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the paradoxes of a society structured around the arts of dis-
simulation. Audience members came to be seen and to see
others, at the same time as they dissimulated their real iden-
tity by wearing masks. The theaters arranged the private
boxes in such a way that each became a miniature stage visi-
ble to at least some of the others, and one of the innovations
of opera houses was that the very shape of the box mirrored
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The Culture Wars of the Late Renaissance
the configuration of the proscenium.28 The great dramatic
achievement of Venetian opera was to employ music and
spectacle to warm the spirits of members of polite society
schooled in the cool habits of dissimulation, by appealing di-
rectly to human feeling and thus uncovering true emotions, if
not true identities.
The history of early opera belongs perhaps more to the
history of carnivalesque drama than of music. At first opera
lirica was merely dramas with music, or more graphically,
poetry clothed in music. 29 The librettist was king, and
libretti were frequently published at the time the opera was
performed, whereas composers seemed to be virtually inter-
changeable, and most of the scores are now lost, perhaps be-
cause they were considered ephemera. Carnival occasioned
ribald and often satirical comedies performed during the
annual season of festive license, and the connection to Carni-
val created an ambiguous relationship with the forces of au-
thority in Venice. The history of Venetian theater betrays a
recurrent dialectic between the licentious behavior of the
popular and youthful (often patrician youth), on the one
hand, and the authoritarian impulse for social control of
the elderly patrician officeholders, on the other. As early as
1508 the Council of Ten prohibited unauthorized private and
public theatrical performances at Carnival and weddings, es-
pecially those employing comedians and buffoons in masks
who engaged in mime and exaggerated elocution.30 From the
mid-fifteenth to the late sixteenth centuries, theatrical enter-
tainments for Carnival and those for special occasions, such
126
the li bretti sts
as visits of princes and ambassadors, triumphal entries, and
weddings, tended to be organized and financed by the com-
pagnie della calza, which were festive clubs of young nobles
known for their hedonism and for pushing the limits of their
elders tolerance.31 The companies protected their members
from official heat through a code of silence: the statutes of at
least three of the companies had provisions stating, Each
member must keep secret the affairs of the company. 32 As
Linda Carroll has shown, the hired performers, especially
the most famous early comic playwright, the Paduan known
as Ruzante, suffered official displeasure when matters went
too far.33 Ruzante employed peasant characters to satirize
and sometimes bitterly criticize the pretension of the upper
classes, and under the protection of his young patrons he
pushed the limits of toleration. The diarist Marino Sanuto
described one of these occasions: Ruzante and Menato,
Paduan peasants, performed a rustic comedy and it was com-
pletely lascivious, with very dirty words, and God was blas-
phemed by all of them, and the [audience] shrieked at
them. 34 After Ruzante apparently insulted the French am-
bassador, even his young protectors could not save him, and
he never appeared on the Venetian stage again.
The Council of Ten s 1508 licensing requirement for comic
theater was never abrogated but, like so many Venetian laws,
was only selectively enforced. Official displeasure, however,
did tend to drive comic theater out of the public piazzetta and
campi where it had been performed on outdoor stages, into
private courtyards that could be closed off and transformed
127
The Culture Wars of the Late Renaissance
into temporary theaters. By around 1580, as Eugene J. John-
son has shown, patrician entrepreneurs had constructed two
commercial theaters in Venice for performances by com-
media dell arte troupes. The inclusion in these theaters of
boxes rented out to the public made them prototypes for the
teatro all italiana, the Italian opera house form that spread
across Europe after the initial success of opera in seventeenth-
century Venice. Although their exact location is unknown,
both theaters were in the parish of San Cassiano, one owned
by the Michiel family and the other by the Tron, whose the-
ater in San Cassiano in 1637 was the first one used for opera.
The distinguishing feature of these theaters, especially by
comparison with the open seating plan of the Teatro Olim-
pico in Vicenza, was the inclusion of several stories worth of
boxes that provided elevated, separated, private spaces from
which paying customers, presumably patricians and distin-
guished foreigners, could watch performances. Johnson sug-
gests that the theater box may have originated in the Venetian
tradition of using windows and balconies, such as those of
the Procuratie Vecchie and the Marciana Library, as private
spaces for viewing public events, such as ducal processions
and carnival festivities. As Johnson puts it, the theater boxes
created a novel social space, simultaneously private and pub-
lic or, one might say, private in places of public access.
Apparently, Venetians quickly figured out how to use these
rather cramped palchi as if they were modern motel rooms;
this behavior brought on a vigorous reaction from the Coun-
cil of Ten. 35 And as with motel rooms, it is probably less im-
128
the li bretti sts
portant what actually took place in those closed little spaces
than what contemporaries imagined was taking place. The
Venetian theater box itself became a stage for the imagina-
tion and a metaphor for the libertine life.
The reaction to the presumed activities in the palchi was
immediate. The Florentine ambassador to Venice wrote in
1581 in a letter, It is maintained that the Jesuit priests have
complained a great deal that in the boxes that have been
erected in these two places many wicked acts take place creat-
ing scandal. 36 The scandal was that gentlemen were appar-
ently using the boxes for assignations with courtesans. In the
Sant Aponal opera house during the mid-seventeenth cen-
tury, the box closest to the proscenium at stage right was re-
served per le donne, presumably courtesans, a fact that
hints at a Venetian tradition of cavorting with or at least
making connections with courtesans in theater and opera
boxes.37 Because the early Venetian theaters presented obscene
comedies in a venue where obscene acts were taking place on
the other side of the thin walls of the wooden boxes, Vene-
tian theater life was indeed rife with scandal.
At first, attempts to clean up the theaters were indirect.
The Jesuits and their allies on the Council of Ten argued
that the danger from fire or collapse in the wooden theaters
was too great, and in 1580, the Ten required that no comedy
be presented until first there be sworn statements from ar-
chitects and specialists, who will be sent by the heads of this
council diligently to inspect the places where the perfor-
mances will be given, that they are strong and secure, so that
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The Culture Wars of the Late Renaissance
no ruin may happen there. 38 In 1581 the Ten passed a decree
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| Cytat |
Dobre pomysły nie mają przeszłości, mają tylko przyszłość. Robert Mallet
De minimis - o najmniejszych rzeczach.
Dobroć jest ważniejsza niż mądrość, a uznanie tej prawdy to pierwszy krok do mądrości. Theodore Isaac Rubin
Dobro to tylko to, co szlachetne, zło to tylko to, co haniebne.
Dla człowieka nie tylko świat otaczający jest zagadką; jest on nią sam dla siebie. I z obu tajemnic bardziej dręczącą wydaje się ta druga. Antoni Kępiński (1918-1972)
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