A Decade of Italian Women, vol. 2 (of 2)

by Thomas Adolphus Trollope

HER IMMORTALITY.

The dialogues are on similar themes, and of exactly similar quality. I have read one (being probably the only living man who has done so), between Palamedes and Cleopatra, entitled, "An amorous dispute respecting a fainting fit caused by love." It is truly wonderful to consider, that human beings, with minds similarly constituted to our own, did read these writings with admiration and delight! And when one looks on the long, long road that human intellect must have travelled over, since that was possible, one cannot but reflect on the probability, that a yet more extended career must lie before it.

These are the means by which the beautiful Isabella Andreini sought to "avoid death," as she phrases it in one of her prefaces, and to live in the memory of mankind; means which have been successful, so far as to insure the registering of her name in the folio pages of those gatherers of literary crumbs, who have been more abundant in Italy than in any other country.

But it is evident that in the day when she was really famous, her fame was that of a great actress. Of all the modes by which one mind may influence its fellows and obtain their admiration, it has been said that that of the histrionic artist is, from its nature, necessarily the most evanescent and perishable. The poet's song, the sculptor's statue, the architect's building, the historian's history, the painter's picture, remain to us, and their authors "being dead, yet speak" to after generations. But the actor, whose immediate power over his public is more intense, perhaps, than that of any of these! His triumphs, however much involving the necessity of intellectual power, having been achieved by means of a perishable machine, are condemned to be equally mortal. The only manner in which some memory of his power, and some conception of its working may be retained in the minds of men, is by attaching his name to that of the characters he has represented. It is thus that the great names of our own dramatic annals have still a real meaning and significance.

But Isabella Andreini has left us no such memorial. Of all the very numerous contemporaries who speak in rapture of her performances, not one has recorded a single hint as to the characters in which she enchanted them. The omission seems a most singular one, and can be accounted for on no other supposition, than that the written words which the actress was to speak were considered a comparatively insignificant part of her performance: and the nature of the praises lavished on her acting seem to point to the same conclusion. We hear much of voice, action, grace, and charm of elocution, but nothing of those higher matters of histrionic art which raise it to the level of an intellectual profession. Nothing is said of the effect produced on the minds of the audience, nothing of conception and interpretation of character, nothing of empire over the sources of smiles and tears.

And these facts seem to furnish an explanation of the difficulty of accounting for a great dramatic reputation, at a time when dramatic literature was such as has been described.

TASSO'S AMINTA.

There was indeed one form of dramatic composition, not properly to be classed with either tragedy or comedy, that has not been mentioned. These were the pastoral pieces, "favole boschereccie," poems rather than dramas, of which Tasso's "Aminta" is the great example, and to which Isabella's own "Mirtilla" also belonged. From the circumstance of her having herself written in that style, and more still from the high place which the "Aminta" occupied in the public favour, it may be deemed almost certain that the leading actress of the day must have appeared in the part of Silvia. The superiority of this charming little gem of Tasso's to the generality of the contemporary dramatic writings is very marked. But its charms, its idyllic elegance, its Theophrastic echoes, its melodious verse, are not dramatic charms. And though we may fancy a beautiful woman, mistress of graceful elocution, and skilled in drawing all its music from polished Italian verse, uttering Silvia's disclaimer,

"Pianto d'amor non già, ma di pietade,"

with infinite charm of expression, still, any pleasure to be derived from the stage presentation of such a poem as the "Aminta," and any histrionic excellences to be manifested by the exponents of it, must be deemed to be of a very inferior rank indeed, to aught that modern times have learned to expect from those whom the world now considers great actors. And on the whole, this record of a great Italian actress contemporary with Shakspeare, must be considered to indicate that even if the great master's works be left out of the question as exceptional, drama stood higher, and was more appreciated in the great sixteenth century among the "toto divisos orbe Britannos," than in Italy, the metropolis of literary culture.