Quaderni d`italianistica : revue officielle de la Société canadienne

LAURIE SHEPARD
SIENA
GENESIS OF A EUROPEAN HEROINE
1531:
In Gl'Ingannati, Isabella, a wealthy nubile
woman
of Modena, lures Fabio, the
home and
page of a local merchant, into the entryway of her
exchange a
kiss
and the promise of a
tryst.
there they
In the sixteenth-century comedy,
the kiss took place off stage, recounted and embellished by Crivello and
Scatizza,
two servant-voyeurs. Fabio
wooing her
bidding, supposedly
for
is
to his "master's dish," as Scatizza puts
she lusts after
near Flamminio
of the
kiss, in
men, one
as a
who
Lelia,
is
who
with Isabella
master Flamminio's
at his
him, but quite obviously helping himself
\0
Isabella
deceived: the
young man
male
order to be
is
has disguised herself in
courted and then abandoned
her.
attire in
The
erotic volatility
sixteenth-century performances exchanged between two
dressed as a
woman,
the other playing the role of a
man, has captured the imagination of more
that
woman
one modern
young
dressed
critic, as
Gl'Ingannati continues to generate interest and pleasure.-
The comedy
the
first
is
important to the Anglophone world because Lelia
Viola of Twelfth Night, an ingenue
in the service
who
streets
sue and win the love of a man. In this article
be read
as
who
of her beloved. Lelia inspired a long line of heroines
with gender, not merely to pass through the
I
is
disguises herself as a page
play
unmolested, but to pur-
argue that Lelia,
who may
a stock comic character, also defies the notion of the "theatre-
gram."^ To account fully for the genesis of this transgressive bourgeois
^The
kiss
occurs in Act
II,
scene
vi.
Here
I
am
using Penman's translation, but
all
other translations of the Gl'Ingannati are from Giannetti and Ruggiero.
comedy has been
and Maggie Giinsberg. The 2003
^Most
recently the
Ruggiero suggests that the
kiss
translation of the
comedy
Shakespeare's day, warns against the staged kiss
is
like the kiss
of 'certain
by Giannetti and
be staged, a more dangerous proposition,
in the sixteenth century. John Reynolds (or Rainolds), a
boy
Newman,
studied by Laura Giannetti, Karen
spiders': 'if they
because "the
don
kiss
at
at least
Oxford
in
of a beautiful
do but touch men only with
their
mouth, they put them to wonderful pain and make them mad'" (Greenblatt,
Will in the World, 27).
^The term was developed by Louise George Clubb
units of plot or character
to describe the basic theatrical
which Renaissance comic
writers
production of comedies where innovation
recombined
in the
understood
as variation
Quaderni
is
of stock elements.
d'italianistica.
Volume XXVI, No,
1,
combined and
for the
2005, 3
most part
Laurie Shepard
who commands
heroine,
audience allegiance as she struts between her
female and male identities, requires an examination of the
her personal story
the
is
bound up with
in
which
the political situation in Siena during
half of the sixteenth-century.
first
First
performed during Carnival
third play of Gli Intronati (the
emy
way
in
1532, Gl'Ingannati
sometime between 1525-27. The
established by the Sienese elite
group met with the intention of banishing
dedicating
itself entirely to
Greek and Latin
literature
the second or
\s
Thunderstruck or Dunderheads), an acad-
all
thoughts of
politics,
and
arts:
philosophy, law, music, arithmetic,
and the
edification of the Tuscan language
the
do intrude in the
composed by an anonymous committee of the academy: /
Aurélia, and Gl'Ingannati.^ My concern is not the explicit politi-
(Petracchi Costantini, 42). Nevertheless, matters of state
three plays
Prigioni,
content of the comedies, which has already been
cal
Newbigin and Celse-Blanc, but the way
in
which the
Siena in the years immediately following the Sack of
tributes to the genesis
addressed
by
political situation in
Rome
(1527) con-
of Lelia.
According to the prologue of GVIngannati, the comedy was composed
in three days ["che, quasi in tre dì
put
this
comedy
hanno
Newbigin proposes
early as the winter
V
postponed.
of 1529-30,
in Siena
Two
una commedia"
that a version of the play
character of the Spanish soldier Giglio
Charles
fatto
(that they've
together in barely three days)], for Carnival in 1532.5
"Politics",
which did not include the
have been in preparation as
in expectation
(Newbigin,
years later the
may
of the
131)
arrival
—which
of Emperor
eventually was
academy dusted off the comedy and with
minor
revisions organized a performance, perhaps in great haste as the pro-
logue
states.
