- Performer Name:
- Performance Venue:
- Performance Date:
- Author:
- Smollett, Tobias
- Date Written:
- 1765
- Language:
- English
- Publication Title:
- Travels through France and Italy
- Article Title:
- Letter 25
- Page Numbers:
- 290
- Additional Info:
- Introduction by James Morris
- Publisher:
- Centaur
- Place of Publication:
- Fontwell, Sussex
- Date Published:
- 1969
Text:
One of the greatest curiosities you meet with in Italy, is the Improvisatore; such is the name given to certain individuals, who have the surprising talent of reciting verses extempore on any subject you propose. Mr. Corvesi, my landlord, has a son, a Franciscan friar, who is a great genius in this way. When the subject is given, his brother tunes his violin to acompany him, and he begins to rehearse in recitative, with wonderful fluency and precision. Thus, he will, at a minute's warning, recite two or three hundred verses, well turned, and well adapted, and generally mingled with an elegant compliment to the company. The Italians are so fond of poetry, that many of them have the best part of Ariosto, Tasso, and Petrarch, by heart; and these are the great sources from which the improvisatori draw their rhymes, cadence, and turns of expression.
Notes:
- Collected by:
- DP