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110-688: The Full College ( Venetian : Pien Collegio ) was the main executive body of the Republic of Venice , overseeing day-to-day governance and preparing the agenda for the Venetian Senate . The Full College comprised the Doge of Venice and the rest of the Signoria —the six ducal councillors and the three heads of the Council of Forty —as well as three sets of savi ('sages'), boards with particular responsibilities:

220-687: A literary language , Venetian was overshadowed by Dante Alighieri 's Tuscan dialect (the best known writers of the Renaissance, such as Petrarch , Boccaccio and Machiavelli , were Tuscan and wrote in the Tuscan language) and languages of France like the Occitano-Romance languages and the langues d'oïl including the mixed Franco-Venetian . Even before the demise of the Republic, Venetian gradually ceased to be used for administrative purposes in favor of

330-553: A captain and a servetta (serving maid)". Commedia often performed inside in court theatres or halls, and also as some fixed theatres such as Teatro Baldrucca in Florence. Flaminio Scala, who had been a minor performer in the Gelosi, published the scenarios of the commedia dell'arte around the start of the 17th century, really in an effort to legitimize the form—and ensure its legacy. These scenarios are highly structured and built around

440-510: A commedia dell'arte company in which the performers find their life situations reflecting events they depict on stage. Commedia characters also figure in Richard Strauss 's opera Ariadne auf Naxos . The piano piece Carnaval by Robert Schumann was conceived as a type of masked ball that combined characters from commedia dell'arte with real world characters, such as Chopin , Paganini , and Clara Schumann , as well as characters from

550-635: A compensation for the fact that the 2nd- and 3rd-person inflections for most verbs, which are still distinct in Italian and many other Romance languages, are identical in Venetian. The Piedmontese language also has clitic subject pronouns, but the rules are somewhat different. The function of clitics is particularly visible in long sentences, which do not always have clear intonational breaks to easily tell apart vocative and imperative in sharp commands from exclamations with "shouted indicative". For instance, in Venetian

660-508: A fresh range of expression and choreographic means. An example of a commedia dell'arte character in literature is the Pied Piper of Hamelin who is dressed as Harlequin . Music and dance were central to commedia dell'arte performance, and most performances had both instrumental and vocal music in them. Brighella was often depicted with a guitar, and many images of the commedia feature singing innamorati or dancing figures. In fact, it

770-472: A high-class courtesan. Female characters in the masters group, while younger than their male counterparts, are nevertheless older than the amorosi . Some of the better known commedia dell'arte characters are Pierrot and Pierrette, Pantalone , Gianduja , il Dottore , Brighella , il Capitano , Colombina , the innamorati , Pedrolino , Pulcinella , Arlecchino , Sandrone , Scaramuccia (also known as Scaramouche), la Signora , and Tartaglia . In

880-505: A joke or "something foolish or witty", usually well known to the performers and to some extent a scripted routine. Another characteristic of commedia is pantomime , which is mostly used by the character Arlecchino , now better known as Harlequin. The characters of the commedia usually represent fixed social types and stock characters , such as foolish old men, devious servants, or military officers full of false bravado . The characters are exaggerated "real characters", such as

990-427: A know-it-all doctor called il Dottore , a greedy old man called Pantalone , or a perfect relationship like the innamorati . Many troupes were formed to perform commedia , including I Gelosi (which had actors such as Isabella Andreini and her husband Francesco Andreini ), Confidenti Troupe, Desioi Troupe, and Fedeli Troupe. Commedia was often performed outside on platforms or in popular areas such as

1100-482: A nasal, whereas Italian only uses [ ŋ ] before velar stops: e.g. [kaŋˈtaɾ] "to sing", [iŋˈvɛɾno] "winter", [ˈoŋzaɾ] "to anoint", [ɾaŋˈdʒaɾse] "to cope with". Speakers of Italian generally lack this sound and usually substitute a dental [ n ] for final Venetian [ ŋ ] , changing for example [maˈniŋ] to [maˈnin] and [maˈɾiŋ] to [maˈrin] . An accented á

1210-400: A number of innamorati were skilled madrigalists , a song form that uses chromatics and close harmonies . Audiences came to see the performers, with plotlines becoming secondary to the performance. Among the great innamorate , Isabella Andreini was perhaps the most widely known, and a medallion dedicated to her reads "eternal fame". Tristano Martinelli achieved international fame as

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1320-505: A number of playwrights have featured characters influenced by the commedia dell'arte and sometimes directly drawn from it. Prominent examples include The Tempest by William Shakespeare , Les Fourberies de Scapin by Molière , The Servant of Two Masters (1743) by Carlo Goldoni , the Figaro plays of Pierre Beaumarchais , and especially The Love for Three Oranges , Turandot and other fiabe by Carlo Gozzi . Influences appear in

1430-608: A partisan platform, Napoleon outlawed the commedia dell'arte. It was not reborn in Venice until 1979 because of this. Compagnie, or companies, were troupes of actors, each of whom had a specific function or role. Actors were versed in a plethora of skills, with many having joined troupes without a theatre background. Some were doctors, others priests, others soldiers, enticed by the excitement and prevalence of theatre in Italian society. Actors were known to switch from troupe to troupe "on loan", and companies would often collaborate if unified by

1540-609: A piazza ( town square ). The form of theatre originated in Italy, but travelled throughout Europe—sometimes to as far away as Moscow. The genesis of commedia may be related to Carnival in Venice , where the author and actor Andrea Calmo had created the character Il Magnifico, the precursor to the vecchio (meaning 'old one' or simply 'old') Pantalone, by 1570. In the Flaminio Scala scenario, for example, Il Magnifico persists and