My
interpretation of Gl'Ingannati,
which places particular
emphasis on the scene in which Lelia explains her predicament to the pub-
Precise dating
on
difficult: / Prigioni, the first
is
Plautus's Captivi,
125).
Aiirelia,
is
comedy of
Gli Intronati,
and based
dated by Newbigin between 1529-30 ("Politics," 124-
based on Decameron V.5, was composed in the middle of 1531
according to Newbigin, with the exception of the prologue that was added later
(Newbigin, "Polidcs," 128). Celse-Blanc, who edited Amelia, argues on the basis
of internal evidence that the comedy was composed in the summer of 1532
(Accademici, Aurélia, 26). Gl'Ingannati was first performed during Carnival in
1
532. This date
panion piece,
is
supported by the comedy's prologue which
II Sacrifìcio,
attribute quite cleady to
"refers to its comwhich the 1534 manuscript and all the early edidons
Epiphany (6 January) 1532" (Newbigin, "Polidcs,"
130-131).
-"All citations
of the play are from Borsellino's 1962 edition.
—4—
Siena 1531: Gf.nhsls of a European Heroine
me
convinces
lie (I.iii),
that the play
tainment for the emperor and
would not have been
suitable enter-
Spanish king, Charles V, with or
without the
character of Giglio.
The
plot,
drawn from
Plautus's
Menaechmi and Bernardo
Dovizi's
La
Calandria, as well as vernacular prose works like the Decameron, concerns
the erotic adventures of apparently identical twins
female.^ In
what
der roles are confused: old
woman
are in fact
men
male and
brag about their sexual prowess, a young
aggressively pursues her lover, not realizing that he
two male
for only
who
standard fare for comedies, culturally determined gen-
is
lovers are passive,
one
settling for Isabella
is
whom
a
woman, and
known
he has
an hour and found attractive and wealthy, the other not courting
for himself and in the end, entrapped
woman
maid, marrying a
ond ingenue,
whom
for
by
a pathetic tale
he has avowed
of an elderly nurse-
his loathing.
Isabella, barely has a voice at all in the
The
comedy. She
sec-
pre-
is
sented through the eyes of servants and her foolish father Gherardo, and
the portraits are crude: Gherardo, in a recital
rife
with unintended irony
and sexual innuendo, imagines his daughter to be a meek and pure "colombina" who spends her day before an altar (III. vi), and the servant Pasquella
complains that there is nothing worse than serving a young woman in love
"so lathered up that she cant find any peace, day or night [...] always
scratching between her legs, stroking her thighs, or running up onto the
porch or over to the window"
who
ressembles the
cannot
(II. ii).
a
man
tricked by a pretty face
and
Isabella accepts as her
she loves; she
is
from brother. Most interesting
sister
tell
woman
husband
Lelia,
is
who
not only
dresses as a male, but also adopts, at certain points, a detached ironic voice
is strictly the privilege of male protagonists.
Gllngannati inspired more plays and prose works than any other
that in Italian literature
teenth-century Italian comedy.
Its
six-
authors have never been identified,
although the academy's comedy committee probably included the play-
"Comic
twins are already different sexes in Bibbiena's La Calandria. Examples of
novelle that
Decameron
as
may
have
in
II. 3,
come
an abbot on a pilgrimage to
Scotland, and Decameron
guises herself as a
the villain
who
man
1 1.
9,
Rome
to escape marriage with the
to survive in a hostile
world and
are
disguises herself
aged king of
where Ginevra, wife of Bernabò Lomellin,
dis-
finally bring to justice
has ruined her reputation. Another story in the Decameron that
might have inspired the authors of Gllngannati
is
III.9,
Shakespeare's All's Well that Ends Well in which Giletta of
pursues the
comedy
into play in the conception of the
which the daughter of the king of England
man
an analog of
Nerbona
heroically
she loves, despite his disdain for her. Cerreta cites Bottasso,
sees the influence
of Ariosto's I Supposti on the Gllngannati; in
this
who
comedy
the
student Erostrato assumes the role of a servant to gain access to his beloved
(Cerreta in
La commedia
degli Ingannati,
1980, 23).
