Where such ignominy was attached to the practice of acting in public, it was natural that the taste for theatrical personation, which is sure to spring up in all cultivated communities, should seek a vent for its indulgence in private performances. Accordingly, we find that there was a species of satirical Drama, called Atellanæ or Exodia, in which the free and noble youths of Rome, not only took delight to perform, but, with the true spirit of aristocratic exclusiveness, reserved the right of appearing in such dramas wholly to themselves; nor would suffer them, as Livy tells us, to be polluted by common histrions.' On the revival of Dramatic Poesy among the Italians, it was in private theatres,—and, for a long period, in private theatres only, that any advances in the cultivation of the art were made. The slow growth, indeed, of this branch of literature in that country, and the few fruits of any excellence which it has even yet put forth, would seem to warrant the conclusion to which the French critics have long since come, that the Italians are not, any more than their great ancestors, a dramatic people. It is certain, that their literature had produced its brightest and most desirable wonders before even the ordinary scenery and decorations of a theatre were introduced among them; and the poetry of Dante and Petrarch, and the prose of Boccaccio, had carried their beautiful language to its highest pitch of perfection, near a century and a half before a single play in this language was attempted. Nothing can, indeed, more strongly prove how little dramatic ideas or associations were afloat in the time of Dante, than that he should have ventured to call his shadowy and awful panorama of Hell, Heaven and Purgatory,-a Comedy.' During all this interval, from the time of the great triumvirate of the fourteenth century to near the close of the fifteenth, an occasional representation of a play of Plautus or Terence, with, now and then, a drama, written in the same language, by some academician of Sienna,* and acted, or rather recited, by himself and his brethren, were the only signs of life that the Dramatic Muse of Italy exhibited. At length, towards the end of the fifteenth century, the poet and scholar, Politian-so bepraised during his lifetime, and so wholly unread almost ever since-presented his countrymen with the first native Italian * The academicians of Sienna were long famous for their theatrical exhibitions. The Intronati of that learned city played the Amor "Costante' of the Archbishop Piccolomini before Charles 5th, when he visited Sienna in 1536;-and the Ortensio of the same archiepiscopal dramatist was performed by them before Cosmo 1st, in 1560. tragedy;* and the Orfeo was acted before Lorenzo the Magnificent, amid the acclamations of all the wits and beauties of Florence. - What an audience might not imagination conjure up at a private performance of the Orfeo!- Who is he, with the princely air and manly form,† to whose remarks Lorenzo de Medici listens with such deference? It is the all-accomplished • Lord of Mirandola, the phenix of the wits of his age, to whom ' every science, every art, every language is familiar, but upon whose young brow the seal of death is already fixed, as the 'astrologers have already pronounced that he will not pass his thirty-second year.' And that child, with the cardinal's hat in his hand, whose red shoes and robes proclaim him al'ready a counsellor of the Pontiff?' In that boy you see the future Leo the Tenth, the destined ornament of the Papacy, its first and its last.' But him yonder, with the neck a little awry; with that portentous nose and purblind eyes?'** "Tis Politian himself, the author of the Tragedy; and she, that fair maid, to whom he has just handed a Greek extem'pore, which she reads with the same facility with which it ' was written, is the beautiful and learned Alessandra Scala,— 'herself a distinguished private actress, as the verses of Politian, on her performance of the Electra of Sophocles, testify.†† La première tragédie qui parût sur le Théâtre, en bon style, et avec quelque idée d'une action regulièrement conduite, est l'Orphée 'de Ange Politien.' Gingueré. Doctor Burney traces the origin of the Italian Opera to the Orfeo. +Il étoit le plus bel homme de son siècle-il avoit la mine haute, la taille extraordinaire.' Varillas, Histoire Secrète de la Maison de Medicis. Les Astrologues dressèrent l'Horoscope du Prince de la Miran'dole, et trouvèrent deux choses remarquables ;-l'une, qu'il ne met'troit pas la dernière main à son ouvrage contre eux, et l'autre, qu'il 'ne passeroit pas l'âge de trente-deux ans. Ils lui envoyèrent signi'fier cet arrêt, dont il se mocqua. Mais l'événement justifia leur pre'diction.' Varillas. § Leo was nominated a Cardinal in his thirteenth year. Polit. **Facie nequaquam ingenua et liberali, ab enormi præsertim naso, 'subluscoque oculo perabsurdo.' Paul. Jov. tt There are several poems in praise of this lady among the works of Politian; and there is also an answer of hers, which-considering that it is Greek-is very modest and unassuming. With how little success the poet woos her, may be collected 'from his extempore :: Καρπον εμοι πολεοντι, συ δ' ανθεα φυλλα το μενού Δωξη, σημαίνεσ' ὅττι ματην πονέω. 2 To teach me, that in hopeless suit I do but waste my sighing hours, Thou giv'st me nought but leaves and flowers." The example set by Politian was soon followed; and, an Italian Comedy being still a desideratum, the want was, not long after, supplied by Cardinal Bibbiera, whose clever, but licentious, comedy, the Calandra, was honoured with no less distinguished a place of representation than the private apartments of Leo the Tenth at the Vatican.* Gay times!