We have seen that in the company of the very famous Ruzzante there existed an actress of the name of Fiorina, which may have been her own or assumed for the purposes of the theatre. This name was often bestowed by Ruzzante and many subsequent authors—such as Tarabosco in 1560 and Calmo in 1553—upon the leading lady. Now it is Fiora, the sweet village girl, so beautiful that Ruzzante is dying of love for her in his piece La Fiorina; now it is Fiorinetta, the courtesan apprentice whom love preserves from vice, and renders worthy of pardon.
This Fiorinetta is the Philenium of Demophilus and of Plautus, brought to light for the second time in the sixteenth century and transformed to suit the tastes of the Renaissance. It is very interesting to follow the transformation of this type. In the ancient theatre Philenium is no more than a courtesan in love. Argyrippus is certainly not her first lover, and probably will not be her last. She resigns herself to a division of her favours between father and son, after having lowered herself to flatter and to caress two slaves. She submits to all this vileness out of love for the young man.
Fiorinetta is interesting in a very different fashion, and Ruzzante’s piece is better than that of Plautus. All the world knows the Asinaria, whilst Ruzzante’s Vaccaria is almost unknown. We will give an outline of it. Like Demænetus, Placido is a gentleman married to a rich wife who has kept the administration of her fortune, and who causes her revenues to be governed by a steward, modelled upon the dotal slave of the Asinaria. Placido complains to his servant Truffo (the Libanus of Plautus) that he has spent his life in tutelage, and that he is still a uomo fresco—that is to say, a dashing fellow, addicted to pleasure, who in the midst of opulence has never been able to enjoy anything. Madonna Rospina deprived him of everything, and, through the authority of her virtue, becomes the torment of the house and the family.
“I am not ignorant,” he says, “of the fact that my son Flavio is in love with Fiorinetta, and that he has been living with her for a year. I am not at all perturbed; it is the best possible liaison. He is too young to marry. I want him to settle down as late as possible. May God preserve him from such an existence as mine. Let him profit by his youth. Fiorinetta is not, thank God, a woman of religious inclinations, the most dangerous form of mistress that exists; nor is she a married woman, which again is a source of danger when the husband is jealous; she is a child who loves him tenderly and who will admit no other lovers. But her mother is a procuress who wants to sell her daughter to the rich Polidoro because my son has no more money to give her. Myself, I have no money. My wife keeps everything under lock and key, and her steward is incorruptible. It is necessary, my dear Truffo, that you should exercise your arts to rob me—that is to say, to purloin from my wife the sum necessary to my son so that for a year to come he may not be troubled in the exclusive possession of his mistress.
“Go, then, my dear Truffo. You have my authority for any knavery. I am not one of those grumbling and turbulent old men who proceed in such a way as to cause their death to be desired. I wish to be my son’s best friend and to do for him what in other days my father did for me.”
Fiorinetta loves Flavio. She loves him ingenuously and with all her soul. She does not say, like Philenium to Cleæretu: “Permit me to prefer him to all my lovers.” She says: “I want no lover other than himself.”
Fiorinetta. What do you want of me, mother?
Celega. You have again, to my misfortune, allowed Flavio to enter the house by the garden gate. I did not wish to say anything to you in his presence. But answer me now: Is it possible that you do not wish to believe what I have told you? You know nevertheless that what I tell you is always true. When for the first time you received the caresses of Flavio of which you were afraid, having never received those of any man, I told you not to fear. Did I deceive you, seeing that you find yourself so much in love with him?
Fiorinetta. It is more than true, my mother.
Celega. Very well, then, why do you not heed me now when I tell you not to allow him to come again? Since he has nothing more to give us he will ruin you.
Fiorinetta. Because I am unable to send him away in this fashion. Because loving him I do not wish to hurt him by leaving him. It is as if someone were to bid me to cease loving you as my mother. That were impossible.
Celega. It is a fine thing if you contrast the affection you bear your mother to that of a lover. I shall be compelled, until you become a great lady, to go and beg, for the simple reason that your lover will not turn his steps elsewhere. You think he loves you? It is the pleasure that you give him that he loves and not yourself! With me it is different.
Fiorinetta. He would weep too much, he would sigh too much. He has so often sworn to love me. He has spoken so many promises.
Celega. Tears and sighs are very light proofs of love, and oaths are always on the lips of lovers. I have never known tears and sighs and oaths to proceed from any but those who have nothing to give. Those who spend do not weep. You wish to please Flavio and to belong to him alone. It is all very well, my daughter, for a rich woman to have one only lover; but you are not in such case.
Fiorinetta. Since he has been good to me in the past must I be ungrateful to him?
Celega. The past is as nothing. But let us suppose then that Flavio loves you. Do you think, perchance, that things will always remain as they are? You are deceived. As soon as your countenance begins to change so will his ideas change.
