Endowed with honeyed language, engaging manners and a sycophantic politeness, Brighella is the most infamous rascal that ever drew breath. He does not even display the brutal frankness of Polichinelle to counterbalance the baseness of his sentiments. He is a smirking cat concealing vicious claws in pads of velvet. Lively and insolent with women, braggart and boastful with old men and cowards, he decamps on the approach of any of those who do not fear him. There is a great deal to be dreaded from him; the more you have frightened him the less disposed is he to forgive you, and if you should receive a stab in the dark, be sure that his was the hand that dealt it. A singer, a dancer and a musician, when he desires to do anyone an evil turn there is no house into which he is not able to insinuate himself. He is a valuable servant to the man who knows how to employ his talents. As his needs are many, he requires a deal of money, and if you know how to flatter his self-love and to pay him well, there is neither girl nor woman in Italy whom he is not able to wheedle for you. He has discharged all kinds of offices; he has been a soldier, an attorney’s clerk, and he has even turned hangman’s assistant so as to abstract himself from the attentions of justice. The service he prefers to all others is that of lovers, and it is rather from inclination than from necessity that he loves what he calls his estate. For if there is no one to serve he will work for his own account to keep himself in practice, and then woe betide the young girls who fall under his claws! They are for ever lost if they lend an ear to his proposals and his sophisms. Brighella believes absolutely in nothing but the rope which is one day to hang him; hence a glimpse of a watchman will reduce him to a condition which it is impossible to describe.

Such was the old Brighella; but in the course of centuries and of civilisation he has improved a little. He is still imbued with the same instincts, but he does not assassinate quite so freely. To-day many women are able to look him in the face without trembling and to listen to him without believing. He is far more terrible to the purses of old men, which he purloins with incredible dexterity. His dreams are of nothing but thefts like the Epidicus of Plautus, from whom he descends in direct line.

“As for me,” says Epidicus, “I am going to assemble the Senate of my mind to deliberate upon what I shall do. For it is upon money (however much it may be our best friend) that I am going to declare war. What source shall I tap? I must neither fall asleep nor draw back. I am resolved to make a fresh attempt upon my old master. I have procured a sharp knife to disembowel the old man’s purse. But what do I see? Two old men at once! What a capture! I shall transform myself into a leech and suck their blood....”

Later, when he is content with his misdeeds:

“I do not believe that in all Attica there is a soil more fruitful than my old master. I take all the money I want from his cupboard, however locked and sealed he may leave it. But should the old man come to perceive it, ’ware the rod!”

Brighella, whose name signifies intriguer, is as old as Harlequin, his compatriot. We have already said that both were natives of Bergamo. The Slaveró of La Piovana of Angelo Beolco is a true Brighella.

“As for me,” he says, “I find nothing difficult; I am accustomed to despise things. I want two young girls, and if it be not sufficient to kill one man I shall kill two. Do you not remember that dispute in which I stabbed a man as easily as you prick a bladder, and of that other fellow whose bones I broke as you squelch a bean?”

Elsewhere we hear him declaring: “I am now going to seek Sittono, into whose hands the girl must have fallen by now. I shall so contrive with amiable words that he shall give me the fifty livres promised me so that I may get me hence. And should anyone suggest that I have acted badly, I shall throw the entire fault of it upon my gossip.”

Slaveró recks nothing of being a perjurer like Brighella. A purse has been stolen, and Bertevello, the fisherman, knows who has it.

In a more modern Italian scenario which has done duty in various forms, always with success, “some young Venetian gentlemen are in a villa on the banks of the Brenta. To amuse themselves and to dispel the sadness which might result from the death of their butler, Meneghino, they take it into their heads to make fun of three poltroons who are in their service: Pantaloon, Harlequin and Brighella. They make the pretence to believe in the boastful valour of Pantaloon, and they beg of him to spend the night watching over the body of the dead butler. Pantaloon consents against his will; but it is Harlequin who has been put to bed on the bier instead of Meneghino. They have covered him with a sheet and painted his face white. Harlequin is no more at ease than he who watches over him. He fears lest this farce should bring some misfortune; nevertheless he makes merry at the expense of his comrade, performs a somersault on his bed, and heaves great sighs. Soon, however, his laughter ceases, and he thinks only of following the example of Pantaloon, who has gone into hiding, for Brighella appears, dressed as a devil, and pursues them with a torch. Brighella, however, imagined that he would have to do only with Pantaloon, and did not expect to find Harlequin in the place of the dead man, still less to find a corpse running in this scared fashion about the chamber. In his fright he falls down, and we behold the three of them rolling on the ground possessed by terror ineffable. Finally the entrance of their masters, who come to mock them, brings about their return to reason, at the end of a long series of jests which the public receives ever with uproarious laughter.”

