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| Isabella Andreini Lover of Drusiano Martinelli Both Members of I Gelosi. |
During a tour of Venice, by the French King Henry III, in
1574, he asked to see a performance by the comedy troupe called I Gelosi.[1] The group may have formed around 1568. Henry seems to have missed them when they
performed in France in 1571. The reports
must have been glowing.
Henry must have agreed that they were exceptional. Also, their beloved master, the Duke of Mantua,
was a brother of the French Duke of Nevers, which couldn’t have hurt. After he returned from Venice the king
invited them to perform again in France.
The troupe appeared in Lyon on January 16, 1576,[2]
in order to settle the royal orders and other paperwork always attendant on
international travel.
On the 25th they arrived at Henry’s Court at
Blois. On 27 January the resident
ambassador from Mantua, Ferrante Guisoni, reported that they played a comedy before
the King and his Court the evening of their arrival. It was a great success.[3] The Duke de Nevers reported that they
performed a pastoral on February 27th.
The troupe stayed in through spring and departed on April 23rd,
through Amboise and various towns establishing themselves in Paris by 18 May. The next day they gave a command performance
before the local authorities as a condition of receiving permission to remain.[4]
The next we would seem to have a record concerning any
troupe of Italian players, a group led by Drusiano Martinelli is registering
with the authorities at Antwerp on September 7, 1576. The city was bristling under an ever harsher Spanish
rule. The Spanish soldiers had not been
paid and unpaid soldiers tend to rob and loot.
The citizens were prepared to give them a fight. Violent flare ups were occurring everywhere. All foreigners were required to present references
and papers assuring that they were present on legitimate business.
French records of the Gelosi troupe did not include
the names of any of the players. Names
and description of the male players in Antwerp were carefully recorded (three female players are mentioned without providing names). The name of the troupe, however, had not
seemed material. If we place Drusiano
Martinelli as the manager of the Gelosi troupe, in 1576, however, the various
international records dovetail together so perfectly that it can be said, with
almost perfect confidence, that we know the name of the group, the name of the
manager, the composition of the group members and its itinerary from the point
at which it arrived in Lyon.
Vincent Belando, however, alone swore in his affidavit that he
had been in Antwerp for 14 months.[5] Without referring to dates, it is noted that he
mentioned having played with “his consort” in Paris and planning to return
there. If he remained in Antwerp the
entire time, he would likely have been a member of the other Italian troupe
that Baschet recorded[6]
being in the Lyon area when the Gelosi arrived in January and chose to break
off to seek his own fortunes. Players
floated in and out of troupes regularly.
Schrickx thinks it would have been impossible for the troupe
to perform given the conditions in Antwerp at
the time and wonders aloud why they stayed. Martinelli’s troupe did not renew their
papers again after October 8. For his
part, Baschet’s next record for the Gelosi regards their arrest in
Paris, on December 5.
The reason for the arrest has been a point of minor
historical conjecture. I suggest that
they traveled to Antwerp only to find impossible conditions in which to
play. They did what little street
performing they were able while they sought papers to return to France. Bureaucracies move slowly and they found the
circumstances in the lowlands forced them to return without permission and they
were eventually arrested for a brief time until the Duke of Nevers arranged for
their release.
Soon after, in 1577, Italian tumblers appear in the Exchequer
records of the Court of Queen Elizabeth I and a 1578 letter from the Queen’s Privy
Council mentions accommodations for “one Drousiano, an Italian, a commediante
and his companye”.[7] There he became part of English literary
history. It is more than a little
possible, scholars have long believed, that William Shakespeare somehow came to
know of his performances and took away more than an idea or two for his own plays.
But more of that later.
[1] Schrickx,
Willem. “Italian Actors in Antwerp in
1576.” Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire (1972), 796-806 @ 796-7. Molmenti, Pompeo. Venice Its Individual Growth from the
Earliest Beginnings..., Volume 2, Part 2.
Brown, Horatio, F. tr. (1907).
22.
[2] Baschet, Louis. Les comédiens
italiens à la cour de France... (1882).
71. Citing Brouchoud, M. C. Origines du Théâtre de Lyon (Lyon: N.
Scheuring, 1865).
[3] Baschet, 72. “Le soir même, ils ont joué une de leurs
comédies devant Sa Majesté, dans la salle où se
sont tenus
les États. 11 y avait la plus grande foule. Ils ont fort diverti le Roi et
toute la Cour. ”
[4] Baschet, 73-4. “Le 18 mai, dit l'auteur de l’Histoire
manuscrite du Théâtre en France, une troupe de Comédiens Italiens surnommée
I Gelosi vint s'établir à Paris, après avoir obtenu la permission des
confrères de la Passion, sous la condition d'un écu tournoi par représentation.
Ils débutèrent dans la salle de Bourbon le lendemain. ”
[5] Schrickx, 799. “Vincent Belando Italien comediant juravit :
Que comme ainsi soit quil ait esté en ceste dicte ville , et y joué avecq ses consors farches et comèdes, et que
estans sesdicts consortz
partiz vers
Paris, il est aussy d'intention de soy acheminer vers ledict Paris…”
[6] Baschet, 71. “…nous croyons qu'il ne faut pas confondre la
troupe des Gelosi avec une autre troupe de
comédiens
signalée comme étant déjà à Lyon au commencement du mois de novembre de l'année
1576…”
Also at Virtual Grub Street:
- Shakespeare’s Barnacles. March 3, 2016. “Prospero will wake, he fears, before they can murder him, and will cast a spell on them.”
- Hedingham Castle Fact Sheet with Virtual Tour Link. January 20, 2019. “The modern entrance to the keep is on the first floor by way of a stone stair, discharging through the W. wall, where a fore-building used to stand.”
- Did Shake-speare Die of a Stroke? August 03, 2014. "In October of 1601 De Vere begins to complain of his health again in letters to his brother-in-law, Robert Cecil, who was representing him in certain legal matters at Court."
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