Fiorinetta. Oh! I have no fear of that.
Celega. That which we do not fear comes more quickly than that which we do fear. Consider now: what do you find lacking in Messer Polidoro that a rich man should have?
Fiorinetta. He is ugly and unpleasant. I have never seen a more hideous face.
Celega. He is so rich that his wealth conceals all his faults. I can think of nothing uglier and more unpleasant than a man without money.
Fiorinetta. He is diseased.
Celega. Now there’s a misfortune! When a young man is seen to be a little pale, with a scratch in his leg or a lump on his arm one cries at once: He is ill! But I shall not say another word. Do as you please and you shall always be a poor unfortunate; do as I tell you and you shall soon be rich and a great lady. Look at Nina, who a little time ago was going barefoot and in rags through taverns and other disreputable places, and who to-day is the owner of so many silken gowns and so many collars of pearls, and has so many servants to do her will.
Fiorinetta. Have patience. The next time that Flavio comes I will talk of it with him.
Celega. Fool! Know that if you persist in loving him who has nothing to give you, all the others will be equally close. Our future lies in competition. I have already told you a hundred times what you should do. Should anyone present you with a necklace, a ring or anything else, show it immediately to all, so that another, not desiring to seem less rich, shall make you a present of greater value. It is necessary to know how to receive each and how to talk with everyone so as to lead all to suppose that you are in love with them.
Fiorinetta. You want me to love all the world as I love Flavio?
Celega. I did not say love all, but pretend to do so.
Fiorinetta. My mother, that were too painful a life. I could never pretend the contrary of what I feel and of what is in my heart. I think that it is better to marry, and I wish to lead a purer existence than that which you suggest.
In a later scene between Fiorinetta and her lover, she shows herself as passionate as she was meek and gentle with her mother.
Flavio. Why do you not let me go, dear heart? Why do you retain me? Is it so as to increase the pain which I must experience when I leave you?
Fiorinetta. Can you believe that I am anxious to let my soul depart from me?
Flavio. Mine will remain with you, for you are the asylum of all its joys and all its happiness.
Fiorinetta. How can it remain with me since I no longer exist without Flavio?
Flavio. Nevertheless your mother wishes to separate us.
Fiorinetta. I may occasion grief to my mother, but nothing shall separate me from you.
Flavio. When this new lover stands before you with all his money your sentiments will change, perhaps.
Fiorinetta. Flavio, you must not say such things to me. Not all the gold in the world could suffice to change my sentiments towards you. My heart is not for sale like merchandise in the open market, and if the love which I bear you were not sufficient to cause me to persevere in my purpose, my mother’s project would be. She wishes to separate me from you—from you, the only thing in all the world that I love! She shall not long rejoice in the possession of me, I shall stab myself to the heart or otherwise rid myself of life.
Flavio. No, you must live. Let me die, for if I were deprived of you I should be deprived of life’s greatest happiness. Joys and pleasures shall never be wanting in your life.
Fiorinetta. You want me to live, but existence without you would be worse than death. Tell me what pleasure could be a pleasure for me without Flavio? What joy could be a joy, what delight could be a delight for me without you?
Flavio. If in my death there were not the death of every hope of seeing you again, which is the greatest good of all, know, my heart, that no one would die more gladly than I, able to glorify himself in dying of love for the most beautiful woman nature ever created.
Fiorinetta. If I should ever happen to survive you, Flavio, know that my life would be so bitter and full of torments that death must seem a sweet thing by comparison. But, so that it shall not be said that I should ever experience any other pleasure after your death, I should make an effort to live and to prolong this miserable existence so that my sufferings should compensate me a little for the loss of a lover as dear as you. Listen, Flavio, render me the most pious service in your power, take your sword and pass it through my heart. Life is dear to me only on your account, it belongs to you, it is your thing: if you want to die, bear it with you.
Flavio. Oh! beloved lady, if rather I could but join my soul to yours so as to make but one! Gladly would I strip myself of life to give it to you. Would not that be the best use to which it could be put?
Fiorinetta. You increase my happiness and my life by attaching your lips to mine.
Flavio. Delicious lips! Am I unfortunate enough?
Fiorinetta. Hold your Fiorinetta in your arms, my Flavio!... Flavio, I am dying.... Help!
Vezzo and Truffo run on to assist in restoring her to consciousness; but Vezzo says that he has no rose-water, and Truffo, who has sold his shoes to keep Celega quiet with the money, is unable to buy any.
Flavio. Listen, Fiorinetta, my beloved: is this a proof of the love you say you bear me, this desire to be the first to die? Why do you not open your loving eyes? Do not conceal from me the light of my life. Is it not enough already that I should have to weep for my own misfortunes without your increasing them? Fiorinetta! You do not answer your Flavio! Answer me!
