The professional Italian actors of the second half of the sixteenth century played both the popular commedia dell' arte and the literary commedia erudita, or commedia sostenuta. The former, with its more or less improvised dialogue upon scenarii, which revolved around the amorous and ridiculous adventures of the zanni, the arlecchino, the dottore, and other standing types, was probably best adapted to the methods of wandering mimes in an alien land.[1] The latter was common to professionals and amateurs. And I suspect that the Court play of 27 February 1576, although it earned its reward from the Treasurer of the Chamber, was an amateur performance. The 'Alfruso Ferrabolle' of the account-book can hardly be other than a clerical perversion of the name of Alfonso Ferrabosco, the first of three generations of that name, father, son, and grandson, who contributed in turn to the gaiety of the English Court. The eldest Ferrabosco was certainly in this country by 1562 when he was granted an annuity of 100 marks. His service terminated after various interruptions in 1578.[2] He is doubtless the 'Mr. Alphonse' who took part in the preparation of a mask in June 1572.[3] In connexion with the same mask, a reward was paid to one 'Petrucio', while for a later mask of 11 January 1579 'Patruchius Ubaldinas' was employed to translate speeches into Italian and write them out fair in tables.[4] This was Petruccio Ubaldini, another of Elizabeth's Italian pensioners, who was both a literary man and an illuminator, and made his residence in England from 1562 to 1586.[5] It is quite possible that the performance of 1576 may be referred to in the following undated letter from Ubaldini to the Queen, in which he makes mention of Ferrabosco.[6] If so, it came off after all.
- [Footnote: 526; Smith, 147. The main body of the Gelosi passed about this time
under the leadership of Flaminio Scala, fifty of whose scenarii are printed in Il Teatro delle Fauole rappresentatiue (1611).]
- ↑ Cf. ch. xviii as to traces of improvised comedy in England.
- ↑ G. E. P. Arkwright, Notes on the Ferrabosco Family (Musical Antiquary, iii. 221; iv. 42); G. Livi, The Ferrabosco Family (ibid. iv. 121). I may add that he was evidently the Bolognese groom of the chamber, favoured by the Queen as a musician, who dropped a hint for a Venetian embassy in 1575 (V. P. vii. 524). He left an illegitimate son, Alfonso, in England, who also was a Court musician by 1603, and was succeeded in turn by sons, Alfonso and Henry, in 1627 (Lafontaine, 45, 63).
- ↑ Feuillerat, Eliz. 159, 160.
- ↑ Ibid. 160, 301.
- ↑ Cunningham, 221; cf. D. N. B.; M. L. N. xxii. 2, 129, 201.
- ↑ Magdalene College, Cambridge, Pepys MS. ii. 663 (cf. Hist. MSS. Comm. Report, 190). The letter is endorsed, 'To Q. Elizabeth: Ubaldino an Italian Musitian I suppose'.