— —
5
Laurie Shepard
wright and letterato Alessandro Piccolomini (1508-1578). Information
about early performances
only other on
commedia
also scarce. After the initial
is
record in Italy
took place in Naples
performance, the
1545 (Cerreta
in
La
in
comedy was published
La commedia degli
attributable to a number
1980, 17). However, the
degli Ingannati,
seventeen times in the sixteenth-century (Cerreta in
Ingannati, 1980, 34-35).
Its
publishing success
is
who
of factors. The French humanist and theorist Charles Estienne,
lated the
comedy
admired
its
into French as Les Abusez zna^ published
trans-
in the 1540s,
complexity and elegant dénouement. In his translator's intro-
duction, he praises the intrigue of Les Abusez and
its
Italian
model which
"changing themes, introducing things unexpected and hidden, then
offers
disclosing them, leaving
the
it
first
one matter
to take
up another, then returning
again, leading everything dexterously
and
to
stylishly to the conclu-
sion" (Salingar, Shakespeare, 187). Estienne also praised the scenery
and the
idiomatic use of Tuscan prose in his play's model, which he tried to imitate
in his translation. All this for the spectators' "plaisir incroyable" (Estienne,
Les Abusez,
exemplary
Lelia
iii).
Girolamo Ruscelli included Gl'Ingannati
volume of
comedies in 1554.
Italian
is
in his
responsible in large measure for the comedy's success; unlike
the majority of unidimensional characters in Renaissance comedy, Lelia
becomes, by turns, confused, desperate, reckless and witty. Melzi explains
that "from this prototype a
new
figure
the Italian and subsequently, the
self-effacing
"From
Lelia
woman who
Lelia," 70).
is
"a
major
is
born that
is
European
will spread
stage: the
throughout
demure, sometimes
ready to sacrifice herself for love" (Melzi,
Not demure and
according to Giannetti,
self-effacing,
player, a female character
who
is
courageous, clever and
strong." Giannetti reads Lelia's transgression in terms of the situation she
faces: Lelia, "the
daughter of the rich Virginio, brought up in an upperclass
household in Modena, cross dresses and takes on the identity of a page
named Fabio with
father
and
the twofold goal, to escape the marriage plans of her
to be near her beloved
(Giannetti,
"On
Flamminio,
Deceptions,"
the
59-60).
who
has forgotten her"
Cerreta
observes
that
d'Ingannati Sidvânced the potential of the comic ingénue on the European
from the standard
stage,
retiring (and
riageable daughter to that of a
afiier
not
Gl'Ingannati, theorists were
come
to speak
on
Ingannati, 1980, 24,
indeed often entirely absent) mar-
prominent
still
recommending
man and
a
that the
stage" (Cerreta in Accademici,
and quoting Giovan
translation). Finally, Gl'Ingannati offers a
play a
character, although
woman
in the
"maiden
La commedia
Battista Giraldi Cinthio;
[.
in
all
.
.]
degli
my
young man the opportunity
same show,
—6—
two decades
to
likelihood to great comic
'
Siena 1531: Genesis
effect
cìf
and personal Thespian triumph
or as the page Fabio, never appears
The comic
potential of the role
the swagger of Fabrizio
—
Although her strong
in the
comedy we
Act one, Scene
Modena
ter
is
the flustered confusion of Lelia/Fabio,
will
and immediate
Lelia
distress are indisputable, early
different than the typical ingénue. In
is
wanders the
three, Lelia, disguised as Fabio,
young coxcomb
is,
then, the
name of virgin?)
il
nome
massimamente
in questa terra.