Truffo and Vezzo run from side to side seeking something by means of which to restore her to consciousness. Truffo suddenly shouts: “Return to life, we have the money!” Flavio, happy to know that they have been able to purloin from the steward the money which is to appease Celega and render them both happy, says: “We have no further reason to be sorrowful—do you hear? They have brought the money.”
Fiorinetta. Beautiful heaven! Where am I?
Flavio. In the arms of your Flavio.
Fiorinetta. Flavio, why do you not let me die? I should die so happily in your arms!
Truffo and Vezzo reflect upon the fact that money is more potent than rose-water to conquer swoons.
Flavio (to Fiorinetta). Take courage, my life, my love. In spite of adverse fortune we shall be happier than ever. (To the servants.) But which of you two has the money?
In Plautus’s play, Libanus and Leonida, the two cunning slaves, compelled the young couple to desire the money for some time. The result is a burlesque scene of an incredible coarseness, in which the master is compelled to embrace the knees of one of his slaves and to bear the other on his shoulders. Philenium is condemned to caress them, which does not seem to cost her any very great effort, for she herself offers them her kisses, and is spontaneously prodigal of the most tender epithets.
Fiorinetta is too chaste, and Flavio too seriously enamoured to admit of this. The scene is no less comical in consequence of a long and very humorous story related in dialect and as a duet by Vezzo and Truffo, whose only purpose is to render the two lovers impatient. In the end, after having appeared to doubt the word of his young master, Vezzo exacts that he shall tenderly embrace his mistress by way of an inviolable oath. Thereafter he considers himself assured of his master’s protection in the dangers he has incurred to serve him.
In the Asinaria, Demænetus, the father of the lover, demands and obtains the favours of Philenium as the price of his complacence. The young man consents to it to ensure the continuance of his pleasures. The old man’s cross-grained wife surprises this orgy, trounces the son and threatens the father, whilst driving him off with blows. It is a scene of gross realism.
Ruzzante is also a realist. He calls things by their names and does not cloak the brutal and licentious morals of his day. But he belongs to the Renaissance; his spirit tends to the ideal, and he completes the destiny of the courtesan by a fifth act of his own creation, which is certainly the best of the piece.
After having ably softened the monstrosities of the ancient text so as to preserve that which is comical—as for instance turning the old man’s desire for the courtesan into a simple pleasantry, so that it may serve as a lesson to his son, and making the son’s submission no more than a feint, with the mental reservation to withdraw Fiorinetta in time from this opprobrium—Ruzzante enters into romantic developments.
The mother of Flavio, Madonna Rospina, pauses on the threshold of the house of Celega at the moment of blazing out. She recovers her self-possession, and with great prudence and dignity accuses herself of being the cause of all the evil. She has been wanting in indulgence and liberality; she has driven her son to despair, her husband to vice and her servants to theft. She goes to Celega, and shows her so much gentleness and pity that this miserable woman repents her, and withdraws to a convent, after having confessed that Fiorinetta is not her daughter, but a child fallen into her hands during the fortunes and turmoil of war. The wars to which she alludes are those of Charles VIII. and Louis XII. Thus we behold Fiorina purged of this sordid relationship with Celega, and the effect of her constancy is to bear good fruit in the forgiveness of the mother of her lover and the repentance of her own supposed mother. The manner in which Celega excuses herself for her evil designs is arresting:
Celega. Know, lady, that under pressure of the miseries of life good thoughts frequently disappear. That is the fault of fortune which with reason is said to be blind. I say this for myself, who, not that I might become rich, but so that I might avoid the horrors of want, have done what has been seen. Nevertheless when this child fell into my hands, I had nothing but good will for her. But the little care shown by the great and powerful for the poor in the world wrought a change in me. And then the might of the great misleads us; we don’t know how to refuse them what they exact. What could I do to preserve this child from a cavalier as great and as noble as your son?
Celega disappears and Madonna Rospina calls her son: “It would be impossible,” she says, “for me not to be anxious whilst knowing you to be wandering about in this carnival time. Go seek your mistress, and conduct her to our house. Later on you shall learn the good intentions that I have in mind.”
Flavio. I know now that there is no love like that of a mother. Oh, mother! mother! in what language, in what words should I be able to please you as you deserve!
Here follows an excellent scene, in the highest degree amusing, between Placido and Rospina, the father and mother of Flavio. The husband rejoices in the happy change which has taken place in his wife. He says that the most favourable things are those which are least expected.
Rospina. You are right, Placido; for who could have foreseen a thousand years ago that Flavio would have married a wife to-day?
Placido. What are you saying?
