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The Braggart in Italian Renaissance Comedy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Daniel C. Boughner
Daniel C. Boughner*
Affiliation:
Northwestern University
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Extract

The chief purpose of this paper is to describe one phase of the domestication of Latin drama on the Renaissance stage, specifically to show how a conventional type made famous by the Roman comedians, the miles gloriosus, was fashioned by the academic playwrights of sixteenth-century Italy into an instrument of contemporary satire. A secondary aim is to provide a fuller literary background for the study of the braggart in Elizabethan drama. Such analysis requires a summary of themes, situations, and attitudes that have enriched the comic tradition of Europe, and demands also a definition of the comic spirit that exposes and derides the vainglorious folly of the alazon or boaster who struts and brags of his merits in utter disregard of truth. Menander and his disciples in Latin comedy developed a satiric method which the Italians borrowed for the ridicule of modern representatives of the alazon. Any consideration of the commedia erudita must also be prefaced by a review of the political conditions in Italy that brought to prominence such hated types as the Spaniard and other mercenary soldiers. This paper describes the rôle of the Spaniard and traces the evolution of the braggart from the imitations of Plautus and Terence, through the modifications of conventional themes, and finally to the new elements inspired by the changed domestic conditions of the peninsula.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 58 , Issue 1 , March 1943 , pp. 42 - 83
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1943

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References

1 See Lucian, Works, tr. H. W. and F. G. Fowler, 4 vols. (Oxford, 1905), iv, 64–67; Plautus, ed. and tr. P. Nixon, 5 vols. (London and New York: Loeb, 1924–38), Epidicus, ii, 449 ff.; Terence, ed. and tr. J. Sargeaunt, 2 vols. (London and New York: Loeb, 1912), Heautontimorumenos, ii, 111–117.

2 O. Ribbeck, Der Alazon (Leipzig, 1882), pp. 30–51; Gr. Senigaglia, Capitan Spavento (Firenze, 1899), pp. 27–31; S. Eitrem, The Colax (Christiania, 1906), pp. 3–8; P. E. Legrand, The Greek New Comedy, tr. Loeb (London, 1917), pp. 220–222; and Paul Lejay, Plaute (Paris, 1925), pp. 119–120.

3 Legrand, 94–97 and Eitrem.

4 Menander, Fragments, ed. and tr. F. G. Allinson (London and New York: Loeb, 1930), Colax, pp. 382–397, and Misoumenos, p. 413. In the latter Thrasonides sighs that a worthless wench has enslaved him, whom no enemy could vanquish—a recurrent theme. In the former play, Bias appears in the fragments only once, as a heavy drinker.

5 Cf. the gibe at Stratophanes (pp. 434–437).

6 The same mood and similar themes occur in the presentations of the soldier in Theophrastus (Characters, ed. and tr. J. M. Edmonds [London and New York: Loeb, 1929], pp. 98–109; and in Lucian, iv, 72–78).

7 That the Romans enjoyed this picture of the soldier is obvious from the numerous (eight) examples in Latin comedy, whatever the degree of remoteness of Latin comedy from Roman life. The professional soldier did not exist among the Romans at the time. Yet the encounter with Greeks, Carthaginians, and their mercenaries must have sharpened the palate of the Latin for a mocking or satirical portrayal of such warriors. Professor Frank estimates that ninety percent of the able-bodied men in the audience of Plautus had served in campaigns among and with the Greeks (Life and Literature in the Roman Republic [Berkeley, 1930], pp. 69 ff.). See also F. A. Wright, Three Roman Poets (New York, 1938), pp. 35–40; E. Fraenkel, Plautinisches im Plautus (Berlin, 1922), pp. 231–239 and 253 ff.; R. M Westaway, Original Element in Plautus (Cambridge, 1917), pp. 26–56; Lejay, 119–121; Senigaglia, 33–34; and Legrand, 37–46 and 466–467.

8 He has fought

in campis Curculioniis,
ubi Bumbomachides Clutomistaridysarchides
erat imperator summus, Neptuni nepos (Miles Gloriosas, ll. 13–15).

9 1–8.

10 24 and 33–35. The captain sends the toady off with recruits early in the play.

11 “Elephanti corio” (235–236).

12 17–53 and 1273. The seal on the ring of Therapontigonus was a bucklered warrior dividing an elephant with his sword (Curculio, 424).

13 58–59, 777, 1054–55, and 1085–86.

14 1076–81.

15 Though a chaser of both sexes (1111–13) he makes adultery his leading interest: “moechus” is a frequent epithet (775, 924, 1131, and 1436).

16 802.

17 1264 and 1413–22.

18 1435–37.

19 1423, 64 and 768, and 923–924.

20 1063–65.

21 106–107, 1302–04, and 1063–64.

22 Bacchides, ll. 843–918. The slave jeers that Cleomachus captures cities with no other weapon than his mighty tongue (962). The senex is moved to furnish the money to release the harlot by the pretext that Cleomachus is about to kill his “wife” and his rival (the old man's son), whom he has surprised together on the couch—a trick similar to the Elizabethan cross-biting.

23 Poenulus, ll. 471–472 and 1289.

24 1300–25. He forces the pimp to disgorge the money (1285). Polymachaeroplagides (whose martial attributes are presented largely by his name) does not appear in Pseudolus; he is merely an obstacle to the lovers. But his orderly Harpax swaggers and is tricked out of the girl intended for the captain (ll. 607–650 and 1103 ff.).

25 Truculentus, l. 508.

26 482 and 540.

27 925–963.

28 Senigaglia believes the theme a contribution of commedia erudita (115–121). Menander presented it in Misoumenos (p. 413).