The costume of Brighella in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries consisted of a sort of jacket and a wide pantaloon in white linen to suggest his rustic origin, a cap laced in green, and a cloak; the coat and pantaloons were laced at the seams with green cloth so as to make the costume represent a sort of livery. His olive-tinted and bearded mask conforms, like that of Harlequin, with the tradition of the ancient Sanniones.

In the nineteenth century his costume became a bizarre combination of old and new fashions. His jacket took the form of a riding-coat made of wool or white flannel with three collars; further he wore a waistcoat and pantaloons of the same material laced with green. He preserved his traditional white cap trimmed with green and his brown half-mask, whose beard was arranged so as to imitate heavy whiskers and a slight moustache. The chin was shaven. In this costume he looks very much like a negro arrayed in a ridiculous livery.

Brighella is the stock from which are sprung Beltrame, Scapino, Mezzetin, Flautino, Gradelino, Truccagnino, Fenocchio, Bagolino, and all the shrewd and intriguing lackeys of the Comédie-Française, from Sbrigani (a variant of the name of Brighella), Sganarelle, Mascarille and La Montagne to Frontin and Labranche; the livery only has changed; the character is always that of Brighella, and from Pseudolus, the Greek slave, down to Figaro, the factotum, the type has always been a liar, a drunkard, a thief, a debauchee and more or less a murderer.

An Italian comedian, known under the name of Briguelle, appeared in 1671 on the stage of the Comédie-Italienne to replace Locatelli (Trivelin), lately dead, in the parts of first Zani. According to Robinet, this character became the rage, and, after his portrayer’s death, Louis XIV., seeking to replace him, requested another actor from the Duke of Modena. The duke sent him Giuseppe Cimadori, who played under the name of Fenocchio the same rôles as those of Brighella. This actor, however, died on the journey.

The two most famous players of Brighella during the eighteenth century in the Italian troupes were Giuseppe Angeleri, who from 1704 to 1752 undertook the improvised parts in the comedies of Goldoni, and Atanasio Zanoni of Ferrara, who was one of the best comedians of the eighteenth century. “Zanoni received a very good education, but his taste for declamation having urged him to embrace a theatrical career, he joined the troupe of the famous Antonio Sacchi, whose sister he married. Zanoni was unrivalled in the grace of his enunciation and the vivacity and wit of his repartees. To the qualities natural to his state he added those of a lofty character. On the 22nd February 1792, on his way home from a splendid supper, he fell into a deep canal and died soon afterwards.” In 1787 a collection was published in Venice of the mordant, allegorical and satirical Brigelleschi witticisms. We will cite some fragments.

“One should not say ‘a thief,’ but ‘an ingenious mathematician who finds a thing before its owner has lost it.’ Appropriated objects are the things which we inherit before the death of those who possess them. To conduct a theft with propriety it is necessary to be assisted by three devils: one who will teach you how to purloin adroitly, one who will show you how to conceal effectively, and a third who will persuade you never to make restitution. When I am compelled to travel—that is to say, to decamp—I console widowed hens by adopting their chickens. I deliver purses and watches from captivity. I am very talkative because my father was dumb and he left behind him a capital of new words which had never been used. For the rest, I am a bastard. Out of charity I was once given a bowl of soup, but so extremely limpid that the beautiful Narcissus might have seen himself mirrored in it more clearly than in his fountain. My shirt is become a romance; it is full of knights-errant and the washerwoman refuses to wash it for fear of poisoning the river. My supper is the supper of Bertoldo: a plate of peas ventosissimi, with some boiled hope, a ragout of desires and a piece of roast expectation. My debts have transformed me into a star that is seen only at night.”

