache and a mask adorned with spectacles. His Captain Cerimonia is represented with one leg advanced, and his hand on his rapier, so that, entirely thrusting up his cloak behind, the point of it menaces heaven. He is extremely ceremonious as is indicated by his name. Meeting Signora Lavinia (Diana Ponti), he seems to be bending a soft glance upon her through his mask, and he is in the act of doffing his slashed hat. The Captains Mala-Gamba and Bella-Vita, both knock-kneed, are saluting each other with precaution and defiance. They wear enormous ruffs and exaggerated garters on the outsides of their boots. Their sleeves and breeches are slashed after the fashion of the time of François I. The Captains Cardoni, Babeo Esgangarato, Cocodrillo and Grillo, wear the costume of dancers.

ii

In the Italian troupe of the Gelosi which went to France in 1577, the rôles of Captain were played under the name of Capitano Spavento della Valle Inferna (Captain Terror of the Vale of Hell), by Francesco Andreini, born at Pistoia, and already well known in Italy since 1558. He played all known musical instruments, and spoke six languages—Italian, French, Spanish, Slav, Greek and Turkish. He performed the parts of Doctors and Captains equally well, and he created the character of the Dottore Siciliano and that of a magician named Talcirone. On his return to Florence in 1578 he met in this same troupe Isabella, who was then sixteen years of age, and greatly admired for her beauty, her talents and her virtue. Francesco Andreini fell in love with her and married her. In the following year, 1579, Isabella, who was still in Florence, gave birth to a son, Gian Battista Andreini, known later on under the name of Lelio, and author of the Teatro Celeste and L’Adamo. Andreini went again to France in 1600, with the second troupe of Gelosi, still under the direction of Flaminio Scala; but as the troupe was returning to Italy, Isabella died suddenly at Lyons (1604). Sorrow-stricken and inconsolable, Francesco Andreini quitted the theatre with his son; the latter, however, went back to it in the capacity of director in the following year. Andreini the elder never returned to the stage, nor concerned himself further with his art save as an author. He produced, in 1607, Le Bravure del Capitano Spavento, which was translated into French under the title of Bravacheries du Capitaine l’Epouvante. Francesco Andreini was a member of the Società degli Spensierati of Florence.

Whilst a comedian in the troupe of Flaminio Scala he was the author of the preface of Scala’s book, which contains some fifty scenarii. His son, Gian Battista Andreini, discharged the rôles of juvenile lovers under the name of Lelio, as we shall see.

Francesco Andreini died in 1624.

Fabrizio de Fornaris, a gentleman of Naples, born in 1560, was renowned for his comic spirit and his wit under the name of Capitan Cocodrillo. He went to France with the troupe of the Confidenti in 1584 and 1585. He caused La Fiammella, a pastoral play by Bartolomeo Rossi, to be performed by his comrades, and he published it in 1584. In the following year he published a comedy of his own, entitled Angelica, which had been performed impromptu, scoring considerable success, particularly at the house of the Duke of Joyeuse, to whom it was dedicated. Fabrizio de Fornaris returned to Italy, and died there in 1637.

In 1618, the charlatan Mondor, born at Milan, who performed his farces on the trestles of the Place Dauphine with his associate Tabarin, played the rôles of Captain in certain Tabarinic farces, under the name of Rodomonte, an anagram upon his own name. As all the world knows, it was Ariosto who first gave to the world the terrible Saracen Captain Rodomonte.

Mondor was a man of handsome presence, who expressed himself extremely well, and who had received a good education, as may be judged from the lessons in science and philosophy which he delivered to his public in the form of dialogues with his lackey Tabarin.

In the Opuscules Tabariniques is the following passage:—

In the troupe of the Fedeli, which came to Paris in 1621 and again in 1624 under the direction of G. B. Andreini, the rôles of Captain were played by Girolamo Gavarini, of Ferrara, known in the theatre as Capitano Rinoceronte (Captain Rhinoceros).

Niccolo Barbieri (Beltrame) relates in his Supplica the death of this comedian on the 2nd October 1624, and says that upon his body was found “a very coarse hair-shirt, which occasions some surprise, for whilst we were well aware that he was pious and devout, we had no suspicion that he went to such lengths as this.” He adds that “people should not risk inconsiderately to speak evil of comedians, remembering that frequently there are very honourable men in their ranks and, better still, even saints at times, such as Saint Genest, Saint Ardélion, Saint Sylvain and San Giovanni Buono.”

Abraham Bosse performed the part of Matamoros from the beginning of the seventeenth century, armed to the teeth, in slashed and tight-fitting garments, and under a plumed hat of grey felt, similar to that worn by Spavento.

iii

Captain Spezzafer wore at first the costume of a gentleman of the court of Henry IV., a round, plumed hat, beard and moustachios, a heavy ruff and doublet, and very wide breeches, in keeping with the mode of the period. But in 1668 he modified the shape of his costume; and his manner of wearing the sword, very high up and suspended from a wide leather belt, gave him a certain similarity with Crispin of the French comedy. The colours he affected, however, were very different. Whilst Crispin is dressed from head to foot in black velvet, Spezzafer is arrayed in heavy silk of a bright yellow; his garments are cut after the fashion of those of soldiers of a few years earlier, under Louis XIII. He wears moustachios and a grey cocked hat, surmounted by a feather.