29 Truculentus, 600–630.

30 See above, n. 12.

31 Curculio, ll. 340–729 passim.

32 Epidicus, ll. 436–444.

33 Indeed, he makes only one general reference to battles and scars (Eunuchus, ll. 482–483).

34 391–139.

35 1079–80.

36 479 and 496.

37 755–811.

38 761–764.

39 1025–27.

40 741.

41 The view presented above is familiar to students of Elizabethan critical theory. English writings accord with tradition as represented by Horace, Donatus (whose essay was found in almost all eds. of Terence printed in England or on the continent, 1500–1600), and Scaliger that comedy is a mirror of daily life and that writers of comedy, like the satirists, employed ridicule as a means of dissuasion from vice. Cf. Elyot, Puttenham, Sidney, and Jonson. Among the living types susceptible of corrective representation on the stage were “a busie loving Courtier, a hartlesse threatning Thraso” (Sidney, Defense of Poesie, ed. Feuillerat [Cambridge, 1923], pp. 23 and 41). See O. J. Campbell, Comicall Satyre (San Marino, 1938), pp. 1–34.

A brief selection of references will show how the miles gloriosus was used for satire. Gascoigne likens boasting soldiers in London to “Thraso and his trayne” (Works, ed. Cunliffe, 2 vols. [Cambridge, 1907–10], i, 157). Greene satirized low-born courtiers as strutters like “Philopolimarchides [Polymachaeroplagides], the braggart in Plautus” (Works, ed. Grosart, 15 vols. [London, 1881–86], xi, 215–216). Nashe called the foppish upstart and pretended intimate of great lords a “proude Thraso” (Works, ed. McKerrow, 5 vols. [London, 1910], i, 241–242). Some roaring boys “Thrasonically countenance themselves wt the title of a Souldior” (Greene, ix, 249). The fashionable gallant and bogus traveller was also a “Thraso” (Rowlands, Letting of Hvmovrs Blood, in Works, Hunterian Club, 3 vols. [Glasgow, 1881], i, p. 19). Such references show that the similarity between the stage braggart and hated local types was a commonplace of Elizabethan observation.

42 U. A. Canello, Storia della Letteratura Italiana nel Secolo XVI (Milano, 1880), pp. 1–14; Benedetto Croce, La Spagna nella Vita Italiana durante la Rinascenza, 2nd ed. rev. (Bari, 1922), p. 118. Cf. Croce, Saggi sulla Letteratura Italiana del Seicento (Bari, 1911), pp. 278–297; and C. Cipolla, Storia delle Signorie Italiane al 1530, 2 vols. (Milano, 1881), ii, 925–973. R. W. Bond makes a convenient summary of the details of contemporary life reflected in Italian comedy (Early Plays from the Italian [Oxford, 1911], Introduction). He follows A. Agresti, Studii sulla Commedia Italiana del Secolo XVI (Napoli, 1871). Cf. V. de Amicis, L'Imitazione Latina nella Commedia Italiana del XVI Secolo (Pisa, 1871), pp. 75–78.

43 Machiavelli, carried away by his low opinion of mercenaries, relates that in the battle of Anghiari only one died, as the result of a fall from his horse (Historie Fiorentine, V, 215–216, in Tutte le Opere [n. p.], 1550). Yet the field was covered with corpses (so says Villari). On Machiavelli's view of soldiers, see The Prince, tr. A. H. Gilbert (Chicago, 1941), Chapter 12, and p. 44.

44 De Amicis, 123–124; Jacob Burckhardt, Renaissance in Italy (London, 1929), pp. 110–119; J. S. Kennard, The Italian Theater, 2 vols. (New York, 1932), i, 108–109 and 129–130; K. M. Lea, Italian Popular Comedy, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1934), i, 41–51; Senigaglia, 7–27; and Luigi Rasi, I Comici Italiani, 3 vols. (Firenze, 1897–1905), i, 82–85, etc.

45 Francesco Guicciardini has left a famous account of these events in La Historia d'Italia, Libro xviii, 70–135 (Parma, 1572). It must be remembered that other mercenaries, for instance the Germans, took part in the sacking. Five other contemporary accounts are collected by C. Milanesi in Il Sacco di Roma (Firenze, 1867).

46 Croce, La Spagna, 235–240. He cites comedies that satirize the Spaniard's taking ways: for example, the hand-kissing interpreted sarcastically as a means of stealing rings (Gianmaria Cecchi, Il Corredo, iii, 6, in Comedie [Venetia, 1585]). For a realistic Spanish picture of the high-handed manner of the swashbuckling invader toward native Italians, see Bartolomé de Torres Naharro's Comedia Soldadesca in the Propaladia, repr. Manuel Cañete, 2 vols. (Madrid, 1880–90), i, 288–342, especially “Jornada Tercera” and “Jornada Quinta.” Cf. Lope de Vega, Amar sin Saber a Quién, Acto ii, escena 10.

47 Croce notes that many contemporary documents confirm this view. One of the most interesting in scope and particularity is the treatise De Educatione (c. 1521, published in Naples, 1865) by Antonio de Ferrariis, known as Galateo. Croce follows this frank commentator with corroboration from other sources, and I follow Croce. (La Spagna, 100–123; Ricerche Ispano-Italiane [Napoli, 1898], pp. 8–26; and the article on Galateo in Humanisme et Renaissance, iv, 366–382 [1937]).

48 La Spagna, 178–179. This effeminacy was largely ascribed to the influence of the Moors, whom the Spaniards themselves despised as “hombres medio mugeres” (Guillén de Castro, Mocedades del Cid [1618], 1. 2570).

