[58] Mémoires de M. Goldoni, Paris, Veuve Duchesne, 1787, vol. i. ch. 5.
[59] A common inn-sign. This reminds us of the earliest performances of plays in the yards of London hostelries.
[60] Ed. cit., vol i. p. 228.
[61] See his Mémoires, part i. ch. 40.
[62] This is perhaps the proper place to explain the meaning of Martellian verses. They owe their name to Pier Jacopo Martelli (1665-1725), who revived them, and used them for the drama. Metrically speaking, Martellian verses are twelve-syllable lines of the Alexandrine type. These long lines had been commonly employed in Italy during the thirteenth century, before the heroic verse of eleven syllables obtained ascendancy. It is difficult to say why the Alexandrine, which Italy in the thirteenth century shared with France, died out in the former country and became the standard heroic line of the latter. Possibly the reason may be found in the Italian tendency toward double rhymes; the so-called versi piani of Dante being decasyllabic iambics with a redundant syllable rather than hendecasyllabics. Anyhow, the Alexandrine has not flourished south of the Alps. Martelli's revival did not prosper; and Carducci, in his Su' Campi di Marengo (Nuove Poesie, p. 91), is the only recent poet who has attempted them with success.
[63] Opere, ed. 1772, tom. viii. p. 27. "The partisans on both sides gathered forces daily. One swears by Original (a name for Goldoni), the other by Plunder (Chiari, because of his plagiarisms). The whole city was turned upside down, and indeed it is no laughing matter. Brothers fought with brothers, wives did worse with their husbands. Everywhere the wrangling was fierce; nought but confusion, nought but discord."
[64] The details of the controversy between Gozzi and Goldoni are given at fuller length than I have attempted in Signor Ernesto Masi's masterly Introduction to his edition of the Fiabe Teatrali.
[65] Opere, vol. viii. Tartana is a large merchant vessel.
[66] The editor of this Venetian Zadkiel was originally Giovanni Pozzobon. After his death it was continued by Giambattista Bada. Pozzobon was nicknamed Schieson. The almanac was adorned with a ridiculous portrait of a doctor in a huge wig. Owing to this fact, Schieson came to signify any one with rumpled hair. See Boerio's Dizionario del Dialetto Veneziano.
[67] Opere, vol. viii. p. 164.