1650-467: A result, commedia was reduced to formulaic and stylized acting; as far as possible from the purity of the improvisational genesis a century earlier. In France, during the reign of Louis XIV , the Comédie-Italienne created a repertoire and delineated new masks and characters, while deleting some of the Italian precursors, such as Pantalone. French playwrights, particularly Molière , gleaned from

1760-566: A single patron or performing in the same general location. Members would also splinter off to form their own troupes, such was the case with the Ganassa and the Gelosi. These compagnie travelled throughout Europe from the early period, beginning with the Soldati, then, the Ganassa, who travelled to Spain, and were famous for playing the guitar and singing—never to be heard from again—and the famous troupes of

1870-516: A special interrogative verbal flexion used for direct questions, which also incorporates a redundant pronoun: Reflexive tenses use the auxiliary verb avér ("to have"), as in English, the North Germanic languages , Catalan, Spanish, Romanian and Neapolitan; instead of èssar ("to be"), which would be normal in Italian. The past participle is invariable, unlike Italian: Another peculiarity of

1980-473: A type of baton known as a slapstick . These characters included the forebears of the modern clown , namely Harlequin and the Zanni. Harlequin, in particular, was allowed to comment on current events in his entertainment. The classic, traditional plot is that the innamorati are in love and wish to be married, but one elder ( vecchio ) or several elders ( vecchi ) are preventing this from happening, leading

2090-464: A type of characteristic representative of some particular Italian district or town" (archetypes). The character's persona included the specific dialect of the region or town represented. Meaning that on stage, each character was performed in its own dialect. Characters would often be passed down from generation to generation, and characters married onstage were often married in real life as well, seen most famously with Francesco and Isabella Andreini. This

2200-662: A vote before the Senate. On its own discretion, particularly on pressing matters of finance or foreign affairs, the College could instead send motions to be voted by the Council of Ten . The College had the authority to dispose of public funds to the sum of 25 gold ducats in total. Along with the board of the Consultori in Iure , the College was also responsible for relations with the Church, including

2310-427: A weakened or lenited ("evanescent") ⟨l⟩ , which in some orthographic norms is indicated with the letter ⟨ ł ⟩ or ⟨ ƚ ⟩ ; in more conservative dialects, however, ⟨l⟩ and ⟨ł⟩ are merged as ordinary [ l ] . In those dialects that have both types, the precise phonetic realization of ⟨ł⟩ depends both on its phonological environment and on

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2420-405: Is a "semi-analytical" verbal flexion, with a compulsory clitic subject pronoun before the verb in many sentences, echoing the subject as an ending or a weak pronoun. Independent/emphatic pronouns (e.g. ti ), on the contrary, are optional. The clitic subject pronoun ( te, el/ła, i/łe ) is used with the 2nd and 3rd person singular, and with the 3rd person plural. This feature may have arisen as

2530-432: Is a colorful representation of commedia -inspired characters. Picasso also designed the original costumes for Stravinsky 's Pulcinella (1920), a ballet depicting commedia characters and situations. Commedia iconography is evident in porcelain figurines many selling for thousands of dollars at auction. The expressive theatre influenced Molière 's comedy and subsequently ballet d'action , thus lending

2640-635: Is adjacent to a front vowel ( ⟨i e⟩ ). In dialects further inland ⟨ł⟩ may be realized as a partially vocalised ⟨l⟩ . Thus, for example, góndoła 'gondola' may sound like góndoea [ˈɡoŋdoe̯a] , góndola [ˈɡoŋdola] , or góndoa [ˈɡoŋdoa] . In dialects having a null realization of intervocalic ⟨ł⟩ , although pairs of words such as scóła , "school" and scóa , "broom" are homophonous (both being pronounced [ˈskoa] ), they are still distinguished orthographically. Venetian, like Spanish, does not have

2750-609: Is also spoken in North and South America by the descendants of Italian immigrants. Notable examples of this are Argentina and Brazil , particularly the city of São Paulo and the Talian dialect spoken in the Brazilian states of Espírito Santo , São Paulo , Paraná , Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina . In Mexico , the Chipilo Venetian dialect is spoken in the state of Puebla and

2860-437: Is called Prima Donna and can be one of the lovers. There is also a female character known as The Courtisane who can also have a servant. Female servants wore bonnets. Their character was played with a malicious wit or gossipy gaiety. The amorosi are often children of a male character in the masters group, but not of any female character in the masters group, which may represent younger women who have e.g. married an old man, or

2970-562: Is centred in Florence , Mantua , and Venice, where the major companies came under the protection of the various dukes . Concomitantly, a Neapolitan tradition emerged in the south and featured the prominent stage figure Pulcinella , which has been long associated with Naples and derived into various types elsewhere—most famously as the puppet character Punch (of the eponymous Punch and Judy shows) in England. Although commedia dell'arte flourished in

3080-491: Is interchangeable with Pantalone into the 17th century. While Calmo's characters (which also included the Spanish Capitano and a il Dottore type) were not masked, it is uncertain at what point the characters donned the mask. However, the connection to Carnival (the period between Epiphany and Ash Wednesday ) would suggest that masking was a convention of Carnival and was applied at some point. The tradition in northern Italy

3190-533: Is more probable that the comici used contemporary novella or traditional sources, and drew from current events and local news of the day. Not all scenarios were comic, there were some mixed forms and even tragedies. Shakespeare's The Tempest is drawn from a popular scenario in the Scala collection, his Polonius ( Hamlet ) is drawn from Pantalone, and his clowns bear homage to the Zanni. Comici performed written comedies at court. Song and dance were widely used, and

3300-405: Is now pronounced either as [ dz ] (Italian voiced-Z ), or more typically as [ z ] (Italian voiced-S , written ⟨x⟩ , as in el pianxe ); in a few dialects the sound appears as [ d ] and may therefore be written instead with the letter ⟨d⟩ , as in el piande . Some varieties of Venetian also distinguish an ordinary [ l ] vs.