ii

Fenocchio, a variant of the type of Brighella, made his appearance on the Italian stage as early as 1560. Like Brighella, he finds employment in amorous intrigues, and he acts in these not only on behalf of Celio, Leandro or Zerbino, but also on his own. We behold him in a Venetian play of the seventeenth century, written in dialogue upon an old scenario, as the lover of Olivette, the servant of Pantaloon’s daughter Beatrice. Harlequin, another lackey in the piece, is so naïve as to take him into his confidence, never suspecting that Fenocchio is his rival. From that moment Fenocchio swears to be avenged upon Harlequin, and seeks for means to be rid of him. He begins by playing nasty tricks upon him. Harlequin is bearing Olivette two birds alive in a basket; Fenocchio takes possession of it, and replaces the birds by a cat. He is present at the compliments by which Harlequin accompanies his gift and those returned him by Olivette, who adores birds, and he is the sniggering witness of her disappointment when she beholds a furious tabby escaping from the basket, after having scratched her. The anger of Olivette and the tears of Harlequin rejoice the heart of Fenocchio. Harlequin, wondering who can have done him such an evil turn, suspects his confidant. But Fenocchio swears by all that there is most sacred (in which he does not compromise himself, seeing that he believes in nothing) that he is incapable of a farce which could result in spilling the blood of the beautiful Olivette.

By force of circumstances Harlequin is unable to continue to see Olivette, whom Pantaloon keeps in duress with his daughter. He has recourse to the expedients of Fenocchio. The latter takes advantage of the situation to rid himself of his preferred rival.

“Pretend to be dead,” he advises him. “I shall put you in a coffin and take you to Pantaloon the apothecary upon the pretext of getting him to make your autopsy. During the night, when everyone is asleep, you can go and seek Olivette.”

Credulous Harlequin consents. Fenocchio carries him to Pantaloon’s house, and, after having related to the latter an unlikely story, which Pantaloon readily believes, he withdraws, hoping that the apothecary will deprive Harlequin perhaps of a leg or an arm. But Harlequin, being alone with Pantaloon, who is admiring the beautiful body which has been brought him for dissection, cannot resist the need to scratch himself. This occasions some surprise to the apothecary, who has never seen the like. Trembling, he seizes a scalpel, and is about to make a large incision in Harlequin, when the latter leaps up in his alarm, and, shouting for help, throws himself upon Pantaloon, who swoons in terror.

Harlequin goes to Fenocchio to discover a fresh expedient. Fenocchio reproaches him with his lack of patience. “You should have let the apothecary bleed you a little,” he says, “and thus you would have seen Olivette. However I have found a better way: you shall disguise yourself as a pig, and I shall take you to Pantaloon as a present from the doctor.”

Harlequin again consents. Fenocchio disguises him, and leads his pig to Pantaloon, who admires this beautiful animal.

“It is a pity to kill it,” he says. Again Harlequin is taken with the need to scratch himself, and he does this in a fashion so singular in a pig that Pantaloon is surprised.

Fenocchio explains that this is a trained pig, and he makes Harlequin go through several performances, such as that of walking upright, of taking snuff from the apothecary’s box, and replying by signs to questions that are addressed him.

Pantaloon exclaims: “What an admirable pig! What a rare animal! I shall not have him killed until to-morrow morning,” and he causes Harlequin to be shut up in a sty, whilst Fenocchio slips into the house in quest of Olivette, certain that this time he is rid of his rival, and confident that he will see him disembowelled on the morrow.

During the night Harlequin finds a way out of the place where he has been imprisoned. Always in his bizarre disguise, he wanders forth in quest of Olivette’s chamber. But he gets into the apothecary’s shop, where Pantaloon sleeps on his camp bed. Whilst groping his way about, Harlequin knocks over some vessels, which are broken in their fall.