49 Guicciardini charged that the “Spagnuoli per satiare la loro libidine non guardono ne a sesso ne a età” (Historia, Libro xvii, 32). These notes obviously disprove the view that the gloved gentleman was a development of a later generation.

50 Cited by Croce, La Spagna, 187.

51 Ibid., 118–119. This was before 1525. The duel must already have been codified by the Spaniards, although Caranza's book was not published until 1569. Duels had been forbidden in Spain as early as 1480.

52 Croce, La Spagna, 175–200.

53 De Amicis, 102; Senigaglia, 16 ff. The view, of course, is a commonplace. See the prologue of Alessandro Piccolomini's Amor Costante (Venetia, 1540).

54 Due Cortigiane, ii, 3.

55 The French tr. by Charles Estienne (Les Abvsez, 1540) and the Latin version Laelia derived from it (presented in Cambridge in 1595) and the Spanish tr. by Lope de Rueda (Los Engañados, 1567) omit the part altogether.

56 Ingannati (Vinegia, 1538), ii, 3 and iv, 6. Giglio salutes the crone, “Toma mi amistad, que bueno para ti”; and she replies ironically, “Che me farai signora, eh?” (ii, 3). “Danari di Spagna” became proverbial for money promised but not forthcoming (Croce, La Spagna, 179–183). What member of the Intronati wrote the Ingannati? The answer has usually been Alessandro Piccolomini. A recent writer nominates Marcantonio Piccolomini (Edmund Villela de Chasca in his ed. of Lope de Rueda's Engañados [Chicago, 1941], pp. 29–31).

57 I. Sanesi, La Commedia, 2 vols. (Milano, 1911–35), i, 335.

58 Amor Costante, leaves 20–22.

59 Leaves 64–68.

60 Rivali, v, 10, in Commedie, ed. G. Milanesi, 2 vols. (Firenze, 1899).

61 ii, 1.

62 iii, 4. Part of the fun comes from misunderstandings by Ignico of what those about him say, and from pretended misunderstandings by others of what he says.

63 Fantesca, iv, 7, in Commedie, 4 vols. (Napoli, 1726). All references are to this edition. V. Spampanato edited eight of the plays in 2 vols. (Bari, 1910). See also Vincenzo Belando, Amorosi Inganni (Paris, 1609), ii, 1. Cf. Girolamo Parabosco, Pellegrino (1552), ii, 2; and Virgilio Verucci, Diversi Linguaggi (1609). I am indebted to Senigaglia (107) for this note; and I am able to supplement my notes from the materials also in Sanesi, Rasi, Croce, Lea, and K. von Reinhardstoettner, Plautus (Leipzig, 1886).

64 Tabernaria, iii, 2.

65 Sanesi has a good account of humanistic comedy and the triumph of classicism on the Italian stage (i, 61–222). See also Bond (loc. cit.) and Kennard (i, 105–108).

66 Sanesi,, 223–337.

67 Ibid., i, 198–199. Senigaglia overlooks Nardi.

68 Due Felici Rivali, ed. A. Ferrajoli (Roma, 1901), iii, 2 and iv, 2, 3. The play remained unprinted until this time. The boasts of the rufián Centurio in the amplified edition of the Celestina by Fernando de Rojas published in Seville in 1502 are strikingly similar to those of Trasone: both figures are hired assassins whose courage is as little as their brags are great; their swords have enriched surgeons, filled cemeteries, and for twenty years provided their owners with food; Centurio, like Trasone has mastered a repertory with several hundred methods of killing; and as one of Trasone's companions is a cripple, so the Spaniard will entrust the actual swordplay to the lame Traso (Acts 15 and 18, ed. Menéndez y Pelayo, 2 vols., [Vigo, 1900]). The Celestina soon enjoyed a European celebrity, being frequently translated into Italian; the famous version by Alphonso Hordognez was published in Rome in 1506.

69 Contenti, iii, 2. Other bravi appear in Parabosco's Marinaio and Pellegrino. See also Senigaglia, 100–101; and Sanesi, i, 256.

70 Senigaglia, 74.

71 Talanta, iii, 2, in Commedie, ed. E. Camerini (Milano, 1888). For example, Tinca calls Talanta “la durlindana del suo Orlando.” Her mocking reply, “vivanda della mia tavola” (iii, 13), betokens the debasement of Thais in Italian imitations of the Eunnchus.

72 He was a torchbearer at Cerignuola (scene of a famous battle in 1503), where they fought all day and called it quits—though only one died and two were hurt. In breaking the siege of Padua, he got the cord about a cat dangling from a lance in a defiant bastion (iii, 12). At the sacking of Biagrassa, he magnanimously reduced by a trifle the ransom one of his prisoners had imposed upon himself (iv, 8). He fought under Francis I at the battle of Marignano (1515) [iv, 16].

73 The gifts of both men are used by Talanta to support her affair with Orfino (v, 24).

74 iii, 14.

75 See below, pp. 65–69. Tinca says Orfino dares open his mouth only because he is not Tinca's equal in rank and so knows the soldier will not fight him; he promises appropriate revenge at the proper time (iii, 15).

76 Tinca wants quiet; he has had enough of the toilsome life of a condottiere. He moans that he has slept more often beside horses than in bed, that all his possessions cost him blood from his back, and that he has more wounds than crowns; a soldier earns so little that thieves never bother him (iv, 16, 17).

77 Shakespeare reverses the situation when he represents Sir Andrew, after a beating, as saying he will “have an action of battery against” his assailant (Twelfth Night, iv, 1, 36).