Rospina. Very soon you shall see Fiorinetta here to celebrate the wedding.
Placido. And you would consent to such a thing?
Rospina. Why not?
Placido. Do you consider her a suitable wife for our son?
Rospina. I have heard you say that given that a woman were suited to rejoice the soul of her husband, she should be chosen without regard to her birth.
Placido. But this girl has no dowry.
Rospina. How often have I not heard you curse those who seek a great dowry, and who thereby bind themselves in cords that deprive them of their liberty?
Placido. That was said only in jest.
Rospina. But Flavio has taken it seriously.
Placido. And will you suffer this?
Rospina. I shall do by him as I have seen you do.
Placido. Do so then; but as for me, I shall never give my consent to it.
Rospina. You will, and you will even go so far as to open the nuptial ball if necessary.
Placido. Not so. I shall withdraw to the country during the event.
Rospina. Come, put a good face on the matter, and rejoice in the thought of the happy days that are to come.
Placido. You will have it so? Very well then, so be it!
A great ball is given, and the piece concludes with songs and dances.
This Vaccaria of Ruzzante is extremely remarkable, especially since discarding all the ancient grossness of the Asinaria he has been able to extract from it a romantic and amusing piece invested with a humour more naïve and more natural than that of the original. In the story of Fiorinetta brought up in evil by Celega and becoming, by virtue of her sentiments, her constancy and sincerity, the legitimate wife of the handsome Flavio, one might perceive the rehabilitation of the courtesan. But one would be at fault. Fiorinetta is not, and never has been, a courtesan, especially a courtesan of that epoch. She has neither the ways nor the sentiments of one. A trafficker contrives that in spite of herself she shall make the acquaintance of a man. He was young, handsome, lovable and sincerely enamoured. She becomes attached to him; she would have died rather than belong to another. Madonna Rospina, in marrying her to her son, did no more than restore the honour which her son had taken from the girl. The mother of Flavio would never have received the ancient courtesan Philenium into her house.
The costume of Fiorinetta must have been very beautiful and in the best of taste. It was an age in which refinements of toilet filled the most important place in the life of a woman. “I know perfectly,” says Isotta in L’Anconitana of Ruzzante, “how to embroider collars in gold and silk. I know how to dress a lady, and what colours are more advantageous to dark women and to blondes; also what garments are best attuned to go with liveries and devices. I know what colours signify love, hope, jealousy and other things of the same kind. I know how the faldigie are to be worn, how the fringed head-dress suits best, whether it conceals all the hair, whether it leaves an inch or two displayed; I know what women are enhanced by earrings, and whether it is better to wear pearls or plain gold in girdles and rings, as well as the different kinds of corset to render the appearance of the throat more delicate, or more or less to display the breast. I know what collars, carcanets, gold chains and strands of pearls render a woman more imposing. I also know the kinds of rings to adorn the fingers; how a woman should walk, how she should laugh, turn her eyes, drop a curtsy, and what movements denote grace and modesty; how to adorn the dress of the woman of fashion, how to combine fabrics of different colours so as to obtain the richest effect. Some women wear their hair hidden, or combed in so level a manner that each hair lies beside its fellow; others wear it in a sort of disorder which renders them more graceful and more beautiful, etc.”
The taste of the Renaissance was, more than that of any other age, based upon an imitation of the Greeks and the Romans. The actresses did not wear the dresses of their own time save under pressure in contemporary pieces. All comedies which were a few years old became ancient, and were represented in the ancient manner—that is to say, in fancy costumes such as are to be seen in the pictures by painters of this epoch.
Rabelais relates, in his Sciomachie, that in Rome, in 1569, amid the noblemen, the men-at-arms and the footmen and horsemen who took part in a tournament, Diana and her nymphs suddenly make their appearance to play a little scene which concludes in the pretended abduction of a nymph by some soldiers. Diana claims her from the soldiers; enclosed in a cardboard citadel, these refuse; thereupon Diana and her nymphs go to demand the assistance and vengeance of the knights. The assault is given, and the spectacle commences.
“Diana bore upon her head a silver crescent; her golden hair hung about her shoulders and some of it dressed round her head with a laurel garland ‘introphiated’ with roses, violets and other flowers. She was dressed in crimson damask, richly embroidered, with a fine Cyprian fabric of beaten gold, curiously pleated like the rochet of a cardinal, descending to the middle of her leg, and over this a rare and precious leopard skin attached by golden buttons to her left shoulder. Her golden boots were cut à la nymphale and tied with silver cord. Her ivory horn hung upon her left arm. Her quiver, preciously adorned with pearls, was suspended from her right shoulder by a thick cord in strands of white and scarlet silk. In her right hand she carried a silver javelin. The other nymphs differed but little from her in accoutrements save that they had no silver crescent on their brows. Each one carried a very beautiful Turkish bow in her hands, and a quiver like Diana’s. Some wore upon their shoulders African skins of lynx and marten, others led greyhounds in leash or blew their horns. It was a lovely sight.”
