“Walks in Rome and its Environs” (The New Monthly Magazine)

Performer Name:

 

Performance Venue:

 

Performance Date:

 

Author:

 

Date Written:

 

Language:

English

Publication Title:

The New Monthly Magazine

Article Title:

Walks in Rome and its Environs. No. XV The Roman Theatres.

Page Numbers:

23: 427

Additional Info:

 

Publisher:

Henry Colburn

Place of Publication:

London

Date Published:

1828

Text:

In such dearth of higher talent, the Roman turns to less expensive or less laborious amusements. In one of these substitutes, which I had nearly forgot mentioning, he shines unrivalled—I mean the Puppets or Fantocini. They are what Harlequin is to Venice, and her beloved Pulcinella to Naples. The figures, as far as the mechanism goes, are inimitable; but the excellence of the performance consists in the composition. It is an exquisite miniature of the Commedie dell' Arte, a continued improvisazione. The Elenco or skeleton of the piece is given; the details are spun out from the genius of the manager, often from the dialogue observations of the audience, always on the mere spur and inspiration of the occasion. This filling-up of the canvass is often admirable. They are generally serio-comic or Bernesque; just the sort of creations which might drop from the random pencil of Pulci in one of his maddest moods. The spirit seems to have transmigrated from Florence, and to have been nurtured by Pasquin into maturity here. The passing scoff and sneer of the day is caught and embodied with a saturnine and arch simplicity, but with an effect so evanescent, so composed of indescribable and untranslatable nothings, but at the same time so keenly and instantaneously intelligible, that no government can touch it, and yet every subject can perfectly well understand. I saw on one of these occasions the "Tragic History of Nero;" his cruelties, ugliness, miserable life, and unhappy death. The story, as the programme averred, was "molto flebile," but in the performance turned out to be laughable in the extreme. The whole Teatro Fiano was in a roar; prince and peasant were in juxta-position; the same facetiœ were addressed to both, and both, to the scandal of all true aristocracy, seemed perfectly to taste and to understand.

Notes:

Collected by:

CB