78 iv, 20 and v, 2. In the end he pardons the girl.

79 v, 2, 4. C. Corporali's Ninnetta (1604) and C. Land's Vespa (1586) are modelled on Talanta. Aretino's Quattro Comedie were printed in London in 1588.

80 Gelosi (Vinegia, 1551), ii, 5.

81 iii, 5.

82 v, 4. See below, pp. 65–67.

83 Maiana, iii, 5, 6. Fausta is another debasement of Thais.

84 Martello, i, 2, 3.

85 iv, 9 and v, 9, 11.

86 Berenice (Venetia, 1601), i, 7 and iii, 1.

87 iv, 14, and v, 11. A neat touch is Bagolina's mock when Cerbero boasts of his “viril beltà”—“Cu, cu,” for the cuckold (iii, 2).

88 See the analysis by Senigaglia, 79–82. Cf. Sanesi, i, 251.

89 Capitano (Vinegia, 1560), iv, 1.

90 v, 1.

91 i, 1.

92 iv, 4.

93 v, 1. Celio Calagnini's Soldato Millantatore (before 1541) is a prose tr. of the Miles Gloriosus.

94 Della Porta depicted the braggart more often than any other Italian playwright, in no fewer then ten comedies.

95 The epithet “basilisco” suggests both the serpent and the roaring cannon.

96 Olimpia, i, 4, 5.

97 “Non la vo' ponere se non dove piace a me: vuoimene forzar tu? sei tu padrone delle mie mani? sto io con te che mi commandi?” (ii, 7).

98 iii, 9. Fabritio de Fornaris derived his Angelica (Paris, 1585) from Olimpia: the captain is Matamoros and speaks Spanish, and one of his epithets became famous, “don Alonso Cocodrillo”; he is “maestro de cirimonias” and “seruidor de Damas” (Rasi, ii, 742–743). There was a French translation, Angelique, by “le Sieur L. C.” (Paris, 1599). See Sanesi, i, 492; A. L. Stiefel in Archiv, lxxxvi (1891), 46–80; and Croce, Teatri de Napoli (Bari, 1926), p. 50.

99 Trapolaria, ii, 4 and iii, 7.

100 iv, 11.

101 Inganni (Venetia, 1582), ii, 9 and iv, 1, 2.

102 Beffa, iii, 11.

103 See below, pp. 78–79.

104 Emilia (Paris, 1609), iii, 6 and v, 4.

105 iii, 7 and v, 4.

106 Indeed, Senigaglia calls the Italian soldier “un tipo costante ed immutabile”—a faulty generalization, I believe. Allusions in Lodovico Ariosto's Lena (1528), v, 1, and in the prologue of Aretino's Marescalco (1533) indicate that the rôle had become conventionalized almost as soon as it was enacted on the Italian stage (see Senigaglia, 70 ff.).

107 See A. D'Ancona, Origini del Teatro Italiano, 2 vols. (Torino, 1891), pp. 589–595.

108 Spampana thus resembles the bragging Vice in the English morality. Sanesi compares the French moralité (i, 412).

109 From the extract in L. Stoppato, Commedia Popolare in Italia (Padova, 1887), pp. 197–211.

110 Antonio Mico's Vanto d'un Soldato (1525) presents another early stereotype in the popular farce whose boasts are also modified by a Renaissance coloring. He fought in a farcical duel, scoring “un Stochata,” until the adversaries were separated by the “Signor del campo,” were reconciled, and embraced. He also brags of amatory triumphs (Senigaglia, 153–159).

111 Tr. A. Mortier in Ruzzante, 2 vols. (Paris, 1925–26), ii, 217–238.

112 On the basis of these traits and the wide circulation of the Parlamento, Mortier believed that Ruzzante influenced Tinca, Sganghera, and Taddeo and the captains of the commedia dell' arte (i, 134 and 208–220). Lea properly disagrees (i, 235–238). Ruzzante has also been called the father of Falstaff (see Sanesi, i, 496).

113 See below, p. 65.

114 Mortier's tr., ii, 123–185.

115 Travaglia (Vinegia, 1557), ii, 9.

116 i, 3 and ii, 5, 6.

117 iii, 3.

118 iii, 6, 8, 12.

119 Luigi Pasqualigo, Fedele (Venetia, 1576), iii, 7. The Two Italian Gentlemen (1584) is an English translation. On the subject of names, see Senigaglia, 98–99.

120 Borghini, Amante Furioso (1584).

121 Guarini, Idropica (1583).

122 Groto, Emilia.

123 Calmo, Spagnolas (1549).

124 Cecchi, Maiana.

125 Ghirardi, Leonida (1585). “Galdelone” may be a humorous distortion of Ganelone, the traitor in the Charlemagne romances and in Pulci.

126 The name is a compound of derivatives from Gorgon and from gorgoliare, the rumbling of the stomach. Gorgolione, though rare, still survives as a surname. Della Porta, Chiappinaria (1598), i, 1. Cf. Bucefalo in Marzi's Fanciulla (1621).

127 He is the son of Mars and Bellona and their lieutenant on earth (Della Porta, Due Fratelli Rivali, i, 4).

128 Degli Oddi, Prigione d'Amore (c. 1580).

129 Calmo, Rhodiana (Vinegia, 1553), iii, 8.

130 Cecchi. Martello.

131 Inferno, xxxiii.32. Other names of the same sort: Cacciadiavoli recalls current surnames like Caccianemico (also in the Inferno, xviii.50) and Cacciamali; Vinciguerra is widespread even today; Spezzaferro is still common, and has several variants like Scacciaferro, Battiferri, and Tagliaferro (cf. the English Tolliver). For suggestions on these names and for other criticisms, I want to thank Prof. Joseph G. Fucilla.

