NOTE ON SYMBOLS

I have found it convenient, especially in Appendix A, to use the symbol < following a date, to indicate an uncertain date not earlier than that named, and the symbol > followed by a date, to indicate an uncertain date not later than that named. Thus 1903 <> 23 would indicate the composition date of any part of this book. I have sometimes placed the date of a play in italics, where it was desirable to indicate the date of production rather than publication.

[1]

XIX STAGING AT COURT

[Bibliographical Note.—Of the dissertations named in the note to ch. xviii, T. S. Graves, The Court and the London Theatres (1913), is perhaps the most valuable for the subject of the present chapter, which was mainly written before it reached me. A general account of the Italian drama of the Renaissance is in W. Creizenach, Geschichte des neueren Dramas, vol. ii (1901). Full details for Ferrara and Mantua are given by A. D’Ancona, Origini del Teatro Italiano (1891), of which App. II is a special study of Il Teatro Mantovano nel secolo xvi. F. Neri, La Tragedia italiana del Cinquecento (1904), E. Gardner, Dukes and Poets at Ferrara (1904), and The King of Court Poets (1906), W. Smith, The Commedia dell’ Arte (1912), are also useful. Special works on staging are E. Flechsig, Die Dekorationen der modernen Bühne in Italien (1894), and G. Ferrari, La Scenografia (1902). The Terence engravings are described by M. Herrmann, Forschungen zur deutschen Theatergeschichte des Mittelalters und der Renaissance (1914). Of contemporary Italian treatises, the unprinted

Spectacula of Pellegrino Prisciano is in Cod. Est. lat. d. x. 1, 6 (cf. G. Bertoni, La Biblioteca Estense, 13), and of L. de Sommi’s Dialoghi in materia di rappresentazione scenica (c. 1565) a part only is in L. Rasi, I Comici italiani (1897), i. 107. The first complete edition of S. Serlio, Architettura (1551), contains Bk. ii, on Perspettiva; the English translation was published by R. Peake (1611); extracts are in App. G; a biography is L. Charvet, Sébastien Serlio (1869). Later are L. Sirigatti, La pratica di prospettiva (1596), A. Ingegneri, Della poesia rappresentativa e del modo di rappresentare le favole sceniche (1598), and N. Sabbatini, Pratica di fabricar scene e macchine ne’ Teatri (1638).

For France, E. Rigal, Le Théâtre de la Renaissance and Le Théâtre au xviie siècle avant Corneille, both in L. Petit de Julleville, Hist. de la Langue et de la Litt. Françaises (1897), iii. 261, iv. 186, and the same writer’s Le Théâtre Français avant la Période Classique (1901), may be supplemented by a series of studies in Revue d’Histoire Littéraire de la France—P. Toldo, La Comédie Française de la Renaissance (1897–1900, iv. 336; v. 220, 554; vi. 571; vii. 263), G. Lanson, Études sur les Origines de la Tragédie Classique en France (1903, x. 177, 413) and L’Idée de la Tragédie en France avant Jodelle (1904, xi. 541), E. Rigal, La Mise en Scène dans les Tragédies du xvie siècle (1905, xii. 1, 203), J. Haraszti, La Comédie Française de la Renaissance et la Scène (1909, xvi. 285); also G. Lanson, Note sur un Passage de Vitruve, in Revue de la Renaissance (1904), 72. Less important is E. Lintilhac, Hist. Générale du Théâtre en France (1904–9, in progress). G. Bapst, Essai sur l’Histoire du Théâtre

(1893), and D. C. Stuart, Stage Decoration and the Unity of Place in France in the Seventeenth Century (1913, M. P. x. 393), deal with staging, for which the chief material is E. Dacier, La Mise en Scène à Paris au xviie siècle: Mémoire de L. Mahelot et M. Laurent in Mémoires de la Soc. de l’Hist. de Paris et de l’Ile-de-France, xxviii (1901), 105. An edition by H. C. Lancaster (1920) adds Mahelot’s designs.]

