Mascarade et Cartels ont prins leur nourriture,
L'un des Italiens, l'autre des vieux François, . . .
. . . L'accord Italien quand il ne veut bastir
Un Théâtre pompeux, un cousteux repentir,
La longue Tragedie en Mascarade change.
Il en est l'inuenteur; nous suyuons ses leçons,
Comme ses vestemens, ses mœurs et ses façons,
Tant l'ardeur des François aime la chose estrange.
And in fact it is an Italian festivity of 1492 that furnishes the only clear account of a revel in which disguised persons took the ordinary guests out to dance that I have yet come across between 1377 and 1512.[1]
For some time the mask and the old-fashioned disguising are traceable side by side at the court of Henry VIII. Ultimately they amalgamated. By the end of the reign, 'mask' has become the official name, and 'disguising' is obsolete.[2] The 'commoning' between maskers and guests is firmly established. And the mask has taken to itself the elaborations of the disguisings, the introductory speeches, the pageant, the mimic fight, the double sets of dancers, the close association with the interlude.[3] Or, more strictly speaking, it can be either simple or elaborate, a mere masked
- ↑ This is at the end of a farsa by Jacopo Sannazaro given before Alfonso Duke of Calabria in 1492 (D'Ancona, ii. 98, from Opere of 1723). 'Subito uscirono li trombetti sonando, tutti vestiti riccamente d'una maniera, l'illustrissimo signore Principe di Capua con gli altri in mumia, delicatamente vestiti ad una maniera del Signore di Castiglia . . . con torcie in mano ballando. Da poi, ciascuno prese una Signora per la mano, e ballò la sua alta e bassa; e con le torchie in mano se ne tornorono: e per quella sera così ebbe fine la festa.' In a revel at Ferrara in 1473 (Muratori, Rer. Ital. Script. xxiv. 244), Duke Hercules and his fellows danced with the ladies, and then came in 'grande multitudini di mascare', and danced; but it is not clear that the Duke was a masker, or that the masked persons danced with the ladies. I should add that I have not been able to make any complete or first-hand investigation of foreign analogies to the mask. Doubtless the street masks of the Florentine carnival had a folk origin like that which I assign to the English mumming; for their elaboration by Lorenzo de' Medici (1448-92) cf. Symonds, Renaissance in Italy, iv. 338; D'Ancona, i. 253; Prunières, 20. M. Prunières appears to regard the 'taking out' to dance as no part of the original custom, but an adaptation due to the courts of Ferrara and Modena at the end of the fifteenth century.
- ↑ It is significant that John Farlyon in 1534 was appointed Yeoman of masks, revels, and disguisings; Cawarden in 1544 Master of revels and masks (Tudor Revels, 7, 9; cf. p. 72). In Jonson's Masque of Augurs (1623) Notch says to the Groom of the Revels, 'Disguise was the old English word for a masque, Sir, before you were an implement belonging to the Revels'.
- ↑ Halle, i. 57, 117, 143, 149, 153, 171, 176, 179, 208, 215, 220, 234, 238, 247, 249, 256; ii. 24, 79, 87, 108, 149, 183, 220, 303, 360; Brewer, ii. 2, 1490; iii. 1548; iv. 418, 1390, 1415, 1603, from Revels Accounts.