132 Parabosco, Pellegrino; D. G. Salernitano, Vafro (1585).

133 Anton Francesco Raineri, Altilia (1550); Della Porta, Olimpia, i, 4; Furiosa (1609). For the baleful effect of the glance, see Sforza degli Oddi, Prigione d'Amore (Venetia, 1591), iv, 1.

134 Loredano, Berenice.

135 Della Porta, Sorella (1589), ii, 6.

136 As in ibid.

137 Senigaglia, 91–92.

138 Degli Oddi, Prigione d'Amore, v, 9.

139 Della Porta, Sorella.

140 Chiappinaria, v, 9.

141 Moro (1607), v, 5.

142 Aretino, Talanta.

143 Raffaello Borghini, Amante Furioso (Vinegia, 1597), i, 5.

144 Senigaglia, 100. For examples, see Calmo, Travaglia; and Parabosco, Pellegrino, ii, 2.

145 Pasqualigo, Fedele.

146 Cecchi, Corredo, v, 8. Cf. Curculio.

147 Pasqualigo, Fedele, v, 6.

148 Bernardino Lombardi, Alchimista (Ferrara, 1583), iv, 5.

149 Gigio Arthemio Giancarli, Cingano (1545) [Venetia, 1610], iv, 12, 13. Cf. Gargullo in the Medoro (1567) of Lope de Rueda, Obras, 2 vols. (Madrid, 1908), especially scs. 4 and 5.

150 Cecchi, Martello, v, 11. Cf. Loredano, Berenice, v, 11.

151 Della Porta, Furiosa, ii, 8, iii, 5 and iv, 3–6.

152 Ercole Bentivoglio, Geloso (Venezia, 1544).

153 Della Porta, Chiappinaria, i, 2.

154 Ibid., i, 1; Olimpia, i, 4.

155 Groto, Emilia, iii, 6 and v, 4: Cf. Alessandro Piccolomini, Alessandro (Vinegia, 1562), i, 6.

156 Calmo, Rhodiana, iv, 3.

157 Lombardi, Alchimista, ii, 6 and iv, 5; Degli Oddi, Prigione d'Amore, ii, 8.

158 Della Porta, Due Fratelli Rivali, i, 4; Chiappinaria, i, 1.

159 Lombardi, Alchimista, i, 5.

160 Della Porta, Olimpia, i, 5 and ii, 5. Cf. Cecchi, Corredo, ii, 7.

161 Secchi, Beffa; Parabosco, Pellegrino, ii, 2.

162 Parabosco, Marinaio, iii, 2. Hence the captain scoffs at damnation.

163 Pasqualigo, Fedele, ii, 16.

164 Degli Oddi, Prigione d'Amore, iv, 1.

165 Della Porta, Chiappinaria, iii, 4.

166 See above, p. 54.

167 Bentivoglio, Geloso, ii, 5. Allusions to contemporary officers are usual. The Gattamelata who officered the Venetians (Machiavelli, Historie Fiorentine, v, 196) is referred to by Parabosco, Fantesca, p. 54; and by Borghini, Amante Furioso, i, 8.

168 Groto, Emilia, iii, 6. Cf. Ottavio Gloritio, Impresa d'Amore (1605), i, 17.

169 Lombardi, Alchimista, iv, 5 and iii, 7.

170 Gabiani, Gelosi, iii, 5.

171 Borghini, Amante Furioso, i, 8.

172 [Academici di Padoa], Parto Svpposito (Ascoli, 1583). ii. 1.

173 See above, p. 47. In Girolamo Parabosco's Fantesca (Vinegia, 1556), Arsenico armed with a dagger, is put to flight by a servant who brandishes a knife (pp. 68–69). The rifacimenti of the Eunuchus have been noted above, pp. 53–56.

174 On this subject, see Professor A. H. Gilbert's paper, “The Duel in Italian Cinquecento Drama,” La Rinascita, to appear. Professor Gilbert believes that when the duel appears, direct dependence on Plautus is a thing of the past. I am indebted to Professor Gilbert for other suggestions and criticisms in this paper.

175 F. R. Bryson, The Sixteenth-Century Italian Duel (Chicago, 1938), p. 3.

176 F. R. Bryson, The Point of Honor in Sixteenth-Century Italy (New York, 1935), pp. 12–40.

177 Gabiani, Gelosi, v, 4. Cf. Lombardi, Alchimista, i, 5.

178 Della Porta, Furiosa, ii, 1.

179 Bryson, Point of Honor, 16.

180 Degli Oddi, Prigione d'Amore, iv, 7; Della Porta, Moro, ii, 12; Chiappinaria, iii. 5.

181 Calmo, Travaglia, iii, 3.

182 Cecchi, Martello, i, 2.

183 Bryson, Point of Honor, 24–25.

184 Della Porta, Sorella, iii, 8. Falstaff's trickeries are not unlike those of the Italian soldier. In this connection, it may be recalled that Don Quijote delivered a lecture on those who could be insulted and those who could not; an offense did not require avenging. For example, a man overwhelmed by ten armed foes was offended but not insulted; and a man struck by another who ran away had received an injury but no insult, since the latter had to be maintained. Don Quijote concludes that according to the laws of the cursed duello, thus, one may be wronged but not affronted (Don Quijote, ed. Marin [Madrid, 1913], Parte Segunda, Cap. xxxii).

