used, it may be judged that they were of considerable size.[1] The painting of the cloths was a matter of skilled workmanship. William Lyzarde, with thirty assistants, was employed upon it in 1571.[2] In 1572-3 'patternes' were prepared for the play of Fortune.[3] In most of the earlier accounts the houses are only mentioned incidentally and generically. But in 1567-8 they are stated to have consisted of 'Stratoes howse, Gobbyns howse, Orestioes howse, Rome, the Pallace of Prosperitie, Scotland and a gret Castell one thothere side'.[4] And when Edmund Tilney became Master of the Revels in 1579, he introduced, perhaps under pressure from the auditors, a practice, which lasted for some years, of including in the preliminary schedule of plays, with which his accounts began, a note of the specific houses constructed for each. Thus in 1579-80, there were a country house and a city for The Duke of Milan and the Marquis of Mantua, a city and a battlement for Alucius, a city and a mount for The Four Sons of Fabius, a city and a battlement for Scipio Africanus, a city and a country house for an unnamed play, a city and a town for Portio and Demorantes, a city for a play on the Soldan and a duke, and a great city, a wood, and a castle for Serpedon.[5] In 1580-1 there were a city and a battlement for Delight, a great city and a senate house for Pompey, a city and a battlement for each of two unnamed plays, a house and a battlement for a third, a city and a palace for a fourth, and a great city for a fifth.[6] In 1582-3 there were four pavilions for A Game of the Cards, a cloth and a battlement of canvas for Beauty and Housewifery, and a city and a battlement of canvas for each of four other plays.[7] In 1584-5 there were a great curtain, a mountain, and a great cloth of canvas for Phillida and Corin, a battlement and a house of canvas for Felix and Philiomena, a great cloth and a battlement, well, and mount of canvas for Five Plays in One, a house and a battlement for Three Plays in One, and a house for an unnamed play.[8] It is evident that decorative variety was sought after. Even when several successive plays could be fitted into the normal scheme of a city and a battlement, the stage architects had to prepare a separate device for each.
- [Footnote: 1576-7, 'cariadge . . . of a paynted cloth and two frames' (266); in 1587-9,
'timber bordes and workmanshipp in mending and setting vp of the houses by greate' (390); in 1587-8 'paynters for . . . clothe for howses' (381); in 1579-80, 'ffurre poles to make rayles for the battlementes and to make the prison for my Lord of Warwickes men' (327).]