We come now to the problems, reserved from treatment in the foregoing chapter, of scenic background. What sort of setting did the types of theatre described afford for the[2] plots, often complicated, and the range of incident, so extraordinarily wide, which we find in Elizabethan drama? No subject in literary history has been more often or more minutely discussed, during the quarter of a century since the Swan drawing was discovered, and much valuable spadework has been done, not merely in the collecting and marshalling of external evidence, but also in the interpretation of this in the light of an analysis of the action of plays and of the stage-directions by which these are accompanied.[1] Some points have emerged clearly enough; and if on others there is still room for controversy, this may be partly due to the fact that external and internal evidence, when put together, have proved inadequate, and partly also to certain defects of method into which some of the researchers have fallen. To start from the assumption

of a ‘typical Shakespearian stage’ is not perhaps the best way of approaching an investigation which covers the practices of thirty or forty playing companies, in a score of theatres, over a period of not much less than a century. It is true that, in view of the constant shifting of companies and their plays from one theatre to another, some ‘standardization of effects’, in Mr. Archer’s phrase, may at any one date be taken for granted.[2] But analogous effects can be produced by very different arrangements, and even apart from the obvious probability that the structural divergences between public and private theatres led to corresponding divergences in the systems of setting adopted, it is hardly safe to neglect the possibility of a considerable evolution in the capacities of stage-management between 1558 and 1642, or even between 1576 and 1616. At any rate a historical treatment will be well advised to follow the historical method. The scope of the inquiry, moreover, must be wide enough to cover performances at

Court, as well as those on the regular stage, since the plays used for both purposes were undoubtedly the same. Nor can Elizabethan Court performances, in their turn, be properly considered, except in the perspective afforded by a short preliminary survey of the earlier developments of the art of scenic representation at other Renaissance Courts.

The story begins with the study of Vitruvius in the latter part of the fifteenth century by the architect Alberti and others, which led scholars to realize that the tragedies of the pseudo-Seneca and the comedies of Terence and the recently discovered Plautus had been not merely recited, but acted much in the fashion already familiar in contemporary ludi of[3] the miracle-play type.[3] The next step was, naturally, to act them, in the original or in translations. Alberti planned a theatrum in the Vatican for Nicholas V, but the three immediate successors of Nicholas were not humanists, and it is not until the papacy of Innocent VIII that we hear of classical performances at Rome by the pupils of Pomponius Laetus. One of these was Tommaso Inghirami, who became a cardinal, without escaping the nickname of Phaedra from the part he had played in Hippolytus. This, as well as at least one comedy, had already been given before the publication (c. 1484–92) of an edition of Vitruvius by Sulpicius Verulanus, with an epistle addressed by the editor to

Cardinal Raffaelle Riario, as a notable patron of the revived art. Sulpicius is allusive rather than descriptive, but we hear of a fair adorned stage, 5 ft. high, for the tragedy in the forum, of a second performance in the Castle of St. Angelo, and a third in Riario’s house, where the audience sat under umbracula, and of the ‘picturatae scenae facies’, which the cardinal provided for a comedy by the Pomponiani.[4][4] Performances continued after the death of Pomponius in 1597, but we get no more scenic details, and when the Menaechmi was given at the wedding of Alfonso d’Este and Lucrezia Borgia in 1502 it is noted that ‘non gli era scena alcuna, perchè la camera non era capace’.[5] It is not until 1513 that we get anything like a description of a Roman neo-classical stage, at the conferment of Roman citizenship on Giuliano and Lorenzo de’ Medici, the Florentine kinsmen of Leo X.[6] This had a decorated back wall divided by pilasters into five spaces, in each of which was a door covered by a curtain of golden

stuff. There were also two side-doors, for entrance and exit, marked ‘via ad forum’.

An even more important centre of humanistic drama than Rome was Ferrara, where the poets and artists, who gathered round Duke Ercole I of Este, established a tradition which spread to the allied courts of the Gonzagas at Mantua and the Delle Rovere at Urbino. The first neo-classical revival on record at Ferrara was of the Menaechmi in 1486, from which we learn that Epidamnus was represented by five marvellous ‘case’ each with its door and window, and that a practicable boat moved across the cortile where the performance was given.[7]

