- Performer Name:
- Perfetti; Vanneschi; Scarpellino
- Performance Venue:
- Performance Date:
- Author:
- Spence, Joseph
- Date Written:
- 1732-1733
- Language:
- English
- Publication Title:
- Observations, Anecdotes, and Characters of Books and Men, Collected from Conversation
- Article Title:
- Page Numbers:
- 2: 566-70
- Additional Info:
- Publisher:
- Clarendon Press
- Place of Publication:
- Oxford
- Date Published:
- 1966
Text:
[566] 1518. Perfetti was crowned about four years ago for his talent at improvisoing, or making extempore verses, but Manfredi is the best poet we have now in Italy.
[567] 'I thought the impromptu way had prevailed all over Italy, and was regarded as the highest excellence of poetry at present?' [Suggested Spence].
No, 'tis only admired so much by the little and great vulgar.
COCCHI July 1732—April 1733
1519. The first time I heard them [the improvvisatori], I thought it impossible for them to go on so readily as they did without having agreed things together beforehand. It was at Florence at our resident's, Mr. Colman's, and when that gentleman asked me what I thought of it, I told him that I could not conceive how they could go on so readily, and so evenly, without some collusion between them. He said that it amazed everybody at first, that he had no doubt of its being all fair, and desired me, to be satisfied of it, to give them some subject myself, as much out of the way as I could think of. As he insisted upon my doing so, I offered a subject which must be new to them and on which they could not well be prepared. It was but a day or two before that a band of musicians and actors set out from Florence to introduce operas for the first time in the Empress of Russia's court. This advance of music and that sort of dramatic poetry (which the Italians at present look upon as the most capital parts of what they call virtù) so much farther north than ever they had been, under the auspices of the then Great Duke, was the subject I offered for them.
They shook their heads a little and said it was a very difficult one. However, in two or three minutes' time one of them began with his octave upon it, another answered him [568] immediately, and they went on for five or six stanzas alternately, without any pause, except that very short one which is always allowed them by the going off of the tune on the guitar at the end of each stanza. They always improviso to music (at least all that I ever heard), and the tune is somewhat slow—but when they are thoroughly warmed they will sometimes call out for quicker time.
If two of these guitarers meet in the summer nights in the very streets of Florence, they will challenge one another and improviso sometimes as rapidly as those in set companies. Their most common subjects are the commendation of their several mistresses, or two shepherds contending for the same, or a debate which is the best poet—and they often put one in mind of Virgil's third, fifth, and seventh eclogues, or what he calls the 'contentions' of his shepherds in alternate verse—and, by the way, Virgil's shepherds seem sometimes to be tied down by the thought in the preceding stanza, as these extempore poets are by the preceding rhyme.
SPENCE August 1732—March 1733
[569] 1520. The improviso, or extempore poets in Italy are actually what they are called. They do it with great emulation and warmth, generally in octaves, in which the answerer is obliged to form his octave to the concluding rhyme of the challenger, so that all the octaves after the first must be extempore, unless they act in concert together.
Our method is to create our thought at the enemy's seventh verse. Then we have the idea, the rhymes, the words, and the verse to think of, only whilst our opponent is repeating his last line, which we take no manner of notice of at all. We almost always do better the second half hour than first, because one grows warmer and warmer, to such a degree at last that when I have improviso-ed a whole evening, I can never get a wink of sleep all the night after.
VANNESCHI an Abbé of Florence, and very ready in that sort of poetry July 1732—April 1733
1521. Tuscany is almost the only place for extempore poetry, particularly at Florence and Siena; and in the country for five or six miles round them. There are a few indeed at Rome, but even those are chiefly Tuscans.
VANNESCHI July 1732—April 1733
1522. The Cavalier Perfetti is of Siena, and is the best improvvisatore at present in Italy. He was crowned in the Capitol about five years ago by order of the Pope, at the [570] desire of the Princess Violante, widow to Ferdinand, Prince of Tuscany. He had laid in a heap of different sorts of learning (una grande infarinatura di tutte le scienze), and has an extraordinary fluency of language, but is rather a versifier then [sic] a poet. He is so impetuous in improviso-ing that sometimes he will not give way ⌈for the guitar for three or four stanzas together⌉.
VANNESCHI July 1732—April 1733
1523. There are two tunes chiefly used for improviso-ing: the Passo Gallo ⌈like the beginning of 'All joy to Great Caesar'?⌉, and the Foglia di Siena. The latter is so called because it is generally made use of in that city, as the other is at Florence. The Passo Gallo is more like recitative than the Foglia. ⌈'Tis this [the Passo Gallo] that they generally sing Tasso to, in the streets, and at Venice, etc. The air to the pastorals [has] something pretty in it.⌉
VANNESCHI July 1732—April 1733
1524. The first time I met with the famous Scarpellino, or Stonecutter, of Settignano, he got the better of me in improviso-ing. He has no learning, but is a great reader, and remembers a vast deal of Petrarch and some other of our best poets. When we are hard put to it, we sometimes fling in some of the most difficult rhymes we can think of at the close of a stanza, to get the better of our rival—and the Scarpellino is very notable at that, in particular.
VANNESCHI July 1732—April 1733
Notes:
Dr. Cocchi was a friend of Spence’s at Florence.
- Collected by:
- DP