3410-649: Is one of the Italo-Dalmatian languages and most closely related to Istriot on the one hand and Tuscan – Italian on the other. Some authors include it among the Gallo-Italic languages , and according to others, it is not related to either one. Although both Ethnologue and Glottolog group Venetian into the Gallo-Italic languages, the linguists Giacomo Devoto and Francesco Avolio and the Treccani encyclopedia reject

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3520-454: Is pronounced as [ ɐ ], (an intervocalic / u / could be pronounced as a [ w ] sound). While written Venetian looks similar to Italian, it sounds very different, with a distinct lilting cadence, almost musical. Compared to Italian, in Venetian syllabic rhythms are more evenly timed, accents are less marked, but on the other hand tonal modulation is much wider and melodic curves are more intricate. Stressed and unstressed syllables sound almost

3630-588: Is pronounced the same as Castilian Spanish cena (which has the same meaning). The voiceless interdental fricative occurs in Bellunese, north-Trevisan, and in some Central Venetian rural areas around Padua, Vicenza and the mouth of the river Po . Because the pronunciation variant [ θ ] is more typical of older speakers and speakers living outside of major cities, it has come to be socially stigmatized, and most speakers now use [ s ] or [ ts ] instead of [ θ ] . In those dialects with

3740-579: Is spoken mainly in the Italian regions of Veneto and Friuli-Venezia Giulia and in both Slovenia and Croatia ( Istria , Dalmatia and the Kvarner Gulf ). Smaller communities are found in Lombardy ( Mantua ), Trentino , Emilia-Romagna ( Rimini and Forlì ), Sardinia ( Arborea , Terralba , Fertilia ), Lazio ( Pontine Marshes ), Tuscany ( Grossetan Maremma ) and formerly in Romania ( Tulcea ). It

3850-615: Is used only in Veneto dialects of Venetian language. It will suffice to know that in Venetian language the letter L in word-initial and intervocalic positions usually becomes a "palatal allomorph", and is barely pronounced. Very few Venetic words seem to have survived in present Venetian, but there may be more traces left in the morphology, such as the morpheme - esto / asto / isto for the past participle, which can be found in Venetic inscriptions from about 500 BC: A peculiarity of Venetian grammar

3960-524: The Gelosi performing Tasso 's Aminta , for example, and much was done at court rather than in the street. By the mid-16th century, specific troupes of commedia performers began to coalesce, and by 1568 the Gelosi became a distinct company. In keeping with the tradition of the Italian Academies, the Gelosi adopted as their impress (or coat of arms) the two-faced Roman god Janus . Janus symbolized both

4070-556: The Italian theatre during the Mannerist period, there has been a long-standing tradition of trying to establish historical antecedents in antiquity. While it is possible to detect formal similarities between the commedia dell'arte and earlier theatrical traditions, there is no way to establish certainty of origin. Some date the origins to the period of the Roman middle republic ( Plautine types ) or

4180-449: The Italo-Dalmatian branch of Romance. Like all members of the Romance language family , Venetian evolved from Vulgar Latin , and is thus a sister language of Italian and other Romance languages. Venetian is first attested in writing in the 13th century. The language enjoyed substantial prestige in the days of the Republic of Venice , when it attained the status of a lingua franca in

4290-508: The Mediterranean Sea . Notable Venetian-language authors include the playwrights Ruzante (1502–1542), Carlo Goldoni (1707–1793) and Carlo Gozzi (1720–1806). Following the old Italian theatre tradition ( commedia dell'arte ), they used Venetian in their comedies as the speech of the common folk. They are ranked among the foremost Italian theatrical authors of all time, and plays by Goldoni and Gozzi are still performed today all over

4400-593: The geminate consonants characteristic of standard Italian, Tuscan, Neapolitan and other languages of southern Italy; thus Italian fette ("slices"), palla ("ball") and penna ("pen") correspond to féte , bała , and péna in Venetian. The masculine singular noun ending, corresponding to -o / -e in Italian, is often unpronounced in Venetian after continuants, particularly in rural varieties: Italian pieno ("full") corresponds to Venetian pien , Italian altare to Venetian altar . The extent to which final vowels are deleted varies by dialect:

4510-453: The subjunctive mood is widely used in subordinate clauses . Some dialects of Venetian have certain sounds not present in Italian, such as the interdental voiceless fricative [ θ ] , often spelled with ⟨ç⟩ , ⟨z⟩ , ⟨zh⟩ , or ⟨ž⟩ , and similar to English th in thing and thought . This sound occurs, for example, in çéna ("supper", also written zhena, žena ), which