185 Venturino da Pesaro, Farsa Satyra Morale, 208.

186 Bryson, Point of Honor, 32.

187 Degli Oddi, Prigione d'Amore, v, 6.

188 Gabiani, Gelosi, v, 7. The violation of his sister and the robbery of his house constitute the injury.

189 Degli Oddi, Prigione d'Amore, iv, 8. Girolamo Muzio published his treatise Il Duello in 1550.

190 Della Porta, Furiosa, ii, 8. Cf. Gilbert, “The Duel.”

191 Della Porta, Olimpia, ii, 7. There is also a suggestion of the belief that mutual insults made a duel unnecessary (Bryson, Sixteenth-Century Italian Duel, 4).

192 Bryson, Point of Honor, 40.

193 Giancarli, Cingano, ii, 16, 24.

194 Calmo, Travaglia, iii, 3.

195 Cecchi, Rivali, iii, 4.

196 Cf. Senigaglia, 93 and 107. A challenge could be refused if after provocation it was not given within a year (Bryson, Sixteenth-Century Italian Duel, 6). The braggart calls on time and delay to save himself (Della Porta, Chiappinaria, iii, 5; Piccolomini, Alessandro, v, 3).

Challenges were generally delivered by documents, especially in the form of a “cartello,” a challenge to a particular person assuring him of safe-conduct, though the term also denoted any written communication between two opponents (Bryson, Sixteenth-Century Italian Duel, 7). Rabbioso is called “Vrlandazzo dal cartarol” in jest at his pretended skill in fencing (Calmo, Travaglia, ii, 10). Lanfranco also boasts that no one knows better than he the fine points of the “cartello,” on which subject he gives counsel every year to a thousand bravi (Cecchi, Martello, v, 4).

197 Degli Oddi, Prigione d'Amore, iv, 7, 8 and v, 6, 9.

198 Parabosco, Fantesca, 47–48.

199 Gabiani, Gelosi, iv, 4, 7.

200 Della Porta, Moro, iii, 3.

201 Cintia, ii, 9 and iii, 9.

202 Due Fratelli Rivali, iv, 3.

203 Piccolomini, Amor Costante, leaf 64. See above pp. 1–52.

204 Calmo, Travaglia, iii, 6. Cf. Ghirardi, Leonida, iii, 18.

205 He will make such a noise that though he does not move his hand, she will think that he has carried out her wish (Pasqualigo, Fedele, iv, 11).

206 As in Aretino, Talanta (see above p. 54).

207 [Academici di Padoa], Parto Svpposito, ii, 4.

208 Parabosco, Fantesca, 53–55.

209 Degli Oddi, Prigione d'Amore, ii, 8.

210 Della Porta, Chiappinaria, ii, 5.

211 Cecchi, Martello, i, 2.

212 Lombardi, Alchimista, i, 5.

213 Cecchi, Corredo, iii, 6.

214 Degli Oddi, Prigione d'Amore, v, 10; Piccolomini, Alessandro, i, 6; Della Porta, Sorella, iii, 6.

215 Della Porta, Olimpia, ii, 5; Cintia, ii, 3; Due Fratelli Rivali, iii, 3; and Moro, i, 2.

216 Chiappinaria, i, 2; Furiosa, ii, 2.

217 Della Porta, Furiosa, ii, 7. Cf. [Academici di Padoa], Parto Svppositio, ii, 4.

218 Della Porta, Chiappinaria, I, 4; Due Fratelli Rivali, iii, 3.

219 Senigaglia calls the boaster in this rôle the capitano seduttore (113–114).

220 Piccolomini, Alessandro, iii, 4, iv, 6, and v, 3. Cf. Rabbioso and Cortese in Calmo's Travaglia, iii, 8, 12; Arsenico and his wife in Parabosco's Fantesca, 68–69; and Ruzzante in the Parlamento and in Moschetta.

221 See above, pp. 49–52.

222 Trasilogo is typical (Della Porta, Olimpia, ii, 7 and iii, 9).

223 Sforza degli Oddi, Erofilomackia (Perugia, 1572), iv, 8. Cf. Raineri, Attilia.

224 Della Porta, Chiappinaria, v, 9, 10.

225 Lombardi, Alchimista, iv, 5; Della Porta, Cintia, ii, 3; Borghini, Amante Furioso, I, 3 and ii, 2.

226 Della Porta, Due Fratelli Rivali, iv, 3.

227 Verucci, Servo Astuto, iv, 7.

228 Boneto Ghirardi, Leonida (Veneria, 1585), iii, 8. In Pasqualigo's Fedele, the servant receives the malodorous bath. The Two Italian Gentlemen gives it to the soldier.

229 Della Porta, Furiosa, ii, 8 and IV, 3–6.

230 Loredano, Berenice, v, 11.

231 [Academici di Padoa], Parto Svpposito, v, 7.

232 For example, Rinoceronte (Degli Oddi, Erofilomachia, iii, 6). Senigaglia calls the boaster in this rôle the capitano innamorato (115–116).

233 G. F. Loredano, Madrigna (1601), iv, 8. Cf. Belisario Bulgarini, Scambi, I, 5, in Commedie, 2 vols. (Siena, 1611); and Senigaglia, 115–116.

234 Della Porta, Cintia, ii, 3.

235 Sorella, iii, 6.

236 See pp. 49–52 above.

237 Pasqualigo, Fedele, ii, 16.

238 Lombardi, Alchimista, ii, 6. Cf. Calmo, Rhodiana, iv, 3.

239 Cecchi, Corredo, iii, 6, 7.

240 “Quel Sole, che illumina tutto il Regno di Amore, & che mi accende l'animo di generosa fiamma ad heroiche imprese” (Loredano, Berenice, iii, 1).

241 iii, 2.

