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.[1] 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.[2] 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.[3] 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
- [Footnote: da basso era li triumphi del Petrarcha, ancor loro penti per man del
p^o. Mantengha: sopra eran candelierj vistosissimi deaurati tucti: nel mezo era un scudo colle arme per tucto della C^a. M^à.; sopra la aquila aurea bicapitata col regno et diadema imperiale: ciascheuno teneva tre doppieri; ad ogni lato era le insegne. Alli doi maiorj, quelle della S^{ta}. de N. S. et quelle della Cesarea Maestà: alli minorj lati quelle del C^o. Sig. Re, et quelle della Ill^{ma}. Sig^a. da Venetia; tra li archi pendevano poi quelle de V. Ex., quelle del Sig. duca Alberto Alemano: imprese de Sig. Marchese et Sig^a. Marchesana: sopre erano più alte statue argentate, aurate et de più colorj metallici, parte tronche, parte integre, che assai ornavano quel loco: poi ultimo era il cielo de panno torchino, stellato con quelli segni che quella sera correvano nel nostro hemisperio.' Flechsig, 26, thinks that the architect was Ercole Albergati (Il Zafarano).]
- ↑ D'Ancona, i. 485; Mediaeval Stage, ii. 79, 83, 135.
- ↑ Ferrari, 50; D'Ancona, ii. 1, give examples of these at Ferrara and elsewhere. The Favola d'Orfeo, originally produced about 1471, seems to have been recast as Orphei tragedia for Ferrara in 1486. It had five acts, Pastorale, Ninfale, Eroico, Negromantico, Baccanale; in the fourth, the way to hell and hell itself were shown—'duplici actu haec scena utitur'.
- ↑ J. W. Cunliffe, Early English Classical Tragedies, xl; F. A. Foster, in E. S. xliv. 8.