In 1487 it was the turn of the Amphitrio ‘in dicto cortile a tempo di notte, con uno paradiso cum stelle et altre rode’.[8][5] Both the Amphitrio and the Menaechmi were revived in 1491; the former had its ‘paradiso’, while for the latter ‘nella sala era al prospecto de quattro castelli, dove avevano a uscire quilli dovevano fare la representatione’.[9] Many other productions followed, of some of which no details are preserved. For the Eunuchus, Trinummus, and Penulus in 1499 there was a stage, 4 ft. high, with decorated columns, hangings of red, white, and green cloth, and ‘cinque casamenti merlati’ painted by Fino and Bernardino Marsigli.[10] In 1502, when Lucrezia Borgia came, the stage for the Epidicus, Bacchides, Miles Gloriosus, Casina, and Asinaria was of the height of a man, and resembled a city wall, ‘sopra gli sono le case de le comedie, che sono sei, non avantagiate del consueto’.[11] The most elaborate description on record is, however, one of a theatre set up at Mantua during the carnival of 1501, for some play of which the name has not

reached us. Unfortunately it is not very clearly worded, but the stage appears to have been rather wider than its depth, arcaded round, and hung at the back with gold and greenery. Its base had the priceless decoration of Mantegna’s Triumphs, and above was a heaven with a representation of the zodiac. Only one ‘casa’ is noted, a ‘grocta’ within four columns at a corner of the stage.[12]

[6]

The scanty data available seem to point to the existence of two rather different types of staging, making their appearance at Ferrara and at Rome respectively. The scene of the Ferrarese comedies, with its ‘case’ as the principal feature, is hardly distinguishable from that of the mediaeval sacre rappresentazioni, with its ‘luoghi deputati’ for the leading personages, which in their turn correspond to the ‘loci’, ‘domus’, or ‘sedes’ of the western miracle-plays.[13] The methods of the rappresentazioni had long been adopted for pieces in the mediaeval manner, but upon secular themes, such as Poliziano’s Favola d’Orfeo, which continued, side by side with the classical comedies, to form part of the entertainment of Duke Ercole’s Court.[14] The persistence of the mediaeval tradition is very clearly seen in the interspersing of the acts of the comedies, just as the rappresentazioni had been interspersed, with ‘moresche’ and other ‘intermedii’ of spectacle and dance, to which the ‘dumb-shows’

of the English drama owe their ultimate origin.[15] At Rome, on the other hand, it looks as if, at any rate by 1513, the ‘case’ had been conventionalized, perhaps under the influence of some archaeological theory as to classical methods, into nothing more than curtained compartments forming part of the architectural embellishments of the scena wall. It is a tempting conjecture that some reflex, both of the Ferrarese and of the Roman experiments, may be traced in the woodcut illustrations of a number of printed editions of Terence, which are all derived from archetypes published in the last decade of the fifteenth century. The synchronism between[7] the revival of classical acting and the emergence of scenic features in such illustrations is certainly marked. The Terentian miniatures of the earlier part of the century show no Vitruvian knowledge. If they figure a performance, it is a recitation by the wraith Calliopius and his gesticulating mimes.[16] Nor is there any obvious scenic influence in the printed Ulm Eunuchus of 1486, with its distinct background for each separate

woodcut.[17] The new spirit comes in with the Lyons Terence of 1493, wherein may be seen the hand of the humanist Jodocus Badius Ascensius, who had certainly visited Ferrara, and may well also have been in touch with the Pomponiani.[18] The Lyons woodcuts, of which there are several to each play, undoubtedly represent stage performances, real or imaginary. The stage itself is an unrailed quadrangular platform, of which the supports are sometimes visible. The back wall is decorated with statuettes and swags of Renaissance ornament, and in front of it is a range of three, four, or five small compartments, separated by columns and veiled by fringed curtains. They have rather the effect of a row of bathing boxes. Over each is inscribed the name of a character, whose ‘house’ it is supposed to be. Thus for the Andria the inscriptions are ‘Carini’, ‘Chreme[tis]’, ‘Chrisidis’, ‘Do[mus] Symonis’. On the scaffold, before the houses, action is proceeding between characters each labelled with his name. Sometimes a curtain is drawn back and a character is

emerging, or the interior of a house is revealed, with some one sitting or in bed, and a window behind. It is noteworthy that, while the decoration of the back wall and the arrangement of the houses remain uniform through all the woodcuts belonging to any one play, they vary from play to play. Sometimes the line of houses follows that of the wall; sometimes it advances and retires, and may leave a part of the wall uncovered, suggesting an entrance from without. In addition to the special woodcuts for each play, there is a large introductory design of a ‘Theatrum’. It is a round building, with an exterior staircase, to which spectators are proceeding,[8] and are accosted on their way by women issuing from the ‘Fornices’, over which the theatre is built. Through the removal of part of the walls, the interior is also made visible. It has two galleries and standing-room below. A box next the stage in the upper gallery is marked ‘Aediles’. The stage is cut off by curtains, which are divided by two narrow columns. In front of the