In the troupe of the Intronati (1530 to 1560), the leading ladies, whose real names we ignore, appeared under the names of Lelia, Beatrice and Isabella. In 1570, the beautiful Armiani, born at Vicenza, a poetess, a musician and a comedienne of talent, was becoming celebrated throughout Italy. The Confidenti troupe, which went to France in 1572, had for leading lady an actress of beauty and endowed with great literary talents. This was Celia, whose real name was Maria Malloni. The Cavaliere Marino surnames her in L’Adone “a fourth Grace,” and Pietro Pinelli composed in remembrance of her an entire volume of poems: Corona di lodi alla Signora Maria Malloni, detta Celia, comica. She played equally well in the Commedia dell’ Arte and in commedia sostenuta, in tragedy and in pastoral. She was chiefly remarkable, according to Count Ridolfo, in the rôle of Silvia in L’Aminta.
At about the same time, the Gelosi troupe possessed for leading lady “the beautiful and too tender Lidia di Bagnacavallo,” says M. Charles Magnin. “Her jealous and but little disguised passion for her fellow-actor Adriano Valerini caused some little scandal, a rare thing at this time when actresses prided themselves upon nothing so much as their virtue.”
In 1578, Flaminio Scala engaged in the troupe of the Gelosi, then in Florence, a young girl born in Padua in 1562, named Isabella, then barely sixteen years of age, beautiful, full of talent and very virtuous. Francesco Andreini, who was playing Captains in the same company, fell in love with her and married her. In the following year (1579), Isabella gave birth to a son, Giovanni-Battista Andreini (Lelio).
It was first under the name of Accesa that Isabella was admired and applauded when she made her début and was elected a member of the academy of the Intenti of Pavia. She was the most celebrated actress of her time, and honoured by the most illustrious approbation, such as that of Tasso, Ciabrera, and Marino, not to mention cardinals, princes and sovereigns. A crowned portrait of Isabella was placed between those of Petrarch and Tasso in a fête given in her honour in Rome by one of her greatest admirers, the Cardinal Aldobrandini.
Isabella was the soul, the honour, the pillar of the Gelosi company. She went to France with the troupe in 1584, and there, as in Italy, Isabella, then in her twenty-second year, achieved the same degree of distinction by her modest and reserved conduct as by the versatility of her talents, and the same was again the case when she revisited France, summoned thither by Henri IV. in 1600.
Thomas Garzon says in his Place Universelle:
“The graceful Isabella Andreini, the most brilliant ornament of the stage and the theatre, as praiseworthy for her virtue as for her beauty, has rendered so illustrious her profession that as long as the world shall last, and down to the end of time, the name of the famous Isabella Andreini will be held in veneration.”
Notwithstanding the most flattering attempts to detain her, Isabella left Paris. Compelled by an accident to interrupt her journey at Lyons, she died there in childbirth on the 10th July 1604. The greatest honours were paid her. Pierre Mathieu relates the event in his Histoire de France sous le Regne de Henri III. (Paris, 1609); and Niccolo Barbieri (Beltrame), who was a member of the company, tells us that the municipality of the city of Lyons honoured the funeral of the comedienne with marks of distinction. “The aldermen,” says M. Charles Magnin, “sent the banners of the city and the mace-bearers to the obsequies of this great actress, and the guild of merchants followed the procession with torches. Francesco Andreini, the husband of this famous woman, caused an epitaph to be engraved upon her tomb which is to be read in Mazuchelli, and which may yet exist in Lyons, where it was still to be seen at the end of the eighteenth century. This epitaph concludes in the following terms:—‘Religiosa, pia, musis amica et artis scenicæ caput, hic resurrectionem exspectat....’”
A beautiful medal was struck, bearing the effigy of Isabella Andreini, her name being followed by the letters C.G., which stand for Comica Gelosa (comedienne of the Gelosi troupe), and bearing on the obverse the figure of Fame with the words “Æterna Fama.” She had deserved all these distinctions not only by the wealth of imagination which she displayed in the Commedia dell’ Arte, but by various publications from her pen, some in verse and some in prose. During her various sojourns in Paris, the last of which was in 1603, she conquered the admiration of both court and city, and enjoyed a very particular favour with Marie de’ Médicis and Henri IV.
She has left us some sonnets, madrigals and songs, La Pastorale de Myrtille, printed at Verona in 1588, and a Canzonniere printed in Milan in 1601. With her died the Gelosi troupe.
At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the leading ladies of the various Italian troupes were Renemia, Lucia, Pandolfina, Lucrezia and Virginia.
