The Commedia dell'Arte: At the Origins of Modern Italian Theater

The course aims to retrace, through the works, documents and testimonies, the birth and development of the phenomenon of the Commedia dell'arte. The great illustrious comedians of its origins - Andreini, Cecchini, Scala, Martinelli - will help us understand the characteristics founded by the new theatrical phenomenology that appeared in the second half of the sixteenth century and developed, reaching its legitimacy, in the first thirty years of the seventeenth century. The study of the great works that have enhanced the masks and characters of the Commedia dell'arte (Lovers, Zanni, Colombina) will allow us to understand the evolution and rapid spread of the art throughout Europe. The parable of the Commedia dell'arte will close with the re-reading of this Tradition made by Carlo Goldoni in the eighteenth century and the need for his reform of what was considered the "corrupt Italian theater"