He hurtles against a pile of bottles and breaks the lot. Pantaloon laments: “There goes my oil of frogs! My balsam of oysters is all lost! My electuary of sepia is broken, I am sure!” He gets up, lights his candle and looks about him; meanwhile Harlequin has slipped under the bed. Pantaloon, after having deplored the loss of his drugs, which he admits, however, will not be difficult to replace, seeing that in reality they consist of no more than earth and water, returns to bed and puts out the light. Harlequin attempts to rise, and in doing so lifts up the bed. Pantaloon rolls along the ground with him, gets up and strikes out haphazard, shouting: “The pig! The pig is strangling me! Help!”

When Fenocchio finds that he has not succeeded in disembarrassing himself of Harlequin by this means, he suggests to him a third expedient; this is to procure a deal of money with which to bribe Pantaloon, who will then allow him to see Olivette. He announces that he knows a way to get the money. “The Doctor is a collector of curiosities. We will go and sell him one.”

He dresses up Harlequin as a clock, with a dial in the middle of his belly, and carries him off to the Doctor, who admires this beautiful and very curious piece of horology.

“This,” says Fenocchio to the Doctor, “represents, as you see, a man, and it tells the minutes, the hours, the days, the months, the years and the centuries; also it can predict the past, and it can say Papa and Mamma, and it chimes.”

So saying, Fenocchio takes up a hammer and shows the Doctor that all that is necessary to make it chime is to strike the head of the figure. But Harlequin ducks his head and threatens to discover everything if he is touched. Fortunately the Doctor has not perceived this movement. Fenocchio, who loves money better than vengeance, begins to haggle with the Doctor. But at this point a servant enters with the Doctor’s soup. Harlequin is unable to resist the temptation, and throws himself upon the soup, which he swallows greedily. The Doctor turns round, and cries: “Ho! ho! ho! A clock that eats! Help! murder! thieves!”

iii

Louis Riccoboni says, in speaking of the costume of Beltrame:

His dress is that of a servant of the end of the sixteenth century.

This type, more modern than Brighella, had no other employments in the Gelosi troupe than that of an astute and cunning gossip; but, like Mezzetin, and the French Sganarelle later on, he played all the husband parts, pretending at times to believe the stories that were told him. In the middle of the nineteenth century, at Bologna, this personage, which by then had passed into the marionettes, still represented the burgher, the merchant or the old Jew, and shared the parentage of Columbine with old Tabarino.

Niccolo Barbieri was the first actor to render the French acquainted with this shade of Brighella. Under the name of Beltrame da Milano, he went with Flaminio Scala and Isabella Andreini to play in Paris before Henri IV., in 1600. After the Gelosi troupe was dispersed, Beltrame returned to Italy, and joined the Fedeli company. In 1613 he was back again in Paris with this company under the management of G. B. Andreini. He remained until 1618, returned yet again in 1623 and continued in the French capital until 1625, when he himself became the head of the troupe, and rendered himself famous in Italy and in France, not only as an actor but also as a writer.

His work: “La Supplica: a tract for all men of merit who have not set up as critics and who are not entirely foolish,” is no more than a piece of pleading in favour of the comedians and the comedy of his day; it is, however, extremely interesting for the anecdotes included in it, which give an idea of the manners of the time.

To prove that comedy is not a vile and contemptible art, Beltrame cites a large number of comedians who were honoured and held in high esteem, mentioning among actors of antiquity Roscius, the friend of Cicero, Aliturus and Æsop, and among actors of his own day Isabella Andreini, Pietro-Maria Cecchini (Fritellino), Giovanni-Battista Andreini (Lelio), Cintio Fidenzi, Maria Malloni (Celia), Nicolò Zeccha (Bertolino), and himself. “Myself,” he says, “the least of all these, I was appointed by King Louis the Just—a very good and very Christian monarch—a soldier in his guard of honour, and I was jealous to show myself worthy of that honour, as my captain, the illustrious Duc de la Valette, will bear witness. The eminent Cardinal Ubaldini can also tell how much His Very Christian Majesty was disposed to overwhelm me with favours. I will not mention the princes, princesses, kings, queens and emperors who have held the children of comedians at the baptismal font and have called their parents gossip, both in speaking and in writing to them, nor how, upon occasion, they have made them participate in their fêtes, drive with them in their court carriages, gratified them with presents from their own hands, regaled them with sumptuous banquets, and invited them to participate in their amusements. Many princes and great lords have played in comedies before their relatives and friends, and have been eager to interpret in the best possible manner the characters entrusted to them, and this entirely for their amusement. Are they on that account to be deemed infamous and contemptible? No. Therefore, it follows that comedy is not vile.

