The Fascinating Itinerary of the Gelosi Troupe, 1576.

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 25^th 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 27^th.

The troupe stayed in through spring and departed on April 23^rd, 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.

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[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…”

[7] Chambers, E. K.  The Elizabethan Stage (1923).  II.262.

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