curtains sits a flute-player. Above is inscribed ‘Proscenium’. Some of the Lyons cuts are adopted, with others from the Ulm Eunuchus, in the Strasburg Terence of 1496.[19] This, however, has a different ‘Theatrum’, which shows the exterior only, and also a new comprehensive design for each play, in which no scaffold or back wall appears, and the houses are drawn on either side of an open place, with the characters standing before them. They are more realistic than the Lyons ‘bathing boxes’ and have doors and windows and roofs, but they are drawn, like the Ulm houses, on a smaller scale than the characters. If they have a scenic origin, it may be rather in the ‘case’ of Ferrara than in the conventional ‘domus’ of Rome. Finally, the Venice Terence of 1497, while again reproducing with modifications the smaller Lyons cuts, replaces the ‘Theatrum’ by a new ‘Coliseus sive Theatrum’, in which the point of view is taken from the proscenium.[20] No raised stage is visible, but an actor or prologue is speaking from

a semicircular orchestra on the floor-level. To right and left of him are two houses, of the ‘bathing-box’ type, but roofed, from which characters emerge. He faces an auditorium with two rows of seats and a gallery above.

We are moving in shadowy regions of conjecture, and if all the material were forthcoming, the interrelations of Rome and Ferrara and the Terentian editors might prove to have been somewhat different from those here sketched. After all, we have not found anything which quite explains the ‘picturatae scenae facies’ for which Cardinal Raffaelle Riario won such praise, and perhaps Ferrara is not really entitled to credit for the innovation, which is generally supposed to have accompanied the production of the first of Ariosto’s great Italian comedies on classical lines, the Cassaria of 1508. This is the utilization for stage scenery of the beloved Italian art of architectural perspective. It has been suggested, on no very secure grounds, that the first to experiment in this[9] direction may have been the architect Bramante Lazzari.[21] But the scene of the Cassaria is the earliest which is described by contemporary observers as a prospettiva, and it evidently left a vivid impression upon the imagination of the spectators.[22] The artist was

Pellegrino da Udine, and the city represented was Mytilene, where the action of the Cassaria was laid. The same, or another, example of perspective may have served as a background in the following year for Ariosto’s second comedy, I Suppositi, of which the scene was Ferrara itself.[23] But other artists, in other cities, followed in the footsteps of Pellegrino. The designer for the first performance of Bernardo da Bibbiena’s Calandra at Urbino in 1513 was probably Girolamo Genga;[24] and for the second, at Rome in 1514, Baldassarre Peruzzi, to whom Vasari perhaps gives exaggerated credit for scenes which ‘apersono la via a coloro che ne hanno poi fatte a’ tempi nostri’.[25] Five years later, I Suppositi was also revived at Rome, in the Sala d’ Innocenzio of the Vatican, and on this occasion no less an artist was employed than Raphael himself.[26] As well as the scene, there was an elaborately painted front curtain, which fell at[10] the beginning of the performance. For this device, something analogous

to which had almost certainly already been used at Ferrara, there was a precedent in the classical aulaeum. Its object was apparently to give the audience a sudden vision of the scene, and it was not raised again during the action of the play, and had therefore no strictly scenic function.[27]

The sixteenth-century prospettiva, of which there were many later examples, is the type of scenery so fully described and illustrated by the architect Sebastiano Serlio in the Second Book of his Architettura (1551). Serlio had himself been the designer of a theatre at Vicenza, and had also been familiar at Rome with Baldassarre Peruzzi, whose notes had passed into his possession. He was therefore well in the movement.[28] At the time of the publication of the Architettura he was resident in France, where he was employed, like other Italians, by Francis I upon the palace of Fontainebleau. Extracts from Serlio’s treatise will be found in an appendix and I need therefore only briefly summarize here the system of staging which it sets out.[29] This is a combination of the more or less solid ‘case’ with flat cloths painted in perspective. The proscenium is long and comparatively shallow, with an entrance at each end, and flat. But from the line of the scena wall the level of the stage slopes slightly upwards and backwards, and on this slope