“How many princes, kings and emperors have played in public in their own theatres? In my own day I have seen the Dukes of Mantua, Francesco, Fernando and Vincenzo performing with our comedians, as well as the Prince of Urbino and so many others whom I do not mention. If the great lord may tread the stage for his amusement without derogating from his nobility, why should honest folk be lost in reputation if they do the same for their livelihood? Since the nobles are not ashamed of performing in comedy, the art cannot be contemptible.

“I compare the efforts made to condemn comedy and comedians to those butterfly hunts engaged in by children, who run furiously through fields, heedlessly crushing plants and flowers under their feet, coming and going and striking the air with their arms, holding the very wind in their hands, and perspiring even unto blood. In their despair we see them sometimes throwing stones or their hats into the air, and then precipitating themselves upon their prey, without recking how they tear their garments or perhaps even break a limb. And all this to what purpose? To seize a thing which, living, is of little use and dead of none. In short, the efforts of our denouncers resemble the prowesses of Don Quixote of La Mancha.

“Comedians study printed libretti with the permission of their superiors; it is true that they themselves invent a deal, but this without departing from the subject. The authors of subjects or scenarii seek the most likely stories and arrange them according to the rules of humour, just as the dramatic authors arrange their subjects according to the rules of poetry. Thereafter the actors undergo the necessary degree of study so as to interpret as aptly as possible the characters which they are to represent. Lovers and women study history, fable, rhymes and prose so that they may exploit the wealth of the language. Those whose aim it is to excite laughter ransack their brains to discover new jests, not out of any desire to sin or to lead others into sin, not to extol vice or error with obscene words, but that they may provoke laughter by the employment of equivocal and bizarre inventions in the exploitation of the characters entrusted to them. The Captain excites hilarity by his hyperbolic extravagances; Doctor Graziano does the same by his garbled quotations; the first lackey by his intrigues, his astuteness and his lively rejoinders; the second lackey by his stupidity; Harlequin by his tumblings; the Covielli by their grimaces and their macaronic language; the old men by their ponderous manners and their old-fashioned idioms.

“I have read that in the time of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius a certain Fulvius, pronounced lost by the doctors in consequence of an abscess in the breast, determined in his despair to go and get himself killed in war. In battle he received a lance-thrust exactly in the middle of his abscess, and this wound cured him immediately of his alleged incurable ill. The very contrary happened to the consul Cneus Ruffinus, an old warrior, who died in consequence of a comb’s tooth penetrating his head whilst he was combing himself. Are we to argue from these events that he who wishes to be well should go to war, and that none should ever comb himself under pain of death? I have seen sick men despaired of by their doctors, drink wine and recover health. Shall we therefore give wine to all sick men that they may be cured? A cripple who could never walk without crutches, slipped and fell; a passing vehicle ran over his legs at that moment and broke them both, as a consequence he was so thoroughly cured that thereafter he could walk without crutches. Is it therefore necessary that he who is crippled or lame should go and throw himself under vehicles so as to recover? It is very possible that some undesirable events may have taken place in the theatre. But is that a reason why one should not visit them? Two or three trees do not make a forest, and a man may die as becomingly in the theatre as elsewhere.