Del
Spaniards
who
mouth of
a
held
me
Modena. For
in
resto
many
the
prisoner in Rome.)
comic heroine,
been shared by
si
nome, no,
reveal a
Italians in
rest, you'll
The
ch'io
vuol domandarne
— not
gli
as far as
have to ask the
from the
words, startling
mental landscape that
may
well have
1529, the setting of the comedy, in the
aftermath of the catastrophic Sack of Rome. Here
ingenue hinting
have you
Lelia responds with an oblique but stark
spagnuoli che mi tenner prigiona a Roma." (The name, no
know, especially here
of
lat-
Clemenzia
di vergine?" (But
reference to events that are already familiar to her nurse: "II
I
streets
trying to catch her
in fact, her charge, Lelia. Reacting to Lelia's attire,
demands: "Adimque, hai tu perduto
sappi, e
Fabrizio).
looking for her nurse Clemenzia whose advice she seeks; the
attention
lost,
(the heroine Lelia, dressed as herself
on the scene with her twin
mortified to discover that the
is
Heroine
written into the script.
why
learn
—
a Fairopean
at a personal history that
is
we meet
a
comic
anything but protected and
innocent.
Lelia explains her decision to diguise herself as a
of the pain she
suffers.
CLEMENZIA:
Oh! Se tuo padre
il
Death might be preferable
in
terms
Io vo' saper perché tu vi vai e perché sei uscita del monistero.
sapesse,
LELIA: Mi cavarebbe
non
t'uccidarebbe, povera te?
d'affanni.
(CLEMENZIA: I want
you
young man
to her present situation.
to
Tu
credi forse ch'io stimi la vita
know why you're running around
un gran che?
like this
and why
Oh, if your father knew, he'd have your head, poor child!
LELIA: That would solve my problem, Do you think I value my life all that
left
the convent.
much?)
Lelia insists that her misery
is
the consequence of her thwarted love for
Flamminio:
"Oh
chi
non mi
(Oh,
me.
I
che sorte è
I
help
la
mia!
Amo
chi
m'ha
in odio, chi
conosce; ed aiutolo, per più dispetto, ad
sempre mi biasma; servo
amare
un'altra."
how unlucky am! I love someone who hates me, who is
someone who doesn't even recognize me. And to make
I
serve
him
in his pursuit
of another woman).
—7—
always cursing
matters worse,
Laurie Shepard
Flamminio
Nevertheless, Lelia's devotion to
is
bound
intimately
to the
Rome.
moved her
despair and humiliation she suffered during and after the Sack of
Flamminio saved her from her morbid depression and
to again take an interest in
LELIA:
cosa
dopo
Sai che,
insieme con
e,
la
il
tolse dai servizi della signora
mio
fratello,
marchesana con
ne tornamo a
in casa nostra per fuggir quella
[...]
CLEMENZIA:
Perché mi dici tu quel ch'io so meglio di
LELL\:
anco quanto,
Sai
[...]
in que' tempi, fu aspra e
pur lontana dai pensieri amorosi,
che, per essere io stata in
vivere
mano
ma
(LELL\: You know that
te?
dura
quasi da ogni pensiero
di soldati, che
onestamente che bastasse a
sì
everything, including
far
che
la
[...]
la
mia
vita
non
e,
umano: pensando
ognuno m'aditasse, né credevo poter
gente non avesse che dire.
after the horrible sack
my brother Fabrizio,
of Rome,
not to
in order
my father,
live
having
alone took
lost
me away
had left me earlier. Our poverty
Modena to escape our evil fortune and to
as well as we could with what little we had. [...]
CLEMENZIA: Why are you telling me what I know better than you do? [...]
LELIA: [...] You remember also how difficult and hard my life was then. My
from the Lady Marchesana
forced us to return to our
thoughts were not only
I
quale prima m'aveva posta; e
la
Modena
fortuna ed a viver di quel poco che avevamo.
live
Roma, mio padre, perduta ogni
per non restar solo in casa, mi
miserabil sacco di
robba, Fabrizio
costretti dalla necessità, ce
his love
life.
was
afraid that having
pointing at me.
I
in
whose
home
service he
here in
from love but
far
far
from
virtually everything
been in the hands of Spanish
was certain that no matter
human. For
would be
soldiers, everv'one
how honorably
I
lived,
people would
never stop talking.)