242 Cecchi, Martello, i, 3. A proud escudero was offended by the same greeting, which he regarded as appropriate to peasants, but not to nobility; to those in higher ranks, the least to be expected was “Beso las manos de Vuestra Merced” (Lazarillo de Tormes [Madrid, 1914], pp. 211–212). In early Spanish comedy such breaches of etiquette became a stereotyped source of humor: some farces began with the appearance of an uncouth personage whose first words, the familiar salutation “Dios mantenga,” served to make a cultured audience merry (see the monograph by Professor Hendrix in Native Comic Types in Early Spanish Drama, [Columbus, 1925], pp. 106–08).

243 Comedia de Rvinazzo Brauo (Vinezia, 1550?).

244 Prigione d'Amore, ii, 3. Cf. Falstaff and Prince Hal.

245 iv, 1.

246 Cecchi, Martello, I, 2, 3.

247 Calmo, Travaglia, i, 3; Cecchi, Corredo, ii, 7; Lombardi, Alchimista, iv, 5.

248 Della Porta, Chiappinaria, i, 1.

249 Piccolomini, Alessandro, I, 6. Cf. Secchi, Beffa.

250 [Academici di Padoa], Parto Svpposito, ii, 1. Cf. Della Porta, Sorella, ii, 6 and iii, 6.

251 Della Porta, Sorella, iii, 6.

252 Chiappinaria, I, 2.

253 Due Fratelli Rivali, i, 4 and iii, 11; Lombardi, Alchimista, I, 5.

254 See Senigaglia on the figure generally (109–112).

255 An easy wife for example (Piccolomini, Alessandro, ii, 2). Cf. Della Porta, Sorella, ii, 2.

256 Cecchi, Corredo, v, 7. Cf. Della Porta, Due Fratelli Rivali, i, 4.

257 Piccolomini, Alessandro, ii, 2, and iii, 4.

258 Della Porta, Chiappinaria, i, 1.

259 Loredano, Berenice, i, 7; Cecchi, Rivali, iii, 4.

260 [Academici di Padoa], Parto Svpposito, ii, 1.

261 Degli Oddi, Prigione d'Amore, II, 8. A dialogue may ring changes on the captain's praise of the day as worthy of arms, and the parasite's as worthy of food (Della Porta, Furiosa, ii, 1). Cf. the dialogue of Zan Badile and the captain (1613) in Rasi, I, 64–66.

262 G. B. Marzi, Fanciulla (1621), ii, 6.

263 Della Porta, Due Fratelli Rivali, i, 4. Cf. Sorella, ii, 6.

264 Sorella, iii, 8.

265 Venturino da Pesaro, 208.

266 Aretino, Marescalco (1533), Prologue; Ghirardi, Leonida, ii, 1; Parabosco, Fantesca, 53; Degli Oddi, Prigione d'Amore, iv, 1; Della Porta, Cintia, ii, 9, and Olimpia, i, 4. Sir Toby Belch declares that in the duel the timid Cesario and the coward Sir Andrew “will kill one another by the look, like cockatrices” (Twelfth Night, iii, iv, 215).

267 Pasqualigo, Fedele, ii, 16.

268 Parabosco, Fantesca, 53.

269 Degli Oddi, Prigione d'Amore, IV, 1.

270 See the drawings in Rasi, I, 57–77; in P. L. DuChartre, Italian Comedy, tr. Weaver (London, 1929), pp. 225–250; and in A. Nicoli, Masks, Mimes and Miracles (London, 1931), pp. 246–252.

271 Loredano, Berenice, iii, 1, 2; Parabosco, Fantesca, 51.

272 Altilia (Mantova, 1550), iv, 5, 7.

273 Ghirardi, Leonida, iii, 18.

274 Cf. [Academici di Padoa], Parto Svpposito, ii, 4.

275 Marescalco, Prologue.

276 Degli Oddi, Prigione d'Amore, v, 8. Cf. Don Armado in Love's Labor's Lost.

277 Della Porta, Sorella, i, 5; ii, 6 and iii, 7.

278 Cintia, ii, 9 and iii, S; Galdelone is a “Colosso” (Ghirardi, Leonida, iii, 18). See E. E. Stoll, Shakespeare Studies (New York, 1927), p. 428.

279 See above, pp. 48–52.

280 See above, pp. 54–55 and 59–61; Senigaglia, 86.

281 Della Porta, Due Fratelli Rivali, i, 4. Cf. Passamonte in [Academici di Padoa,] Parto Svpposito.

282 Calmo, Rhodiana, iii, 7.

283 Venturino da Pesaro, Farsa, 205–207.

284 Borghini, Amante Furioso, ii, 14 and iii, 5.

285 iv, 10 and v, 17.

286 [Academici di Padoa], Parto Svpposito, iii, 2, 6.

287 Gabiani, Gelosi, I, 2 and ii, 3.

288 He loses his clothes and is beaten by the parasite whom he tries to rob (Ghirardi, Leonida, ii, 12, 13).

289 iii, 9 and iv, 23.

290 [Academici di Padoa], Parto Svpposito, ii, 4. He boasts that he will make her a Bellona, a Penthesilia, a new Camilla.

291 iii, 2, 6; v, 7.

292 Cecchi, Maiana, ii, 6 and iii, 5, 6.

293 Della Porta, Due Fratelli Rivali, i, 3.

294 Francesco D'Ambra, Fvrto (1561), [Venetia, 1596], sig. 10v and 41v.

295 Calmo, Spagnolas (Venetia, 1555), Act iii; Rhodiana, iii, 7, 8. Cf. Tombola in Marino Negro, Pace (Venetia, 1599), ii, 2, 4.