Lavinia, whose real name was Diana Ponti, comica desiosa, an actress and poetess (1580), discovered, according to Riccoboni, among the effects inherited from her father—a comedian like herself—a large number of scenarii bearing the precious autograph signature of Saint Charles Borromeo. The explanation of this curious fact is as follows:—Adriano Valerini had been called to Milan. Notwithstanding the tolerance shown to comedians by the Italian clergy, the governor of the city, having fallen a prey to some scruple of conscience, ordered the suspension of the performances by the troupe under Valerini’s management. Valerini protested. The governor submitted the matter to the decision of the archbishop, who was Charles Borromeo. The good prelate summoned the comedian into his presence, questioned him, heard him and permitted him to reopen his theatre on condition that he would submit to him his scenarii. Those which he approved he signed with his own hand. One of the greatest saints of the church reading and approving the scenarii of the Commedia dell’Arte is a fact as significant as it is striking. Niccolo Barbieri (Beltrame) says in his Discorso that Braga, the Pantaloon of the company of Valerini, as well as the Pedrolino, still possessed in his day (1634) manuscripts approved and signed by Saint Charles Borromeo.
In 1601, Virginia Ramponi filled the rôles of leading lady in the Gelosi troupe. G. B. Andreini fell in love with her and married her in 1601. He wrote for her his first piece under the title of Florinda in consequence of the name which she bore in the theatre. She died somewhere about 1634.
In the French company at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, an Italian actress was playing in 1617, under the Gallicised name of Florentine, the rôles of leading lady, and the daughters of Gros-Guillaume.
In the Fedeli troupe, in 1624, Margarita Luciani, the wife of Girolamo Gavarini (Captain Rhinoceros), died a few days after her husband, and as devoutly as he.
In 1635, Lidia, an actress of great merit, was the second wife of G. B. Andreini, the director of the company.
In 1652, Eularia Coris, a young and charming comedienne, was one of the last actresses to sustain by her talent the weakening vogue of the Fedeli troupe. She contributed, with Lidia, to the success of a devout dramatic piece entitled La Maddalena Lasciva e Penitente, performed for the first time in 1607.
“The list of characters is curious,” says M. Charles Magnin; “beside Magdalen, Martha and Lazarus, the principal parts are those of the Archangel Michael, several angels, Divine Grace, three lovers of Magdalen, her page, her waiting-woman, her seneschal, her cook, two dwarfs and three old women of ill repute. In the first three acts there is no question of anything but gallantry and merry-making. Magdalen, abandoned absolutely to her senses, closes her ears to the wise counsels of Martha her sister. In the third act, penitent and contrite, she renounces pleasure, assumes a hair-shirt, is favoured by ecstatic visions, and finally ascends to heaven, borne in the arms of five cherubims, whilst the Archangel Michael and Divine Grace exhort the audience to follow the example of this reconciled sinner.”
Agata Calderoni, known under the name of Flaminia in Italy, was the grandmother of Virginia Baletti, the wife of Riccoboni (Lelio), and she took the theatre name of Flaminia, which had become hereditary in the family.
“Is it you, Aurelia—beautiful Aurelia?—you, whose riches are your least attraction, and heaven alone knows how rich you are! You, whose beauty and goodness match your wealth and generosity, deign to answer me, O my hope, my future! Deign to accept my services! Permit me to follow you that I may read in your eyes your least desire! Command of me all that it is humanly possible to do! I deliver myself up to you, body and soul; I am your slave.”
Aurelia replies: “Are you Horace? No! You are not the man I love, who will be my slave only in becoming my master. Withdraw, I must not listen to you! If you are come to demand of me nothing but my love, I answer you that you may claim of me any other alms but not that of my heart.”
Whilst in Italy the rôles of leading lady were being interpreted by Orsola Bianchi, born in Venice, they were being filled in France by her sister, Brigida Bianchi, known by the name of Aurelia. She went to Paris in 1640 with Tiberio Fiurelli, left it in the following year, to return again in 1645, with her father, Giuseppe Bianchi, the director of the troupe, her sisters Luigia and Orsola and her husband, Marco Romagnesi.
In 1659 Aurelia wrote a piece, L’Inganno Fortunato, which she dedicated to the queen-mother. The queen-mother found the piece to her taste and conveyed her thanks to Aurelia in the shape of a present consisting of a pair of diamond earrings of exquisite workmanship, said by Loret to be worth three hundred pistoles.
Aurelia left Paris at the end of June of 1659, but was absent only a year. Upon learning of the death of Romagnesi, her husband, she returned there in 1660, re-entered the theatre and did not retire until 1683. She remained in Paris after going into retirement; she resided in the Rue Saint-Denis, near the convent of the great Saint-Chaumont, where she passed away at the age of ninety, in 1703.