“In Italy the customs of one town are very different from those of another. In Naples a woman will call a man familiarly ‘my treasure’ or ‘my handsome fellow’ and other similar names, whilst in Lombardy such terms are not uttered save between lovers, or else are employed only by courtesans. To kiss a married woman in Naples is an insult to be washed out in blood, whilst in Piedmont it is considered a very trivial matter, and is deemed between acquaintances a proof of friendship or a mark of reverence. In some countries it is customary for women to salute strangers in this fashion; in others it were an impoliteness. In certain parts of the Marches the women seem almost hostile to the male sex, and they envelop themselves in their garments almost to the point of concealing their countenances. In Venice young girls are dressed entirely in white and widows entirely in black, and in such a fashion as not to allow one to see their faces, which are beautiful, for there the handsomest women are to be found. In other countries it is fashionable for ladies to display the throat and part of the breast, whilst in others again they are covered to the neck; and yet all alike are honourable women. A fisherman will go half naked through the streets, as will also a wool-worker. What in some would be licentious is rendered by custom perfectly becoming in others. To see the naked feet and a little of the leg of a beautiful lady seems to be a great affair, whilst washerwomen and poor peasant girls display naked feet and legs without exciting the least comment. Nevertheless a woman’s honour is everywhere the same. Why should the one give scandal and not the other? Custom is answerable. Thus is it with women who play in comedy; we know that the love speeches which they utter are no more than fictions, which cannot be held to corrupt the soul, since in uttering them an actress but conforms with the custom of her art.”

iv

“Here come the coaches of Ferrara and Bologna! This way, sirs! This way, illustrious gentlemen! Where are the baggages? I will take charge of everything. Will your Excellencies lodge at the Three Moors, at the Golden Shield, at the Royal Hostelry, at the Pelican, or elsewhere? I will conduct you where you will. I am a faithful and dependable man. Shall I carry your saddle bags? Mind that pool of water! This way, my lords! Ficchueto! Fenocchio! Come and fetch the trunks, portmantles, baggages, cloaks, swords and all the effects (tutta la roba) of these gentlemen! Do you require a pleasant agreeable valet who understands all things, or perhaps a cicerone? Here I am, my masters! My services are at your disposal. I ask nothing but the honour of being your servant, and you shall pay me what you please. Will your Excellencies dine forthwith? Or perhaps you would prefer to whet the appetite before supper? Here, sir host! Put all your dishes in the oven, I am bringing you travellers of quality!” (And in a whisper:) “I am to have half your profits or I shall proclaim your inn the hovel of a poisoner.”

Thus Scapino.

Sometimes travellers will have none of him, telling him that they are not making a stay, and giving him perhaps a few coppers to be rid of him and his speeches. In such case he will set down the baggages and cloaks in the middle of a brook, and walk off shrugging his shoulders in contempt and pity.

“What misers! (Che cacastechi!) What needy fellows! (Che bisognosi!)”

Nevertheless Scapino is less of a rascal than his father Brighella. Where Brighella would freely ply his dagger, Scapino will but ply hands and feet, and more often still no more than his legs, for he is a thorough coward, and he will not give the lie to the etymology of his name Scappino, which is derived from scappare, to escape.

Always a valet, he frequently changes his master; he is an intriguer, a wit, a garrulous fellow and a fluent liar. He bears a very evil reputation. He is a humbug (un imbroglione), a beggar and more or less of a thief, but greatly in favour with soubrettes. These young ladies find it impossible to amuse themselves without him. Scapin is a character that has been treated in a masterly manner by the hand of Molière. His name is the French equivalent of Brighella. They are one and the same personage, wearing the same costume and endowed with the same natures. In France Brighella lost his original name and modified his costume in the early part of the seventeenth century. Fundamentally, however, he remained unchanged in all but the label.

Caillot, in his Petits Danseurs, represents the Italian Scapino of his day, dressed like Fritellino, in ample garments with mask and beard, plumed hat, cloak and wooden sword. It was in such raiment that Dionis of Milan, the director of a troupe, played the parts of lackey in 1630.

But, upon being introduced to the French stage by Molière and Regnard, Scapin’s costume became mixed with that of Beltrame, Turlupin and Jodelet. He discarded the mask, assumed garments striped green and white, his traditional colours, and became Gros-René, with powdered face, Mascarille, La Violette, Sganarelle, etc.

Molière, upon being reproached with the follies of Scapin, replied: “I saw the public quit Le Misanthrope for Scaramouche; I entrusted Scapin with the task of bringing them back again.”