Lelia describes her experience in terms
The extended
around her would probably be decribed
stress
by modern psychologists. But Lelia
goes on to recount
how
began to pay attention to
how the
The
riority,
ter
typical
his
scene recounts
is
and even seemed
her,
Lelia's
never deceived in
comic
a
post-tramatic
young woman. She
to
fall
in love
with
her,
and
tragedy and establishes her intellectual supeloss
and
G
I'Ingannati,
character. Calandrino,
own confused
is
a résiliant
love that he inspired rekindled her desire to live.
who
love. Lelia
she
is
is
the only charac-
the opposite of the archi-
constantly conflates reality with
reading of signs and his inflated opinion of himself
space between reality and sign
she
symptom of
as a
is
the merchant Flamminio, a friend of her father,
an intelligence sharpened by
who
of isolation and morbid shame.
period of alienation from people and events taking place
woman. Dressed
as a
is
painfully clear to Lelia. Dressed as a
man
in the
manner of a
prostitute, she
The
man,
is
not
Siena 1531: Genesis of a European Heroine
woman. A virgin engaged to the wealthy old merchant Gherardo,
may be virgin in name only. She knows the most intimate thoughts of
man she serves with heart and hand; he does not know she exists. Still,
a fallen
she
the
and transforms pain with her
Lelia parries with reality
CLEMENZIA:
LELIA:
mondo?
per me,
Io,
mai diventata femina
Saresti
che
Si,
mondo?
son del mondo. Quante femine hai tu vedute fuor del
io
non
(CLEMENZIA:
del
wit.
mi
fu mai, ch'io
ci
ricordi.
become
oh, Lelia, have you
[...]
a
woman
of the world, a
whore?
LELIA:
of the world.
Yes, I'm
How many women
outside the world? As far as I'm concerned,
I
don't
have you seen from
remember
ever being outside
the world.)
most
Lelia recognizes herself
and she
Her
mind Guido
to
vi piace"
you
er
^The
text
Cavalcanti's "Signori, voi
mi potete
(Gentlemen,
tells
fallen
world
lit-
signifiers calls
dire a casa vostra ciò
own house you may
your
in
say to
me
whatev-
the audience that she has personally suffered both
and shame, and
is
of this
the absurdity of the
and metaphorical
wish). 7 Lelia
violation
woman
mock
ironic collapsing of literal
eral phrase.
che
definitely as a
detached enough to
intellectually
is
yet she
virtuous. Referring to the ranks of
is
from Boccaccio, Decameron, 757 and the translation from Boccaccio,
Decameron,
trans.
Musa and
Bondanella, 401. This kind of detached irony
is
a
trope reserved for male protagonists in Italian literature. Lucrezia in the final
scene of the Mandragola,
is
scornful rather than playful or aloof
Other female
Donato
protagonists exaggerate irony to the point of sarcasm. For example, in
Giannotti's // Vecchio amoroso
{Commedie
del Cinquecento, ed. Borsellino, 1-83),
an angry Dionora Lanfranchi greets her husband
a smile in
III. vi,
explaining,
tornano, mostrarsi loro di
quale ricompensino
wives,
when husbands
pleasure from
it,
return
home,
to
show
a
(And
"
happy
by which means they make up
home [my
I
to Poggio,
trial
of John of Prague
when John
quidam: atqui aiunt
is
home
quando
i
that
with
mariti
face, so that
all
translation]).
la
it is
a duty of
they
may draw
the irksome business
A
parallel to Lelia's
Leonardo Bruni
in
1416
Council of Constance. According
asked about transubstantiation, he responds:
te dixisse
apud pistorem remanet
at the
know
for for
rhetorical wit occurs in Poggio Bracciolini's letter to
about the heresy
door of their
acciò che essi ne piglino allegrezza, con
che hanno fuori
they attend to while away from
at the
ch'egli è obligo delle mogli,
lieta cera,
fastidi
i
"E so
post consecrationem remanere panem;'
panis,' inquit" (Prosatori, 232).
"Tum
tum
ille:
[Then someone: But
they claim that you said that bread remains after the consecration; then he:
Bread remains
at the bakery,
[my
translation]).
—9—
Laurie Shepard
who roam the city she demands, "Oh! Fra tante ribalde
non ne può andare una buona?" (Oh well, among so many wicked women
isn't there room for one good one?).