She was a very beautiful woman, with great taste in dress, and passionately addicted to her toilet. Mademoiselle Belmont, the wife of Romagnesi de Belmont (Léandre), her grandson, says that she found her upon her deathbed beautifully dressed in the very latest mode.
Aurelia had been very much beloved by Anne of Austria; like Scaramouche she was admitted to the intimacy of the queen.
Orsola Corteze, known in the theatre under the name of Eularia, made her début in Paris in 1660 at the age of twenty-three. Her mother, Barbara Corteze, known under the name of Florinda, claimed for her husband descent from Hernando Cortez, the conqueror of Mexico. Orsolo Corteze married Giuseppe-Domenico Biancolelli (Harlequin), at Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois, and bore him twelve children.
“She was tall and well made without being beautiful; and of an extremely amiable disposition.” She undertook the parts of leading lady after the retirement of Aurelia, and remained in the theatre until 1680. In 1704 she withdrew to Montargis, to the convent of the Sisters of the Visitation of Mary, and died there in 1718 at the age of eighty-six.
Françoise-Marie-Apolline Biancolelli, the daughter of the famous Harlequin Domenico Biancolelli and of Orsola Corteze, was born in Paris in 1664, and made her first appearance there in 1683 in the rôles of leading lady, under the nom de guerre of Isabelle. At the same time her younger sister undertook the parts of soubrette under the name of Columbine.
“Never” (says Devizé) “was the Comédie-Italienne so applauded as it is now. If Harlequin is inimitable in the various rôles in which he is to be seen performing, his two daughters are no less so; the various characters which they play are so admirably rendered that they have earned the applause of all Paris, which never wearies of admiring them. Never has one beheld so much intelligence for comedy combined with so much youth. There is no part undertaken by them of which they do not acquit themselves with such a grace that when they appear upon the stage it almost seems that they must have been born solely for the character which they represent.”
The following monologue from Gherardi presents a resumé of the dominant character of the Isabella type:
“Sirs, in the deplorable state into which gallantry has fallen, it is not surprising that a woman should be compelled to uphold the cause of all her sisters. Our sex might wait long and in vain for the other to undertake the task of avenging it. Since taverns and tobacco-shops have become so fashionable women have ceased to please; and love, powerful though he be, is unable in the minds of young men to offer adequate compensation for the fatuous and brutal pleasure of a debauch at l’Alliance or la Galère.
“Where are the days when the fair sex beheld the flower of youth assiduously at its feet?—those days which might rightly be called the golden age of tenderness, when hearts came in squadrons to reconnoitre our power! In those happy days none was sure of conquering us, and banishment followed quickly upon the least wrong that should be done us. But the face of things is changed. We no longer behold at this time of day a thousand indefatigable adventurers ready to sustain our cause against all the world; and love, which in other times was a source of riches to our sex, is to-day no more than a source of ruin.
“It is not in our century that you must seek those magnificent heroines who came forward to repair, at the price of their jewels, the most cruel desolations of war, and thus to place themselves side by side with the most famous conquerors. Gallantry to-day is no longer recognisable, or else it haggles even in the matter of little favours; and far from stripping oneself of everything in the service of love, one’s heart is given only with reservations. But that which has most contributed to decry gallantry is the unworthy profanation of our attractions by uniting us daily to imbecile old men, members of a nation which in all times has been contemned by the kingdom of love. These bizarre matches, which avarice suggests to our parents, open the door to innumerable abuses. They constitute a nursery for separations, and a clear source of profit to so many coquettish abbés who are everlastingly lying in wait for marriages of this description.
“Is it credible that there should be girls so innocent as to accept without vexation these changes in the matter of marriage? And is not the sweet idea of matrimony which we form for ourselves incompatible with the austerities to which bespectacled husbands would subject us? Are we not aware that Hymen’s is a sort of warfare from which old men and children are disqualified? What sort of a figure can an old dodderer be expected to cut under the banner of Hymen, or rather what sort of a figure can a young girl be expected to cut beside a husband who catechises her at every hour, who counts the steps she takes, who does not open his lips save to contradict her or to beguile her with tales of his bygone prowess? a sour-faced fellow who accounts the addition of a ribbon to his wife’s head-dress as a crime, and who sets questions to his servants on the score of the most innocent movements of his better half? I do not even touch upon that legion of infirmities of which old age is the prey, nor the unbearable cough which is the music to which an old man invariably treats his young wife. You are not to suppose that I do not see something heroic in the sad fidelity of which a woman has the courage to pride herself towards husbands of this kind, but it is necessary that I should frankly confess my own weakness. In a similar extremity I could answer only for a stony inflexibility never to depart from the hatred which at the outset I must conceive for any old man who should dare to attempt my liberty.”