The Italian Scapino, who appeared on the Italian stage in Paris in 1716, resumed the costume of Brighella, slightly modernised, and he perpetuated the rôles created by the ancient Briguelle and by Mezzetin.

Giovanni Bissoni played these parts in the troupe of 1716. Born in Bologna, he became an actor at the age of fifteen. He was engaged as a clown in a small troupe under the management of a certain Girolamo, a charlatan who sold his unguents by the aid of his farces, in 1681. After a short while Bissoni found himself as wise as his master. He became first his partner and afterwards his competitor. He set out to sell his unguents in Milan; but, finding himself forestalled there by another, and being in danger of starving, he bethought him of a stratagem which was successful.

He set up his trestles in an open place near that in which his rival was operating. He boasted with emphasis the efficacy of his drugs. “But why should I boast of them?” he asked the crowd. “You know all my remedies; they are the same as those of the operator, my neighbour here, for I am his son.”

Thereupon he proceeded to invent a very likely story. He related that this rigorous parent had cursed him, on account of certain youthful follies, had driven him from home and refused to recognise him. This speech was reported to the other operator. Bissoni, profiting by the emotion of the crowd, went with a penitent air and a countenance bathed in tears, to throw himself on his knees before his pretended father and to implore pardon for his faults. The other maintained the fictitious character imposed on him far beyond all hopes that Bissoni could have entertained: he called him fool and rogue, and protested that, far from being his father, he did not even know him. The higher rose the anger of that operator against the swindle perpetrated by Bissoni, the more did the people become concerned in the fate of this poor youngster, until in the end they were so deeply moved that they not only purchased all his drugs, but made him presents in addition.

Bissoni, satisfied with his success, and fearing lest the truth should come to light, hastened to depart from Milan. Soon afterwards he abandoned the trade of charlatan and joined an itinerant troupe in which he played the parts of Scapin. Later he entered the service of M. Albergotti, as maître d’hôtel, travelled in France with him, and then returned to Italy. It was there that Riccoboni found him when he was assembling the company for the Regent of France, and he engaged him for the Comédie-Italienne to play Zanni parts. His talent was mediocre but he continued in this employment until his death, in May of 1723, at the early age of forty-five. He bequeathed all of which he died possessed to Riccoboni, who had frequently rendered him good service.

On the 2nd September 1739 Alessandro Ciavarelli, born in Naples, made his début at the Comédie-Italienne in the part of Scapino.

In 1769, Camerani, a very mediocre actor, enjoyed nevertheless a sort of celebrity for his singular capers, and his gluttony, which was the cause of his death. He succumbed to an indigestion of pâté de foie gras.

The principal authors had entered into an agreement to obtain from the Théâtre-Italien an increased remuneration for their rights. Camerani pronounced himself against them at the meeting held by the actors, delivering himself on that occasion of the following witticism:—“Sirs, take care. I have already been telling you for some time that as long as there are authors comedy will never thrive.”

v

Giovanni Gherardi, of Prato in Tuscany, went to Paris in 1675 to replace, under the name of Flautino, the Brighella of the Italian troupe. He made his début in Arlecchino Pastore di Lemnos.

Giovanni Gherardi was a good actor; he was extremely comical, he played the guitar perfectly and imitated various wind instruments with his throat. He was in himself a whole orchestra.

He remained a very short time in the theatre. His depraved morals led him into trouble. He was imprisoned and upon his liberation immediately quitted France. He left one son, Evaristo Gherardi, the famous Harlequin.

vi

Gradelino is another variant of the type of Brighella. It was under this name, already known in Italy, that Constantino Constantini went to play in Paris in 1687.

