A Book of Marionettes

by Helen Haiman Joseph

There are many types of Italian pupazzi. They have been called by many names and exhibited in many manners. They are designed and dressed and manipulated in innumerable ways. In a twelfth-century manuscript discovered in the Strasbourg library there is an illustration of very primitive little figurini. They represent a pair of warriors caused to fight by means of two cords; the action is horizontal. Somewhat the same principle is employed to operate simple little dolls dancing on a board, generally a couple of them together, the string tied to the knee of the puppeteer. He makes the figures perform by moving his leg and generally plays on a drum or tambourine to accompany the motion. As a rule the name burattini is applied to the dolls with heads and hands fashioned of wood or paper-maché and manipulated by a hand thrust under the empty dress, a finger and a thumb fitted into the two sleeves to work the arms, another finger used to turn or bow the head of the doll. These pupazzi were most frequently played in pairs by travelling showmen with little portable castelli. Fantoccini are the puppets fashioned more or less after the human figure. They are made of cardboard or wood and occasionally in part of metal or plaster. They are sometimes crudely carved, sometimes modelled with attention to every detail. They are operated by means of wires or threads connecting them with the control, which is in the hands of the marionettist standing concealed above. The number and arrangement of threads and controls may be simple or intricate. Sometimes the limbs are wired and all the wires except those of the arms are carried out of the head through an iron tube. Another device is that of wiring the dolls and manipulating them from below by pedals. There is no end to the variety of contrivances invented by the makers of marionettes. The more elaborate dolls are generally exhibited in large and substantial castelli or on permanent stages constructed in private homes or in theatres used entirely for fantocinni, the spectacular effects being carried out on an amazing scale.[3]

From earliest times the marionettes have been exceedingly popular with both learned and ignorant. Every village was visited by ambulant shows, every city had its large castello, frequently many of them, while noble families had their private puppet theatres and engaged distinguished writers to compose plays. Lorenzo de Medici is said to have enjoyed puppet shows and to have given many of them. Cosimo I is reported to have had the fantoccini in the Palazzo Vecchio, Francesco I in the Uffizi: Girolamo Cardan, celebrated mathematician and physician wrote in 1550, “An entire day would not be sufficient in which to describe these puppets that play, fight, shoot, dance and make music.” Leone Allaci, librarian of the Vatican under Pope Alexander VII, stopped nightly to watch the burattini play. Prominent mechanicians and scientists used their skill to create clever pupazzi; artists have left us charming pictures of groups thronging around the castelli in the public roads; poets and scholars wrote plays for the marionettes.

Figures used for Christmas Crib inside the Church

Seventeenth or eighteenth century

[From the collection of Mr. Sumner Healey, New York]

In the beginning the repertory of the pupazzi was derived entirely from the sacre rappresentazione, consisting of scenes from the Old and the New Testaments, stories of miracles and martyrdoms. Soon a comic element was allowed to creep in, the better to hold the attention of the audience. Fables were introduced for variety, and episodes from heroic tales of chivalry, also satires reminiscent of Roman decadence. The latter were performed by puppets fantastically dressed and burlesqueing local types, and, naturally, speaking in the native dialect of those particular characters. The showman improvised the dialogue to fit the occasion, using only a skeleton plot to direct the action just as did the actors of the Commedia dell’Arte. “Thus,” claims an authority on Italian puppetry, “on this humble stage were born types of the ancient Italian theatre, the immortal masks.” It might be as difficult to prove as to disprove this statement, but at any rate the pupazzi had a hand in popularizing and perpetuating the famous maschere.

At this point it might be well to digress for a moment and to consider the commedia dell’arte which is so interwoven with the story of Italian marionettes. Along with the commedia erudita which was flourishing at the courts of the great Italian princes there developed an extemporaneous, popular theatre depending greatly for its spirit upon the invention and talent of the actors. Perhaps the beginnings of its gay humor may be traced back to the comic and local elements introduced into the early sacre rappresentazione. Perhaps the characters were copied from the familiar buffoons of Latin comedy. At any rate, the well-known masks or personaggi of the cast represented amusing types from all strata of Italian society, and each was immediately recognizable by a conventionalized and rather grotesque costume. Arlecchino, who originally came from Bergamo, is the chief personage of this motley group. He is a unique figure in his strange suit of multi-colored patches, his black mask, his peculiar weapon, all reminiscent of the Roman Histrio. At first conceived as a happy, simple fellow, he became in time a character of unbridled gayety and pointed wit. Then there was Pulcinella, descended probably from the Roman Maccus, a Neapolitan rogue and merry-maker whose white costume serves to accentuate the hump in his back and his other physical peculiarities. There were Scaramuccia, also of Naples, false bravo and coward, Stentorella, from Florence, a mean miserly wretch, Cassandrino, the charming fop and braggart, a Roman invention. Messer Pantalone is a good-natured Venetian merchant deceived by all, Scapino is the mischief maker apt to lead youth astray, Constantine of Verona is “said youth.” Then come Brighella, Capitaine, Pierrot, world renowned, Columbine, Isabella, and a host of other Italian conceptions, to say nothing of Pasquino, Peppinno, Ornofrio and Rosina who are the masks of Sicily.

Pulcinella in Italy