Italian love for the theatre.—Italian dramatic literature.—Tragedy.—Comedy.—Tiraboschi's notion of it.—Macchiavelli's Mandragola.—Isabella's high standing among her contemporaries.—Her husband.—Her high character.—Death and epitaph.—Her writings.—Nature and value of histrionic art.
Isabella Andreini, say her Italian biographers,[135] was one of the greatest actresses who ever lived. She was also a writer of dramatic and other works, much esteemed by her contemporaries.
She was born in 1562, two years before the birth of Shakspeare; and was therefore delighting the courts of Italy and France at the same time that he was catering for the amusement of a more mixed audience at the Globe. It is true that Shakspeare is ... Shakspeare, by virtue of his creative genius, and not of his histrionic talent; while Isabella owed the larger portion of her fame to the latter source. Besides, it would be of course unjust to the Italian actress, as well as preposterous, to dream of instituting any comparison between her and nature's unique master–piece; though her reputation among her contemporaries was probably greater and more noisy than any which testified that the England of Elizabeth's time had a suspicion that a poet for all time had been born among them.
No such comparison is meant even to be hinted. But the contemporaneousness of the English and Italian dramatic artist suggests an inquiry into the materials with which the latter had to work.
We know what quality of dramatic literature was provided for the actors who plied their calling at the Globe and the Bankside. And it is certain that no one of them has left that histrionic reputation among us which Isabella Andreini has left in Italy.
With this in one's mind, then, one is surprised to find at the first glance that Italian literature in its Augustan age was especially weak in the department of the drama. Quite the reverse might have been anticipated from the national characteristics. No people are at the present day more passionately fond of theatrical representation. The theatre is with them almost a necessary of life to all classes of citizens, and takes rank among the articles of an Italian's budget, if not absolutely side by side with sufficient food, yet in very many cases, immediately after it, and always has precedence of very many matters that with us would be considered necessaries. And the impressionable nature of the people makes this very intelligible. Every Italian is an actor more or less,—has a natural talent for "externating" the feelings that are in him, to use a very expressive Italian phrase,—a talent that Englishmen are perhaps more deficient in than any other people under the sun. To us how often is it distasteful, how often impossible to "externare,"—to make outwardly manifest—that which is inside us. How frequently is the act of another doing so revolting to us; especially in matters which touch the deeper and more powerful sentiments of the heart! To an Italian it is never either difficult or distasteful in real life; and he is ever ready to sympathise with and be pleased by a very moderate amount of histrionic skill on the stage.
ITALIAN DRAMATIC LITERATURE.
It might naturally be expected that the dramatic literature of a people so constituted would be a prominent feature in the intellectual produce of the national mind at its period of greatest vigour; and would have exercised a notable influence in the moulding and fashioning its habits of thought and turns of expression. Such is, however, far from being the case. The poets, the novelists, the historians, the moralists of Italy in the sixteenth century time of its high tide, have all left their marks deeply and visibly enough stamped on the national character, while that of the dramatists of the same period is barely, if at all, perceptible.
It needs but a cursory examination of the Italian drama of the sixteenth century, to remove all wonder that its authors should have exercised no such influence. The wonder is, that when literature in its other branches was so vigorous and full of sap, drama should have been so sapless and of such little worth. From the earliest years of the sixteenth century there was no lack of either tragedies or comedies in Italy. But the mention of them and their authors would be little more for the most part than a roll–call of names forgotten, at least on our side of the Alps, and destined never more to be remembered.