Constantino Constantini was a member of a good family of Verona; he had set up a factory and was a discoverer of several chemical secrets for the dyeing of cloth. Having fallen in love with a comedienne, not only did he quit his country and his business to follow her, but further induced his legitimate wife and children to accompany him. Thus in the wake of that actress he wandered through Italy under the name of Gradelino, accompanied by his two sons, Angelo Constantini (Mezzetin) and Gian-Battista Constantini (Ottavia). When his mistress died, Constantini went to Paris to display there his accomplishments, which were very real, and had already earned him the greatest success in Italy. He conceived the unfortunate notion to sing on the Parisian stage a song composed in Italy against the French. He was so thoroughly booed and hooted, notwithstanding his talent, that he never dared to show himself again.

vii

The earliest Mezzetini date from the end of the sixteenth century, and had their birth in the Gelosi company. They then wore white linen garments, a mask, a hat, a cloak and the wooden sabre of the ancient Zanni. Thus they are depicted by Caillot. They were then no more than simple variants of Scapino and Brighella; their costume was the same, their name only was different. But when, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, the rôles of Zanni assumed a greater importance, the actors who played them adapted their costumes to the tastes of their day, both when they preserved the original type intact and when they modified it.

Angelo Constantini was the first to dress the character of Mezzetin in the striped red and white garments which became characteristic of him. He had been received into the old troupe in 1682 to double Domenico Biancolelli in the rôle of Harlequin; perceiving that the troupe had no second Zanni, no Brighella, he took up that character, and borrowed from the Italian and French buffoons, his predecessors, this striped costume traditional of the Sannionnes of antiquity. He discarded the mask which had been worn by Brighella, Beltrame, Scapin and all the earlier Zanni, both Italian and French. We know that Molière himself long played lackey parts under a mask. Constantini fashioned the cut of his garments after the mode of his day, whilst preserving the striped fabric.

After the death of Domenico, Mezzetin wore the lozenges of Harlequin and played the same rôles until the arrival of Evaristo Gherardi. Mezzetin then resumed his livery and his character of shrewd lackey, acting sometimes on his own account, playing the parts of deceived or deceiving husbands such as Sganarelle, sometimes appearing as the servant of Ottavio or of Cinthio.

Angelo Constantini, the son of Constantino Constantini, after spending his youth playing in Italy, went to Paris in 1682, and made his first appearance there in Arlequin Protée, in the rôle of Glaucus-Mezzetin, whilst Domenico played Protée-Arlequin.

When it fell to his lot to replace Domenico, Constantini received from the hands of Columbine, in a scene prepared ad hoc, the garments and the mask of Harlequin. He retained this rôle for a very long time, but he always played it under his own name of Mezzetin. As his countenance, despite its great swarthiness, was comely and mobile, and as he was beloved of the public, the entire audience rose, and, by way of manifesting its esteem for him, shouted: “No mask! No mask!” As a consequence Constantini performed without mask until Evaristo Gherardi came to make his début as Harlequin, and to appropriate the character on his first appearance. Constantini then returned to his rôles of Mezzetin and continued in them until the theatre was closed in 1697.

The brothers Parfait tell the following story of Constantini:—“It is worth while to relate a thing that happened to him at the house of M. le Duc de Saint-Agnan. He had dedicated a play to this nobleman, who was in the habit of paying generously for such dedications; with the object of receiving the recompense he hoped for, he presented himself one morning at the duke’s house; but the porter, suspecting the object of his visit, refused to allow him to enter. Mezzetin, to overcome this refusal, offered him a third of such recompense as he might receive from his master, and out of consideration for this promise was allowed to pass. On the stairs he met the head lackey, who proved no less intractable than the porter. Mezzetin promised him another third, and was thus introduced into the ducal apartments. There he found the duke’s valet, who showed himself still more inflexible than the other two, and was with difficulty overcome by a promise of the last remaining third. In this fashion nothing was left for poor Mezzetin who, upon beholding the duke, ran to him and cried: ‘My lord! here is a theatrical piece which I take the liberty of presenting to you, and for which I beg that you will compensate me by ordering that I be given a hundred lashes.’ This extraordinary request amazed the duke, who demanded to know the reason of it. ‘It is, my lord,’ said Mezzetin, ‘that to contrive to reach your presence I have been compelled to promise to your porter, to your lackey and to your valet each one third of whatever you may have the goodness to give me.’ The duke severely reprimanded his servants, and sent a hundred louis to the wife of Mezzetin, who had entered into no promises.”

The Mezzetin of the plays of Gherardi, although generally softened in his ways, is often the real Brighella of other days, with all his villainy.