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4620-539: The 14th century to some extent. Other noteworthy variants are: Like most Romance languages, Venetian has mostly abandoned the Latin case system , in favor of prepositions and a more rigid subject–verb–object sentence structure. It has thus become more analytic , if not quite as much as English. Venetian also has the Romance articles , both definite (derived from the Latin demonstrative ille ) and indefinite (derived from

4730-524: The 17th century, as commedia became popular in France, the characters of Pierrot, Columbine and Harlequin were refined and became essentially Parisian, according to Green. Each character in commedia dell'arte has a distinct costume that helps the audience understand who the character is. Harlequin originally wore a tight fitting long jacket with matching trousers that both had numerous odd shaped patches, usually green, yellow, red, and brown. Usually, there

4840-670: The 2010 2nd Regional ad hoc Commission of the Regione del Veneto. The Academia de ła Bona Creansa – Academy of the Venetian Language, an NGO accredited according to the UNESCO 2003 Convention for the Venetian language and culture had already worked, tested, applied and certified a full writing system (presented in a scientific publication in linguistics in 2016), known with the DECA acronym ( Drio El Costumar de l'Academia , i.e. literally According to

4950-489: The 20th century also saw many Venetian-speakers settle in other regions of Italy, especially in the Pontine Marshes of southern Lazio where they populated new towns such as Latina , Aprilia and Pomezia , forming there the so-called " Venetian-Pontine " community ( comunità venetopontine ). Some firms have chosen to use Venetian language in advertising, as a beer did some years ago ( Xe foresto solo el nome , 'only

5060-642: The French Parliament. The term vagabondi was used in reference to the comici , and remains a derogatory term to this day ( vagabond ). This was in reference to the nomadic nature of the troupes, often instigated by persecution from the Church, civil authorities, and rival theatre organisations that forced the companies to move from place to place. A troupe often consisted of ten performers of familiar masked and unmasked types, and included women. The companies would employ carpenters, props masters, servants, nurses, and prompters, all of whom would travel with

5170-817: The Gallo-Italic classification. Although the language region is surrounded by Gallo-Italic languages , Venetian does not share some traits with these immediate neighbors. Some scholars stress Venetian's characteristic lack of Gallo-Italic traits ( agallicità ) or traits found further afield in Gallo-Romance languages (e.g. French, Franco-Provençal ) or the Rhaeto-Romance languages (e.g. Friulian , Romansh ). For example, Venetian did not undergo vowel rounding or nasalization, palatalize /kt/ and /ks/ , or develop rising diphthongs /ei/ and /ou/ , and it preserved final syllables, whereas, as in Italian , Venetian diphthongization occurs in historically open syllables. On

5280-465: The Golden Age (1580–1605): Gelosi, Confidenti, Accessi. These names which signified daring and enterprise were appropriated from the names of the academies—in a sense, to lend legitimacy. However, each troupe had its impresse (like a coat of arms) which symbolized its nature. The Gelosi, for example, used the two-headed face of the Roman god Janus , to signify its comings and goings and relationship to

5390-414: The Italian stage. The Italian scholar Ferdinando Taviani has collated a number of church documents opposing the advent of the actress as a type of courtesan, whose scanty attire and promiscuous lifestyle corrupted young men, or at least infused them with carnal desires. Taviani's term negativa poetica describes this and other practices offensive to the church, while giving us an idea of the phenomenon of

5500-766: The Tuscan-derived Italian language that had been proposed and used as a vehicle for a common Italian culture, strongly supported by eminent Venetian humanists and poets, from Pietro Bembo (1470–1547), a crucial figure in the development of the Italian language itself, to Ugo Foscolo (1778–1827). Venetian spread to other continents as a result of mass migration from the Veneto region between 1870 and 1905, and between 1945 and 1960. Venetian migrants created large Venetian-speaking communities in Argentina , Brazil (see Talian ), and Mexico (see Chipilo Venetian dialect ), where

5610-703: The Use of the Academia ). The DECA writing system has been officialized by the Veneto Region under the name Grafia Veneta Internazionale Moderna , by unanimous vote of the Commissione Grafia e Toponomastica (i.e. Script and Topononymy Committee of the Venetian language on December 14, 2017, and available at portal of the Venetian Regional Council dedicated to the Venetian language . The same writing system

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5720-494: The authority to issue decrees when the Senate was not in session, as well as to suspend decrees of the Great Council (provided that this measure was justified during the council's next session), by the 18th century the College became the most influential institution of the Republic. Venetian language Although referred to as an "Italian dialect" (Venetian: diałeto ; Italian : dialetto ) even by some of its speakers,

5830-758: The central–southern varieties delete vowels only after / n / , whereas the northern variety deletes vowels also after dental stops and velars; the eastern and western varieties are in between these two extremes. The velar nasal [ ŋ ] (the final sound in English "song") occurs frequently in Venetian. A word-final / n / is always velarized, which is especially obvious in the pronunciation of many local Venetian surnames that end in ⟨n⟩ , such as Mari n [maˈɾiŋ] and Mani n [maˈniŋ] , as well as in common Venetian words such as ma n ( [ˈmaŋ] "hand"), piro n ( [piˈɾoŋ] "fork"). Moreover, Venetian always uses [ ŋ ] in consonant clusters that start with

5940-400: The character. In other words, the characteristics of the character and the characteristics of the mask are the same. In time however, the word maschere came to refer to all of the characters of the commedia dell'arte whether masked or not. Female characters (including female servants) are most often not masked (female amorose are never masked). The female character in the masters group