Spezzafer, whose name was Giuseppe Bianchi, was first seen in Paris in 1639, and again in 1645, with the troupe whose director he was and whose principal actors were the following:—Barbançois (Polichinelle), Bastona, Bonnetti, Caluci, Cialace (Pantaloon), Bonami (dancer), Franchi, Grandini, Micael Lardi, Merli, Magni, Nardo, Nicoli, Pozzi, Rinaldi, Usili; Mesdames Brigida Bianchi, Orsola Bianchi, Luigia Bianchi, Gambelli, Marizini, etc.

He died in Paris in 1680.

In one of Gherardi’s plays Captain Spavento finds it necessary to purchase under-clothing. It is what we may call a scène intime, for it is not customary to see Captains acting like simple mortals; they are always tuned to a diapason far too high ever to permit them to descend to the necessities of existence.

“It is said,” Harlequin tells him, “that you do not wear a shirt.”

“That was once my custom,” replies the Captain, “because then, being of an extremely furious nature, when once I was enraged, the hair of my body, which was abundant, stood up, piercing my shirt on every side, and putting so many holes in it that one might have taken it for a colander. But having become much more moderate since then, I now wear under-clothing like any other fellow.”

After the departure of Harlequin Spezzafer approaches a shop.

In the middle of the eighteenth century the costume of the Italian Captain resembles that of a soldier of the time. He wears a three-cornered hat, long hair tied in a queue, and coat, waistcoat and breeches of military cut. The long sword which he carries pointing upwards gives him still a little of the air of his ancestors.

iv

Giangurgolo—which is to say Jack Glutton—is the Calabrian type of Captain. Like Matamoros he is passionately devoted to women; but he is frightened of them; he is always afraid of discovering a man under the petticoat. Nevertheless he carries the great sword of the Captain and has adopted his soldierly gait. Like his primitive type he is boastful, a monstrous liar, timid beyond all measure, and moreover as famished as a savage. Yet he will go four days without eating for fear of meeting with a rebuff, which would make it necessary for him to become angry and perhaps to fight—in other words, to be beaten. Thus he has recourse to theft to nourish himself, because he never has a farthing. He prowls about the stalls of the macaroni merchants; lifting up his great cardboard nose, he sniffs and nourishes himself upon the smell of the edibles. If by good fortune he can put his hand upon victuals, it is amusing to see the quantity whose disappearance he can contrive. His stomach is a gulf. But, for the sake of a few pounds of macaroni, a few dishfuls of polenta, one or two salami, how much shame must he not endure! He is a compound of Gargantua, Matamoros and Pierrot. He is, moreover, foolish and vain and proclaims himself a Sicilian gentleman. “The earth,” he says, “trembles under me when I march.”

The members of the watch are a terror to him. He has a guilty conscience, and at their approach, notwithstanding his titles, his nobility and his redoubtable arms, he could gladly squeeze into a rat-hole. When he is quite certain that he is dealing only with poor inoffensive people he causes himself to be served on a grand scale, and repays them by enraging furiously. If in the moment of his fury a child to amuse itself should shout out behind him, he will disappear so quickly and for so long that years may pass before he is seen again in the country. He wears a long and pointed felt hat, a rapier, a scarlet doublet whose sleeves, matching his breeches, are of pale yellow striped with red. Francesco Ficoroni (in his Dissertatio de larvis scenicis et figuris comicis) gives the reproduction of an ancient mime engraved upon onyx, which very much resembles Giangurgolo in headdress, long nose and ungainly posture.

v

Il Vappo, or Smargiasso (fanfaron), is a Neapolitan type, representing the spadassin of the end of the eighteenth century. He is a great brawler, an excessive boaster, and above all an incredible poltroon, like the other varieties of the Captain. He wears an ample square-cut riding-coat, a three-cornered hat of an exaggerated height, yellow breeches and a long rapier, whose old and rusty hilt rattles as he moves. He is a clumsy, awkward fellow, striking terrific postures, a Franca-Trippa of Callot, dressed in a slightly more modern manner.

vi

The Romans also have a sort of Captain, Rogantino, who has the same manners and the same character as their Marco-Pepe. In Bologna the Corporal Rogantino is the chief officer of the watch; he is brutal, speaks with a bizarre accent, vibrating his rs, and, when he has to effect an arrest, if the guilty escape him he will often seize an innocent man; should anyone attempt to hinder him, he wants to strike and incarcerate everybody.

His scenes conclude in a general mêlée from which Rogantino issues invariably in a pitiable condition. “They have beaten me,” he says, “but I told them what I thought of them.” This character is preserved in Rome to this day, together with Pulcinella and Cassandrino, as one of the heroes of the marionette booth.