Musset's “Lorenzaccio”

Extract

Lorenzaccio, published in 1834, was revised by Alfred de Musset for the 1853 edition. This final text is reproduced by Paul Dimoff in his La Genèse de Lorenzaccio (1936) together with those passages of Benedetto Varchi's Storia fiorentina which were used by Georges Sand for her Une conspiration en 1537 as well as by Musset, who amply availed himself not only of Varchi's chronicles but also of Sand's brief play.

The play has five acts, each of which is divided into six to eleven scenes. Very seldom do the individual scenes of any act occur in the same setting. This complete disregard for the unity of place produces the effect of a constantly changing panorama of early sixteenth-century Florence, wherein glimpses of the seemingly unrelated actions of a great number of characters gradually merge into an integrated impression which creates a mood, an atmosphere. The technique anticipates the more recent impressionistic concern for apparently fleeting or accidental phenomena.