6050-430: The city and region, which is why the modern language has a similar name, while their language may have also left a few traces in modern Venetian as a substrate . The main regional varieties and subvarieties of Venetian language: All these variants are mutually intelligible, with a minimum 92% in common among the most diverging ones (Central and Western). Modern speakers reportedly can still understand Venetian texts from

6160-446: The clitic el marks the indicative verb and its masculine singular subject, otherwise there is an imperative preceded by a vocative. Although some grammars regard these clitics as "redundant", they actually provide specific additional information as they mark number and gender, thus providing number-/gender- agreement between the subject(s) and the verb, which does not necessarily show this information on its endings. Venetian also has

6270-462: The comings and goings of this travelling troupe and the dual nature of the actor who impersonates the "other". The Gelosi performed in northern Italy and France, where they received protection and patronage from the King of France. Despite fluctuations, the Gelosi maintained stability for performances with the "usual ten": "two vecchi , four innamorati (two male and two female lovers), two Zanni ,

6380-493: The commedia dell'arte performance. By the early 17th century, the Zanni comedies were moving from pure improvisational street performances to specified and clearly delineated acts and characters. Three books written during the 17th century— Cecchini's  [ it ] Fruti della moderne commedia (1628), Niccolò Barbieri 's La supplica (1634) and Perrucci's Dell'arte rapresentativa (1699)—"made firm recommendations concerning performing practice". Katritzky argues that, as

6490-472: The company. They would travel in large carts laden with supplies necessary for their nomadic style of performance, enabling them to move from place to place without having to worry about the difficulties of relocation. This nomadic nature, although influenced by persecution, was also largely due in part to the troupes requiring new (and paying) audiences. They would take advantage of public fairs and celebrations, most often in wealthier towns where financial success

6600-730: The composer's inner world. Movements of the piece reflect the names of many characters of the commedia , including Pierrot , Harlequin, Pantalone , and Columbine. Stock characters and situations also appear in ballet. Igor Stravinsky 's Petrushka and Pulcinella allude directly to the tradition. Commedia dell'arte is performed seasonally in Denmark on the Peacock Stage of Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, and north of Copenhagen at Dyrehavsbakken . Tivoli has regular performances, while Bakken has daily performances for children by Pierrot and

6710-537: The corresponding words of Italian. Venetian includes however many words derived from other sources (such as ancient Venetic, Greek, Gothic, and German), and has preserved some Latin words not used to the same extent in Italian, resulting in many words that are not cognate with their equivalent words in Italian, such as: Since December 2017 the Venetian language adopted a modern writing system, named GVIM (acronym for Grafia del Veneto Internazionale Moderno , i.e. Writing system for Modern International Venetian ) thanks to

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6820-440: The dialect of the speaker. In Venice and its mainland as well as in most of central Veneto (excluding the peripheral provinces of Verona, Belluno and some islands of the lagoon) the realization is a non-syllabic [e̯] (usually described as nearly like an "e" and so often spelled as ⟨e⟩ ), when ⟨ł⟩ is adjacent (only) to back vowels ( ⟨a o u⟩ ), vs. a null realization when ⟨ł⟩

6930-543: The diamond shaped lozenges took shape. The jacket became shorter and his hat changed from a soft cap to a double pointed hat. Il Dottore's costume was a play on the academic dress of the Bolognese scholars. Il Dottore is almost always clothed entirely in black. He wore a long black gown or jacket that went below the knees. Over the gown, he would have a long black robe that went down to his heels, and he would have on black shoes, stockings, and breeches. In 1653, his costume

7040-423: The dispatch of the Italian comedians from France in 1697, the form transmogrified in the 18th century as genres such as comédie larmoyante gained in attraction in France, particularly through the plays of Marivaux . Marivaux softened the commedia considerably by bringing in true emotion to the stage. Harlequin achieved more prominence during this period. It is possible that this type of improvised acting

7150-421: The early republic ( Atellan Farces ). The Atellan Farces of the early Roman republic featured crude "types" wearing masks with grossly exaggerated features and an improvised plot. Some historians argue that Atellan stock characters, Pappus, Maccus+Buccus, and Manducus, are the primitive versions of the commedia characters Pantalone , Pulcinella , and il Capitano . More recent accounts establish links to

7260-734: The first of the great Harlequins, and was honoured by the Medici and the Queen of France. Performers made use of well-rehearsed jokes and stock physical gags, known as lazzi and concetti , as well as on-the-spot improvised and interpolated episodes and routines, called burle ( sg. : burla , Italian for 'joke'), usually involving a practical joke. Since the productions were improvised, dialogue and action could easily be changed to satirize local scandals, current events, or regional tastes, while still using old jokes and punchlines. Characters were identified by costumes, masks, and props , such as

7370-439: The first primadonnas and the first well-documented actresses in Italy (and Europe). In the 1570s, English theatre critics generally denigrated the troupes with their female actors (some decades later, Ben Jonson referred to one female performer of the commedia as a "tumbling whore"). By the end of the 1570s, Italian prelates attempted to ban female performers; however, by the end of the 16th century, actresses were standard on

7480-522: The form to its liking. For example, pantomime , which flourished in the 18th century, owes its genesis to the character types of the commedia , particularly Harlequin . The Punch and Judy puppet shows, popular to this day in England, owe their basis to the Pulcinella mask that emerged in Neapolitan versions of the form. In Italy, commedia masks and plots found their way into the opera buffa , and

