Performances continued after the death of Pomponius in 1597, but we get no more scenic details, and when the Menaechmi was given at the wedding of Alfonso d'Este and Lucrezia Borgia in 1502 it is noted that 'non gli era scena alcuna, perchè la camera non era capace'.[1] It is not until 1513 that we get anything like a description of a Roman neo-classical stage, at the conferment of Roman citizenship on Giuliano and Lorenzo de' Medici, the Florentine kinsmen of Leo X.[2] This had a decorated back wall divided by pilasters into five spaces, in each of which was a door covered by a curtain of golden stuff. There were also two side doors, for entrance and exit, marked 'via ad forum'.
An even more important centre of humanistic drama than Rome was Ferrara, where the poets and artists, who gathered round Duke Ercole I of Este, established a tradition which spread to the allied courts of the Gonzagas at Mantua and the Delle Rovere at Urbino. The first neo-classical revival on record at Ferrara was of the Menaechmi in 1486, from which we learn that Epidamnus was represented by five marvellous 'case' each with its door and window, and that a practicable boat moved across the cortile where the performance was given.[3]
In 1487 it was the turn of the Amphitrio 'in dicto cortile a tempo di notte, con uno paradiso cum stelle et altre rode'.[4]
- [Footnote: adolescentes et docuit, et agentibus praefuit'; cf. also D'Ancona, ii. 65;
Creizenach, ii. 1.]
- ↑ D'Ancona, ii. 74.
- ↑ D'Ancona, ii. 84; Herrmann, 353; Flechsig, 51. The scenic wall is described in the contemporary narrative of P. Palliolo, Le Feste pel Conferimento del Patriziato Romano a Giuliano e Lorenzo de' Medici (ed. O. Guerrini, 1885), 45, 63, 'Guardando avanti, se appresenta la fronte della scena, in v compassi distinta per mezzo di colonne quadre, con basi e capitelli coperti de oro. In ciascuno compasso è uno uscio di grandezza conveniente a private case. . . . La parte inferiore di questa fronte di quattro frigi è ornata. . . . A gli usci delle scene furono poste portiere di panno de oro. El proscenio fu coperto tutto di tapeti con uno ornatissimo altare in mezzo.' The side doors were in 'le teste del proscenio' (Palliolo, 98). I have not seen M. A. Altieri, Giuliano de' Medici, eletto cittadino Romano (ed. L. Pasqualucci, 1881), or N. Napolitano, Triumphi de gli mirandi Spettaculi (1519). Altieri names an untraceable Piero Possello as the architect; Guerrini suggests Pietro Rossello.
- ↑ D'Ancona, ii. 128, from Diario Ferrarese, 'in lo suo cortile . . . fu
fato suso uno tribunale di legname, con case v merlade, con una finestra
e uscio per ciascuna: poi venne una fusta di verso le caneve e cusine,
e traversò il cortile con dieci persone dentro con remi e vela, del naturale';
Bapt. Guarinus, Carm. iv:
Et remis puppim et velo sine fluctibus actam
Vidimus in portus nare, Epidamne, tuos,
Vidimus effictam celsis cum moenibus urbem,
Structaque per latas tecta superba vias.
Ardua creverunt gradibus spectacula multis,
Velaruntque omnes stragula picta foros. - ↑ D'Ancona, ii. 129.
