- Performer Name:
- Gianni; Mazzei; Marone
- Performance Venue:
- Performance Date:
- Author:
- “By an American” [Sloan, James]
- Date Written:
- Language:
- English
- Publication Title:
- Rambles in Italy; in the Years 1816…17
- Article Title:
- Page Numbers:
- 282-4
- Additional Info:
- Publisher:
- Maxwell
- Place of Publication:
- Baltimore
- Date Published:
- 1818
Text:
[282] The talent of improvisation is not confined to Italy, although it is here more frequently and naturally called into activity than in other countries. His freedom from social restraints co-operating with the charms of his climate, render the Italian peculiarly susceptible of lively and passionate feelings, and endow him with a high degree of poetical sensibility. The vowel terminations also of the Italian language,—its transpositive character—the extent and variety of its powers with regard to poetical harmony, renders it a very powerful and flexible instrument in the hand of an extemporaneous poet or declaimer, and to the readiness with which the language of Italy furnishes the poet, with a diction at once splendid and various, may be added the power of its classick scenes, to touch the heart and inspire the fancy.
The celebrated Carlo Marone, who flourished in the court of Leo the tenth, is said to have extemporised in latin hexameters, and in the boldness of his metaphors and the richness of his imagery, to have rivalled some of [283] the most admired passages of the Roman poets. The genius of this extraordinary man may have enabled him, to vanquish the difficulties with which he must have struggled in composing impromptu, under the restraints of ancient prosody. When the subject proposed was of a serious and lofty kind, he commenced by a regular exordium, and as he proceeded his impassioned looks, voice and gesture, bore evidence of genuine inspiration. Persons, who possess this talent, when properly kindled by their subject, realise Virgil's description of the frantick prophetess of Cumæa. Their eyes roll with a fine poetick phrenzy, their looks and voice become more than human, and the picturesque effect of their gestures, give additional force and beauty to the glowing language of an inspired imagination. Those who have witnessed the recitations of Gianni, give this account of the manner of that illustrious improvisatore. It is also worthy of remark, that this man, the spontaneous effusions of whose genius were heard with so much delight and wonder, has left nothing composed, in the retirement of the closet, which can challenge a similar degree of admiration. Madame Mazzei, a Florentine lady, of an ancient and illustrious family, like Carlo Marone, is ano- [284] ther example to prove, that the wonderful inventive powers displayed by some Italian improvisatori, are not ascribable altogether to the facilities afforded by the Italian language, when employed as a vehicle of poetick sentiment. She, occasionally, made choice of some of the most difficult measures of Italian poetry, and recited with an equal command of expression, in the magnificent octaves of Tasso, the solemn tiercets of Dante, and the loose and unconstrained numbers of Metastasio.
Notes:
- Collected by:
- AE