7590-428: The label is primarily geographic. Venetian is a separate language from Italian, with many local varieties. Its precise place within the Romance language family remains somewhat controversial. Both Ethnologue and Glottolog group it into the Gallo-Italic branch (and thus, closer to French and Emilian–Romagnol than to Italian ). Devoto , Avolio and Ursini reject such classification, and Tagliavini places it in

7700-478: The language is still spoken today. In the 19th century large-scale immigration towards Trieste and Muggia extended the presence of the Venetian language eastward. Previously the dialect of Trieste had been a Rhaeto Romance dialect known as Tergestino . This dialect became extinct as a result of Venetian migration, which gave rise to the Triestino dialect of Venetian spoken there today. Internal migrations during

7810-672: The language is the use of the phrase eser drìo (literally, "to be behind") to indicate continuing action: Another progressive form in some Venetian dialects uses the construction èsar łà che (lit. "to be there that"): The use of progressive tenses is more pervasive than in Italian; e.g. That construction does not occur in Italian: *Non sarebbe mica stato parlandoti is not syntactically valid. Subordinate clauses have double introduction ("whom that", "when that", "which that", "how that"), as in Old English : As in other Romance languages,

7920-521: The late 19th century. The people of Chipilo preserve their dialect and call it chipileño , and it has been preserved as a variant since the 19th century. The variant of Venetian spoken by the Cipiłàn ( Chipileños ) is northern Trevisàn-Feltrìn-Belumàt. In 2009, the Brazilian city of Serafina Corrêa , in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, gave Talian a joint official status alongside Portuguese . Until

8030-895: The lodgers in Steven Berkoff 's adaptation of Franz Kafka 's The Metamorphosis . Through their association with spoken theatre and playwrights commedia figures have provided opera with many of its stock characters. Mozart 's Don Giovanni sets a puppet show story and comic servants such as Leporello and Figaro have commedia precedents. Soubrette characters such as Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro , Zerlina in Don Giovanni and Despina in Così fan tutte recall Columbine and related characters. The comic operas of Gaetano Donizetti , such as L'elisir d'amore , draw readily upon commedia stock types. Leoncavallo 's tragic melodrama Pagliacci depicts

8140-409: The lovers to ask one or more Zanni (eccentric servants) for help. Typically the story ends happily, with the marriage of the innamorati and forgiveness for any wrongdoings. While generally personally unscripted, the performances often were based on scenarios that gave some semblance of a plot to the largely improvised format. The Flaminio Scala scenarios, published in the early 17th century, are

8250-633: The masked types), and excessive borrowing as opposed to originality was typical of all the arts in the late Italian Renaissance . Theatre historian Martin Green points to the extravagance of emotion during the period of commedia 's emergence as the reason for representational moods, or characters, that define the art. In commedia , each character embodies a mood: mockery, sadness, gaiety, confusion, and so forth. According to 18th-century London theatre critic Baretti , commedia dell'arte incorporates specific roles and characters that were "originally intended as

8360-552: The medieval jongleurs, and prototypes from medieval moralities, such as Hellequin (as the source of Harlequin, for example). The first recorded commedia dell'arte performances came from Rome as early as 1551. Commedia dell'arte was performed outdoors in temporary venues by professional actors who were costumed and masked, as opposed to commedia erudita ( lit.   ' learned comedy ' ), which were written comedies, presented indoors by untrained and unmasked actors. This view may be somewhat romanticized since records describe

8470-676: The middle of the 20th century, Venetian was also spoken on the Greek Island of Corfu , which had long been under the rule of the Republic of Venice . Moreover, Venetian had been adopted by a large proportion of the population of Cephalonia , one of the Ionian Islands , because the island was part of the Stato da Màr for almost three centuries. Venetian is a Romance language and thus descends from Vulgar Latin . Its classification has always been controversial: According to Tagliavini, for example, it

8580-459: The most influential painters, Lodewyk Toeput, for example, became Ludovico Pozzoserrato and was a celebrated painter in the Veneto region of Italy. The pittore vago can be attributed with establishing commedia dell'arte as a genre of painting that would persist for centuries. While the iconography gives evidence of the performance style (see Fossard collection), many of the images and engravings were not depictions from real life, but concocted in

8690-408: The most widely known collection and representative of its most esteemed compagnia , I Gelosi . The iconography of the commedia dell'arte represents an entire field of study that has been examined by commedia scholars such as Erenstein, Castagno, Katritzky, Molinari, and others. In the early period, representative works by painters at Fontainebleau were notable for their erotic depictions of

8800-401: The name is foreign'). In other cases advertisements in Veneto are given a "Venetian flavour" by adding a Venetian word to standard Italian: for instance an airline used the verb xe ( Xe sempre più grande , "it is always bigger") into an Italian sentence (the correct Venetian being el xe senpre pì grando ) to advertise new flights from Marco Polo Airport . In 2007, Venetian

8910-452: The noun in gender and number, but it is important to mention that the suffix might be deleted because the article is the part that suggests the number. However, Italian is influencing Venetian language: In recent studies on Venetian variants in Veneto, there has been a tendency to write the so-called "evanescent L" as ⟨ł⟩ . While it may help novice speakers, Venetian was never written with this letter. In this article, this symbol

9020-528: The numeral unus ). Venetian also retained the Latin concepts of gender (masculine and feminine) and number (singular and plural). Unlike the Gallo-Iberian languages, which form plurals by adding -s , Venetian forms plurals in a manner similar to standard Italian. Nouns and adjectives can be modified by suffixes that indicate several qualities such as size, endearment, deprecation, etc. Adjectives (usually postfixed) and articles are inflected to agree with