296 The ragged bravo Zigantes forces the parasite to give him the chain bought from the thief Forca by a trick resembling the Elizabethan “ring-faller” cheat described by John Awdeley (Fraternity of Vagabonds, in A. V. Judges, The Elizabethan Underworld [London, 1930], pp. 53–55). But the chain is valueless, and Zigantes loses his cloak, hat, and sword to the thief (Lombardi, Alchimista, ii, 9 and iii, 7).

297 Guarini, Idropica, ii, 2.

298 Cecchi, Martello, i, 2 and v, 5, 11.

299 Lea, i, 52.

300 Rabbioso in Calmo, Travaglia; Zigantes in Lombardi, Alchimista, i, 5; Cecchi, Martello, i, 3; Tombola in Negro, Pace, i, 9 and iv, 7.

301 Cecchi, Maiana, iv, 4.

302 Senigaglia insists that the captain limits himself to boasts of combats real or imaginary, but is the witless butt of others (21–23 and 100–102). That is not entirely correct.

303 Calmo, Travaglia, ii, 19.

304 Pasqualigo, Fedele, iv, 11.

305 Parabosco, Pellegrino, ii, 2. Cf. Melaza in Parabosco's Marinaio, iii, 2 and iv, 4; and Stramazza in Contenti, iii, 2. The latter resembles Nardi's Trasone.

306 Bluntschli in G. B. Shaw's Arms and the Man, Act. i. See the pertinent comments by Professor Kittredge in his ed. of 1 Henry IV (Boston, 1940), p. xiii. Bluntschi says, “It is our duty to live as long as we can.” John Manningham records that “a souldier being challenged for flying from camp said, ‘Homo fugiens denuo pugnabit‘” (Diary, ed. Bruce, p. 60) Professor Borgese has traced the theme that honor is an empty sound, in Falstaff's catechism of honor, to the Aminta of Tasso by way of Samuel Daniel's Delia (“The Dishonor of Honor: from Giovanni Mauro to Sir John Falstaff,” Romanic Rev., xxxii [1941], 44–55).

307 Secchi, Beffa, iii, 1.

308 Della Porta, Chiappinaria, v, 10.

309 Furiosa, iii, 5. Cf. Nardi, Due Felici Rivali, iv, 3.

310 Aretino, Talanta, iv, 16, 17.

311 Cecchi Martello, i, 2.

312 Loredano, Berenice, iii, 1.

313 Della Porta, Due Fratelli Rivali, i, 4. Cf. Calmo, Travaglia, iii, 6.

314 Della Porta, Cintia, ii, 3; Degli Oddi, Erofilomachia, iii, 6.

315 Borghini, Amante Furioso, i, 12.

316 Dolce, Capitano, i, 1.

317 Parabosco, Fantesca, 45–53. The witch Melissa warned Bellerofonte against the future (Degli Oddi, Prigione d'Amore, iv, 1). The captain in Piccolomini's Alessandro has adopted the name of Malagigi, a cousin of Rinaldo skilled in magic in the Orlando Furioso.

318 Calmo, Travaglia, ii, 6.

319 Ibid. iii, 6.

320 [Academici di Padoa], Parlo Svpposito, ii, 1; Borghini, Amante Furioso, i, 8; and Degli Oddi, Prigione d'Amore, iv, 1.

321 Dolce, Capitano, i, 1.

322 Calmo, Rhodiana, iii, 2.

323 Parabosco, Fantesca, 53.

324 Cf. Senigaglia, 94.

325 As in Della Porta's Moro, ii, 7.

326 Degli Oddi, Prigione d'Amore, iv, 1; and Erofilomachia, iii, 6.

327 Thinking Venice is a city noted for the chase, he must learn from his servant that Venice is the city of lagoons (Piccolomini, Alessandro, iii, 4).

328 He is also a poet (Dolce, Capitano, iv, 4 and v, 1).

329 Cf. the device above the portrait of Gascoigne printed at the back of the title in the first ed. of The Steele Glas (1576). Weapons are on the right and pen and books on the left (reproduced as the frontispiece in Works, vol. two).

330 Degli Oddi, Prigione d'Amore, iii, 8. Cf. the report of the battle (iv, 1) and the mock prayer to Fortune (iv, 7), and ii, 8.

331 For example, “bisarcipoltroncionaccionissimo poltroncione” (v, 9).

332 Borghini, Amante Furioso, i, 3 and ii, 5. Professor Campbell has advanced the suggestion that the Falstaff of The Merry Wives has assumed the rôle of the pedante (“The Italianate Background of The Merry Wives of Windsor,” in Michigan Studies [Ann Arbor 1932], pp. 87–97). Professor Gilbert objects that the Falstaff of Henry IV has all the education implied by any of his speeches in The Merry Wives (M.L.N., xlix [1934], 51–53). The notes above show that the braggart was not untouched by pedantic speech.

333 Cortigiana, iv, 13.

334 Gramatica continues, that love is “cosa lontanissima in tutto dalla nostra professione, la qual fu sempre di seguire il sesso nobiliore” (Scambi, i, 5).

335 Strega, i, 2, in Commedie, ed. P. Fanfani (Firenze, 1859).

336 ii, 1, 4 and iv, 3.

337 iii, 1.

338 iv, 2, 3.

339 v, 8.

340 Taddeo represents what Sanesi calls “la fiorentinizzazione” of the classical miles (i, 311). In Elizabethan drama the use of the rôle to deride contemporary types also occurred. (See my paper on “Don Armado and the Commedia dell' Arte,” SP, xxxvii [1940], 201–224).