Masques Bouffons Maurice Sand 1st 1860 2 volumes Start Price USD 1,650.00 Current Price USD 1,650.00 Time Left - Bid Count 0 Buy It Now Price - Reserve Price - Start Time Friday, July 18, 2008 End Time Friday, July 25, 2008 Location Rochester, New York See more about 'Masques Bouffons Maurice Sand 1st 1860 2 volumes' Description for offer FRENCH TEXT MASQUES ET BOUFFONS (Comedie Italienne) Texte et Dessins par Maurice Sands,gravures par A. Manceau,preface par George Sand,2 volumes,published byMichel Levy Freres,Paris in 1860 Very solid Mid 20th century rebind in green cloth w/gilt spine titles,4to,2 volumes,viii-1-356,[4],..[4],1-384,plus 50 engraved plates (25 ea volume),all edges gilt,index to volume 2 Books are in very good- antiquarian condition,scattered splotchy foxing,perimeter age toning,light shelf wear. THE ENGRAVINGS IN THIS BOOK ARE NOT HAND COLORED AS SHOWN BELOW illustrations below are taken from Maurice Sand, Masques et bouffons (Comédie Italienne). Paris, Michel Lévy Frères, 1860.   1. Dramatis Personae I. The four masks  « Pantalone, Brighella, Harlequin, and the Doctor, were called the four masks ; they were the most popular, the most typical, the most universally known and the longest of life. » (Vernon Lee, Studies of the Eighteenth Century in Italy, p. 236). 1. Pantalone Busdrago I, Doge of Bobbio                                                Pantalone (1550)      « Old men were typified in Pantalone dei Bisognosi the Venetian merchant, wearing the obsolete costume, --the scarlet stockings, black robe, and long-tailed hood, of the burgher of a mediaeval commonwealth » (Studies 235) He expresses himself in his Venetian dialect. In The Prince of the Hundred Soups, Pantalone, the descendent of a sausage maker, is close to the German « Hanswurst » (« John Sausage »), derived from Pulcinella/Punch.   2.  Scappino Scappini, Count of Brighella, « Generalissimo Scappino Brighella ». Brighella 1570 usually characterized as a cunning, deceitful servant. Vernon Lee turns him into the most powerful man or wizard of Bobbio ; confined within his ivory tower where he indulges in his hobby (embroidery) from which he casts his spells (« we shall see whether thou wilt swallow thy hundredth soup »).   3. Arlecchino, Brighella’s bravo Arlecchino, 1671 « By the middle of the sixteenth century […] the two ideal classes of servants, the hypocritical rogue and the gluttonous sly simpleton, were represented respectively by Brighella, dressed in the loose-striped shirt and linen cap of the artisans of the sixteenth century ; and by Arlecchino, wearing tight-fitting hose and jerkin of motley stripes and patches, suggestive of the grotesque dress of the youths in Signorelli and Carpaccio’s paintings. Both Brighella and Arlecchino came to be associated with the town of Bergamo, the Lombard dialect of which, wholly distinct from the Venetian of Pantalone, they continued to the last to employ. These two servants, the arch buffoons of the play, were called the two Zanni, perhaps in reminiscence of the Sanniones of Antiquity . … Harlequin in especial never lost his antique character of mime, --dancing, playing tricks, and performing gymnastic feats in the midst of his parts. » (Studies 235-6)   4. The Doctor 1653 « To these three were added the Doctor, sometimes called Doctor Graziano or Doctor Balanzon, the typical man of learning : dressed as a jurist, with an immense wine-stain on one cheek : always a Bolognese, always blustering and pedantic, oscillating between a knave and a fool, holding forth in maccaronian Latin. » (Studies 236) Olimpia Fantastici plays The Doctor’s role.   II.  « A quartet of Neapolitan buffoons » « Opposite this quartet of North Italians arose another quartet of Neapolitan buffoons : Pulcinella,… ; Scaramuccia,; Tartaglia,;Coviello;--these Southern masks being more violent, more savage, more indecently antique, than the Northern, and perhaps more restricted  to their own provinces »( Studies 236). 1.  Pulcinella 1800 « Pulcinella, the ancient Maccus, the modern Punch or Polichinelle, with immense nose and double hump, dressed in white, a terrible sort of comic Bluebeard or Nero » (Studies 236): here, the role of hunchback is held by Truffaldino, the « Gobbo » (Ottavio Zanni’s cook). 2.  Scaramuccia 17th-Century Engraving of Scaramuccia Source Napoléon-Maurice Bernardin, La comédie italienne en France et les théâtres de la foire et du boulevard (1570-1791), Paris, Revue bleue, 1902 Date 17th-Century Author Unknown Permission This image is in the public domain.                « The bully and intriguer Scaramuccia, dressed in black, the archetype of the military adventurer ». (Studies 236). 3. Tartaglia « the simpleton and stammerer Tartaglia » (Studies 236). Here absent 4. Coviello « the long, dancing, fiddling, singing vagabond Coviello » (Studies 236). Here absent, but Olimpia is undeniably endowed with some of his features. III. « Regular actors and actresses » « To these masks—half actors, half acrobats, half jesters—were added regular actors and actresses, speaking Tuscan and probably improvising but little, the pair of lovers borrowed with but slight alteration from the written comedy and retaining its pseudo-antique names : Lelio, Leandro, Orazio, and Florindo ; Lavinia, Flamminia, Ortensia, Giacinta or Rosaura, dapper figures with no comic work to do, but necessary for the action of the play » (Studies 236). 1.  Colombina (Olimpia’s maid) 1683 2. Lady Giacinta (Busdrago) : a disdainful, charismatic, superior woman who belittles her lover Leandro (another Leeian « New Woman »). 3.  Isabella 1600 4.  Leandro (Scappini Brighella) : Giacinta’s lover ; fragile, submissive, caught in the horns of a dilemma (ch 10); romantic and sensitive. Giacinta and Leandro = Romeo and Juliet. 5.Ottavio, 1688 Place a Bid!