9130-543: The other hand, Venetian does share many other traits with its surrounding Gallo-Italic languages, like interrogative clitics , mandatory unstressed subject pronouns (with some exceptions), the "to be behind to" verbal construction to express the continuous aspect ("El ze drio manjar" = He is eating, lit. he is behind to eat) and the absence of the absolute past tense as well as of geminated consonants . In addition, Venetian has some unique traits which are shared by neither Gallo-Italic, nor Italo-Dalmatian languages, such as

9240-455: The period the Capitano is from. Pantalone has one of the most iconic costumes of commedia dell'arte. Typically, he would wear a tight-fitting jacket with a matching pair of trousers. He usually pairs these two with a big black coat called a zimarra . Women, who usually played servants or lovers, wore less stylized costumes than the men in commedia . The innamorati would wear what

9350-470: The plots and masks in creating an indigenous treatment. Indeed, Molière shared the stage with the Comédie-Italienne at Petit-Bourbon , and some of his forms, e.g. the tirade , are derivative from the commedia ( tirata ). Commedia dell'arte moved outside the city limits to the théâtre de la foire , or fair theatres, in the early 17th century as it evolved toward a more pantomimed style. With

9460-511: The plots of Rossini , Verdi , and Puccini . During the Napoleonic occupation of Italy, instigators of reform and critics of French Imperial rule (such as Giacomo Casanova ) used the Carnival masks to hide their identities while fueling political agendas, challenging social rule and hurling blatant insults and criticisms at the regime. In 1797, in order to destroy the impromptu style of Carnival as

9570-416: The profession ' ) was an early form of professional theatre , originating from Italian theatre , that was popular throughout Europe between the 16th and 18th centuries. It was formerly called Italian comedy in English and is also known as commedia alla maschera , commedia improvviso , and commedia dell'arte all'improvviso . Characterized by masked "types", commedia was responsible for

9680-475: The pronunciation [ s ] , the sound has fallen together with ordinary ⟨s⟩ , and so it is not uncommon to simply write ⟨s⟩ (or ⟨ss⟩ between vowels) instead of ⟨ç⟩ or ⟨zh⟩ (such as sena ). Similarly some dialects of Venetian also have a voiced interdental fricative [ ð ] , often written ⟨z⟩ (as in el pianze 'he cries'); but in most dialects this sound

9790-407: The reception of bishops and prelates visiting Venice. It adjudicated in matters of Church benefits and patronages, the privileges of the Republic's subject cities, and the duties of the salt tax ( gabelle ). The power of the College rose from 1526 on, when it received the privilege of withholding from the Senate any acts it deemed as necessary to be kept secret. Along with the College also received

9900-413: The rise of actresses such as Isabella Andreini and improvised performances based on sketches or scenarios. A commedia , such as The Tooth Puller , contains both scripted and improvised portions; key plot points and characters' entrances and exits are scripted, but the actors may otherwise be expected to improvise new gags on stage. A special characteristic of commedia is the lazzo ,

10010-529: The same office for three or six months thereafter. To ensure continuity, the appointments to the office of savio were staggered, with six-month tenures beginning on 1 October, 1 January, 1 April, and 1 July. The College met daily, under the presidency of the Doge, but with the Savi del Consiglio setting its agenda. The council read reports and dispatches, gave audience to foreign envoys, and prepared all issues to come to

10120-492: The same; there are no long vowels, and there is no consonant lengthening. Compare the Italian sentence va laggiù con lui [val.ladˌd͡ʒuk.konˈluː.i] "go there with him" (all long/heavy syllables but final) with Venetian va là zo co lu [va.laˌzo.koˈlu] (all short/light syllables). As a direct descent of regional spoken Latin, Venetian lexicon derives its vocabulary substantially from Latin and (in more recent times) from Tuscan, so that most of its words are cognate with

10230-594: The season of Carnival , which took place in January. Janus also signified the duality of the actor, who is playing a character or mask, while still remaining oneself. Magistrates and clergy were not always receptive to the travelling compagnie, particularly during periods of plague, and because of their itinerant nature. Actors, both male and female, were known to strip nearly naked, and storylines typically descended into crude situations with overt sexuality, considered to teach nothing but "lewdness and adultery...of both sexes" by

10340-465: The six Savi del Consiglio , the five Savi di Terraferma (responsible for financial and military affairs), and the Savi agli Ordini (responsible for maritime matters). As with other higher magistracies of Venice, restrictions were placed on the eligibility to the office for the savi : the members were elected from the Venetian Senate , served a term of six months, and could not be re-elected to

10450-581: The studio. The Callot etchings of the Balli di Sfessania (1611) are most widely considered capricci rather than actual depictions of a commedia dance form, or typical masks. While these are often reproduced in large formats, the actual prints measured about 2×3 inches. In the 18th century, Watteau 's painting of commedia figures intermingling with the aristocracy were often set in sumptuous garden or pastoral settings and were representative of that genre. Pablo Picasso 's 1921 painting Three Musicians

10560-524: The symmetry of the various types in duet: two Zanni, vecchi , innamorate and innamorati , etc. In commedia dell'arte, female roles were played by women, documented as early as the 1560s, making them the first known professional actresses in Europe since antiquity. Lucrezia Di Siena , whose name is on a contract of actors from 10 October 1564, has been referred to as the first Italian actress known by name, with Vincenza Armani and Barbara Flaminia as

