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At the turn of the sixteenth century, Italian playwrights rediscovered and recast an old art form—the ancient Latin comedy—to create witty, ribald, and intricately plotted plays that delighted Renaissance audiences with their clever reversals of gender and class roles. Five Comedies from the Italian Renaissance brings together the best of these works in lively new translations by Laura Giannetti and Guido Ruggiero, who also place the comedies in their cultural and social context. Presenting a fresh perspective on the Italian Renaissance, these deft translations allow modern readers to experience the original artistry and carnivalesque humor of these delightfully profane and irreverent literary classics.
Contents: The Comedy of Calandro by Bernardo Dovizi de Bibbiena; The Mandrake Root by Niccolò Machiavelli; The Master of the Horse by Pietro Aretino; The Deceived by the Academy of the Intronati of Siena; and A Venetian Comedy (anonymous)
The Johns Hopkins University Press
An intelligently prefaced book which makes available in sensible, accurate English—to scholars and students of drama and of the Renaissance, as well as to general readers—a coherent body of theatre which is culturally and intrinsically valuable.
The translations of these bold and sometimes bawdy Italian imitations of raucous Latin comedy are readable and playable.
— Ronnie Ferguson
| Acknowledgments | ||
| Introduction: Playing the Renaissance | ||
| La calandra / | ||
| The Comedy of Calandro | 1 | |
| La mandragola / | ||
| The Mandrake Root | 71 | |
| Il marescalco / | ||
| The Master of the Horse | 117 | |
| Gl'ingannati / | ||
| The Deceived | 205 | |
| La veniexiana / | ||
| The Venetian Comedy | 285 |
Overview
At the turn of the sixteenth century, Italian playwrights rediscovered and recast an old art form—the ancient Latin comedy—to create witty, ribald, and intricately plotted plays that delighted Renaissance audiences with their clever reversals of gender and class roles. Five Comedies from the Italian Renaissance brings together the best of these works in lively new translations by Laura Giannetti and Guido Ruggiero, who also place the comedies in their cultural and social context. Presenting a fresh perspective on...