When she is in love she recoils before nothing to disembarrass herself of the fetters imposed upon her by the paternal will:
Isabelle (dressed as a man, before the mirror adjusting her cravat). Give me that hat, Pierrot. Do you find in me a cavalier to your taste?
Pierrot. Pardi, mademoiselle, you are charming. You might be mistaken for me. Yet there is a little difference. Are you going to raise a company of infantry?
Isabelle. Do not think to mock me. I should not tremble more than another under fire.
Pierrot. If all captains were of your kind they might save enlisting expenses and produce their own soldiers.
Isabelle. I do not assume this costume without reason. You know that my father wants me to marry M. Bassinet.
Pierrot. Your father? Good! He is a drivelling old fool, as I have told him.
Isabelle. I am making use of this disguise to avoid that marriage. M. Bassinet has never seen me. He is coming to pay me a visit, and I shall await him in this apparel. I am going to give him news of Isabelle, and—by heaven!—I shall quench his desire to marry her.
Pierrot. Mordi, now, there’s a daring girl! I have always told your father that I never believed he was your mother’s husband when you were born. You have too much spirit. Don’t you think so?
Isabelle. Oh, as for me, Pierrot, that does not trouble me. I am concerned only to put an end, if I can, to this impertinent marriage by which I am threatened. But here comes, I think, M. Bassinet. Leave me with him; I shall play my part.
Pierrot (going off). Pardi, it is the man himself. He looks like an old boar.
Isabelle (seats herself nonchalantly in an arm-chair. The Doctor enters). Your servant, sir; your servant.
The Doctor (perceiving Isabelle, and mistaking her for a man). Sir, I beg your pardon. I was told that Mademoiselle Isabelle was in her chamber. (Aside.) What the devil’s this coxcomb doing here?
Isabelle. Sir, she is not here, and I am awaiting her. But you, sir, what do you seek? Is mademoiselle ill? From your countenance I take you to be a doctor, and you have all the appearances of a member of the faculty.
The Doctor. You are not mistaken, sir. I am a nursling of Hippocrates. But I am not here to feel the pulse of Isabelle. My pretensions are quite otherwise.
Isabelle. Indeed. And of what nature, pray, are the pretensions of a doctor towards a young girl?
The Doctor. I seek to marry her.
Isabelle (laughing). Ah! ah! ah!
The Doctor. You find it droll?
Isabelle. Not at all; but it is that ... ah! ah! ah! I laugh like that sometimes, ah! ah! ah!
The Doctor (considering himself in a mirror). Is my face dirty?
Isabelle. No, I am just laughing. Ah! ah! ah!... Tell me, sir, in determining to take so perilous a leap, I hope that you have properly sounded yourself? You have not, perchance, discovered any little headache, eh? You understand me?
The Doctor. Not at all, sir. I am very well. I am not subject to headaches.
Isabelle (placing her hand upon his brow). My faith! You will be able to wear them very well, and I would as soon that you should marry that girl as another.
The Doctor. And so would I.
Isabelle. But when she is your wife do not spoil her by your ridiculous manners. We have had a good deal of trouble to bring her to her present state. I shall be accounted among your friends, and I intend when you are married to come to you without ceremony to eat your capon.
The Doctor. Sir, you do me too much honour, but I never eat poultry. From what I hear, you are perfectly acquainted with the lady in question?
Isabelle. Our acquaintance does not date from yesterday, and if you are discreet I can tell you something concerning her which I am sure you do not know.
The Doctor. Oh, you can tell me everything and depend upon my discretion. You know that doctors——
Isabelle. I spend ... but I must take care that no one overhears us.... I spend every night in her chamber.
The Doctor (stupefied). In her chamber?
Isabelle. In her chamber, and I could even tell you—— But you are sure to talk?
The Doctor. No, no, I swear it!
Isabelle. Last night my head reposed upon the same pillow. Draw your own conclusions from that.
The Doctor. On the same pillow?
Isabelle. And it will be the same again to-morrow. Still, what I have told you should not hinder you from carrying through the affair. A real lover is not to be put off by trifles.
The Doctor. Trifles! Fine trifles! After all, nothing presses yet in the matter of this marriage. Farewell, sir. Heaven has befriended me. Here is a young man who loves me. (Exit.)
Isabelle. I think that his vapours of love for Isabelle are over now. In the quarter of an hour during which I have played the man, I have been a fairly complete rascal.
The rôles of Isabelle are usually purely comedy ones. It is no part of her business to affect her audience or even to engross it. She is concerned to enliven the stage with her satires, her fantasies and her wit. She speaks like a man, and she has the knowledge, the audacity and the self-assertion of one.