10670-477: The thinly veiled innamorata , or the bare-breasted courtesan/actress. The Flemish influence is widely documented as commedia figures entered the world of the vanitas genre, depicting the dangers of lust, drinking, and the hedonistic lifestyle. Castagno describes the Flemish pittore vago ('wandering painter') who assimilated themselves within Italian workshops and even assumed Italian surnames: one of

10780-455: The town of Chipilo . The town was settled by immigrants from the Veneto region, and some of their descendants have preserved the language to this day. People from Chipilo have gone on to make satellite colonies in Mexico, especially in the states of Guanajuato , Querétaro , and State of Mexico . Venetian has also survived in the state of Veracruz , where other Italian migrants have settled since

10890-437: The troupe ever return. Prices were dependent on the troupe's decision, which could vary depending on the wealth of the location, the length of stay, and the regulations governments had in place for dramatic performances. Generally, the actors playing were diverse in background in terms of class and religion, and performed anywhere they could. Castagno posits that the aesthetic of exaggeration, distortion, anti-humanism (as in

11000-466: The use of the impersonal passive forms and the use of the auxiliary verb "to have" for the reflexive voice (both traits shared with German ). Modern Venetian is not a close relative of the extinct Venetic language spoken in Veneto before Roman expansion, although both are Indo-European , and Venetic may have been an Italic language, like Latin , the ancestor of Venetian and most other languages of Italy . The ancient Veneti gave their name to

11110-725: The world. Other notable works in Venetian are the translations of the Iliad by Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) and Francesco Boaretti, the translation of the Divine Comedy (1875) by Giuseppe Cappelli and the poems of Biagio Marin (1891–1985). Notable too is a manuscript titled Dialogo de Cecco di Ronchitti da Bruzene in perpuosito de la stella Nuova attributed to Girolamo Spinelli , perhaps with some supervision by Galileo Galilei for scientific details. Several Venetian–Italian dictionaries are available in print and online, including those by Boerio , Contarini, Nazari and Piccio . As

11220-401: Was a bat and a wallet that would hang from his belt. His hat, which was a soft cap, was modeled after Charles IX or after Henri II, and almost always had a tail of a rabbit, hare or a fox with the occasional tuft of feathers. During the 17th century, the patches turned into blue, red, and green triangles arranged in a symmetrical pattern. The 18th century is when the iconic Harlequin look with

11330-457: Was believed to make performances more natural, as well as strengthening the bonds within the troupe, who emphasized complete unity between every member. Additionally, each character has a singular costume and mask that is representative of the character's role. Commedia dell'arte has four stock character groups: Masked characters are often referred to as "masks" (Italian: maschere ), which, according to John Rudlin, cannot be separated from

11440-453: Was changed by Augustin Lolli who was a very popular il Dottore actor. He added an enormous black hat, changed the robe to a jacket cut similarly to Louis XIV, and added a flat ruff to the neck. Il Capitano's costume is similar to il Dottore's in the fact that it is also a satire on military wear of the time. This costume would therefore change depending on where the Capitano character is from, and

11550-565: Was considered part of the innamorati function to be able to sing and have the popular repertoire under their belt. Accounts of the early commedia , as far back as Calmo in the 1570s and the buffoni of Venice, note the ability of comici to sing madrigali precisely and beautifully. The danzatrice probably accompanied the troupes and may have been in addition to the general cast of characters. For examples of strange instruments of various grotesque formations, see articles by Tom Heck, who has documented this area. The works of

11660-414: Was considered to be the fashion of the time period. They would normally not wear masks but would be heavily makeuped. Conventional plot lines were written on themes of sex , jealousy , love , and old age . Many of the basic plot elements can be traced back to the Roman comedies of Plautus and Terence , some of which were themselves translations of lost Greek comedies of the 4th century BC. However, it

11770-488: Was given recognition by the Regional Council of Veneto with regional law no. 8 of 13 April 2007 "Protection, enhancement and promotion of the linguistic and cultural heritage of Veneto". Though the law does not explicitly grant Venetian any official status, it provides for Venetian as object of protection and enhancement, as an essential component of the cultural, social, historical and civil identity of Veneto. Venetian

11880-538: Was more probable. Companies would also find themselves summoned by high-ranking officials, who would offer patronage in return for performing in their land for a certain amount of time. Companies in fact preferred to not stay in any one place too long, mostly out of a fear of the act becoming "stale". They would move on to the next location while their popularity was still active, ensuring the towns and people were sad to see them leave, and would be more probably to either invite them back or pay to watch performances again should

11990-534: Was passed down the Italian generations until the 17th century, when it was revived as a professional theatrical technique. However, as currently used, the term commedia dell'arte was coined in the mid-18th century. Commedia dell'arte was equally if not more popular in France, where it continued its popularity throughout the 17th century (until 1697), and it was in France that commedia developed its established repertoire. Commedia evolved into various configurations across Europe, and each country acculturated

12100-490: Was then employed for the first grammar of the Venetian language to be published by a university, in Brasil, in 2018 Commedia dell%27arte Commedia dell'arte ( / k ɒ ˈ m eɪ d i ə d ɛ l ˈ ɑːr t eɪ , k ə -, - ˈ m ɛ d i ə , - ˈ ɑːr t iː / kom- AY -dee-ə del- AR -tay, kəm-, -⁠ ED -ee-ə, -⁠ AR -tee , Italian: [komˈmɛːdja delˈlarte] ; lit.   ' comedy of

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