-when Cardinals wrote right merrye' farces, and Popes were their audience. Had Leo contented himself with the classic indulgences of this world, without opening a mart for indulgences in the next, Luther would have wanted his best card, and the Papacy might have remained a little longer unshaken. The illusions of scenic decoration,-which had been first introduced, it is said, by Pomponius Lætus, in a play performed by his scholars at Rome,t-were at this period not only universally brought into play, but assisted by all that splendour and pageantry, in which the luxurious prelates and nobles of Italy delighted. Among the givers of these dramatic fêtes, the Dukes of Ferrara shone preeminent, and Hercules 1st was the author of an Italian translation of the Menæchmi, which was acted at Ferrara in 1486. Ariosto furnished the design for the theatre of the Court, which stood on the spot now occupied by the Chiesa Nuova; and such,' says Gibbon, was the enthusiasm ' of the new Arts, that one of the sons of Alfonso 1st did not 'disdain to speak a prologue on this stage.' But, among all the amateur actors of this period, he of whom the lovers of private theatricals have most reason to be proud, is the great Nicholas Machiavel,-he, the mighty searcher of courts, who stripped the leaves off the sceptre of tyrants, and showed the naked iron underneath. This author of the profoundest book ever written was not only a comic writer of first * Baldastarre Peruzzi is said to have painted the scenery for this representation at the Vatican. By some the invention of painted scenes is attributed to Cardinal Riario, nephew of the unprincipled Sixtus 4th. Antiquities of the House of Brunswick. rate power, but a comic actor, whose mimickry made Cardinals and Popes (as he himself expresses it) smascellarsi della risa.' How delightedly might a historian of private theatres dwell on all the details of the correspondence between Guicciardini* and Machiavel, respecting the plan of the former to induce his friend to visit him at Modena, by getting up a representation of the Mandragora, for his amusement! The supper of Machiavel at Florence, with the cantatrice, la Barbera;-his proposals to her to accompany him to the Carnival at Modena, and his anxiety for her assistance in the cast of his comedy,-all these little details derive a preciousness from the reputation of the men concerned in them, and from that charm which genius communicates to everything connected with its name. Nor was it only among the profane ones of the world that this rage for private acting diffused itself. Even the recesses of the monastery and the convent were not sacred from the soft in'fection,' and the mask of Thalia was often found in the same wardrobe with the cowl and the veil. The wit of Plautus was not thought too coarse for the lips of the monks of S. Stefano,+ and even the fair nuns of Venice were allowed to pour forth their souls in tragedy. As might be expected, however, some of these sequestered young actresses showed a disposition to convert their fictitious loves into real ones, and an order was accordingly issued, prohibiting all such performances in convents, 'per l'indécenza della rappresentazione e delle maschere,' and restraining the poor stage-struck nuns, in future, to the innocent indulgence of a dull oratorio. As this passion for private acting increased, new inventions and new luxuries were devised, to give a zest to the pursuit. The theatrical dilettanti of Vicenza, not content with their temporary stage in the Palazzo della ragione, applied to their brother academician, Palladio, to furnish them with the design of a theatre, worthy of the classic objects of their institution;- ad⚫dattata ai loro geniali esercizi, fra quali v'era quello delle tragiche ' rappresentazioni.' In the beautiful structure which he planned for them, was performed, in the year 1585, the tragedy of Edipus; and the interest of the representation was, we are told, The historian, who was then Governor of Modena. + There is a published translation of the Asinaria of Plautus, which, as appears from the title-page, was rappresentata nel monastero di S. Stefano in Venezia, 1528.' Addison speaks of the theatrical amusements of the nuns at the time when he visited Venice, 1701. most touchingly increased by the circumstance of the sightless king being played by Luigi Groto, the blind man of Adria,' as he was called,-himself a dramatic poet of no ordinary celebrity and power. But it was not alone amid the pomp of a ducal hall, or surrounded by the forms of Palladian architecture, that these worshippers of the Drama indulged their devotions. That fine canopy, which the evening sky of Italy affords, not unfrequently formed their only theatre. For pastoral subjects, such as the Aminta and the Pastor Fido, the natural scenery of gardens and groves was thought to be the most appropriate; and vestiges of one of these rural theatres, in which the sweet dialogue of Ariosto and Tasso was recited by the donne' and cavalieri' of old, might, till very lately, be traced in the garden of the Villa Madama at Rome. It is not within the scope of our present design to do more than merely intimate the many interesting details, into which a more extended research on this subject would lead. To the brilliant names, therefore, already mentioned, as having thrown a lustre over the annals of private acting, we shall content ourselves with adding a few more, as they occur to our recollection, without attending very much to form in the enumeration, or dwelling, at any great length, on the peculiar merits or histories of the personages. Lorenzo de Medici, on the marriage of his daughter Maddalena, wrote a Sacred Drama, called S. Giovanni e S. Paolo,' which was performed in his palace, by his own children. Cinthio, the novelist, to whom Shakspeare was indebted for some of his stories, had a private theatre, we are told, in his own house, where the most celebrated of all his own tragedies, Orbacche,' was performed, with splendid scenic decorations, before Hercules II., Duke of Ferrara. About the same period, Luigi Cornaro, of vivacious celebrity, -having not yet, we presume, taken to measuring his wine by ounces, gave a dramatic fête under his own roof, at which one of the plays of L'Anguillara was performed. Chiabrera, misnamed the Pindar of Italy, was one of a classic society at Rome, called the Humorists,' who devoted themselves (says Muratori) to the composition and performance of beautiful and ingenious comedies.' The Sala, in which their meetings were held, still existed in the time of Muratori, Beolco, one of the academic fraternity of the Infiammati, is said, by the historian of Padua, to have surpassed Plautus in composing comedies, and Roscius in representing them. The tafent, indeed, of this Infiammato for acting, was thought worthy |