Giannetti's reading of the same scene focuses on the ambiguous pleasure
female transvestites
that Lelia discovers in playing "her masculine
"On
masquerade" (Giannetti,
the Deceptions," 61). Giannetti writes that Lelia, "fascinated from the
with her
gioco,
reserved for
and/or
ily
seems willing
men,
that
we
play in the public space of the
honour
risking her
young male
as a
Musing on her
to
young woman of good fam-
as a chaste
"On
page!" (Giannetti,
plight, Lelia reveals the
the Deceptions," 61).
same lucid and
tirandomi in qualche casa, volesse chiarirsi
(Oh,
would
it
serve
me
right if one
s'io
mi
"Oh come mi
pigliasse per forza
son maschio o femina!"
of those young rogues forced
of these houses to see for himself whether
my
ironic perceptiveness
hear in her subsequent conversation with Clemenzia:
starebbe bene che qualcun di questi gioveni scapestrati
e,
I
first
normally
city,
was a boy or a
girl!).
me
into
one
However, in
reading of the scene, Lelia risks losing the "name" of virgin in this city
not only because she
ing to gamble
mind
("For
with her gioco-" she
is
will-
own
was
I
from the
"fascinated
because she has already has lost her reputation in her
is
afraid that
everyone would be pointing
first
having been in the hands of Spanish
at me."). Lelia
the desperation of her plight and, like so
soldiers,
does not flinch in her analysis of
many
characters in the Decameron,
from Melchisedech and the Marchioness of Montferrato
has the wit to transform self-pity and fear into a
to Chichibio, she
game
that
is
ultimately pro-
fiiture
and
is
in
ductive.
The Sack of Rome
ondary
defines Lelia's past
The
to the plot of d'Ingannati.
French army
at Pavia in
1
525 and the
and
no way
sec-
event occured after the defeat of the
failure
of Pope Clement VII's anti-
The army of Emperor Charles V, at that
point unpaid, hungry, and essentially leaderless, moved rapidly south
towards the opulent and fabled Eternal City. The soldiers entered Rome at
dawn on 6 May 1527, did not encounter much resistence, and began the
imperial League of Cognac (1526).
brutal destruction of the city
words
at
and
to express the desperation
one another
expecting any
homeland
like
Rome
and resignation of many
to see
penned up
our resources, our
hands of barbarous and
limit for our riches
Sack of
inhabitants. Luigi Guicciardini
frightened sheep
moment
in the
its
Italians:
found
"We
look
in the slaughterhouse,
families,
and our beloved
bestial nations thirsting
beyond
all
and our blood" (Guicciardini, The Sack ofRome, 61). The
end of any illusion that Italian leadership might
signaled the
possess the political will or intelligence necessary to restore authority. Yet, the
Sack of
Rome was
only the most traumatic point in a long season of war.
— 10 —
Siena 1531: Genesis of a European Heroine
Between 1492 and 1527
Italy
became
and Spain
a battlegtound as France
fought for sovereignty over the peninsula:
was an era of
it
political turmoil,
famine-as armies pursued a scorched-earth policy, disease-recurrent plague,
the arrival of syphilis from the
New
World, and precipitous demographic
decline.
Given the reduced circumstances of Lelia's
money
ural desire to preserve the
have survived, Virginio
is
father, Virginio,
and
only too happy to marry his daughter,
been in the hands of the Spanish
his nat-
that remained for his son, should Fabrizio
who
Gherardo. In
soldiers, to the elderly
has
Lelia's
unblinking assessment of her situation, the anonymous playwrights suggest
more profound consequences of the ongoing
of a return to normality
chaos: despite the appearances
in the years following the Sack, the carnivalesque
world-upside-down has become permanent
in Italy. Virginio has abdicated
They
his paternal role by not protecting his daughter from the soldiers.
stand in his place: uneducated, brutal, peasant-soldiers who, as prison
guards, have been granted the authority to protect Lelia's
her person. Virginio's
late
iar
name was probably intended
Roman
story of Virginius, the
daughter's breast
from the
In
lust
when he
of the
(quoted by
French and
as Carlyle
Fuller,
he would not be able to defend her
fell
victim to a military strategy based
all
men
alike
Without conscription, Spanish,
83).
were composed of mercenaries: professional
common
and
diers as well as peasants, debtors
when
ran a dagger through his
remarked, gunpowder "makes
Armament,
Italian armies
to vio-
magistrate Appius Claudius.
traditional feudal warfare
Italy,
on gunpowder. And
tall"
realized that
Roman
who
father
honour or
to evoke the famil-
sol-
criminals granted amnesty
they enlisted. Italians had long resisted the arming of peasants and
workers, fearing social upheaval; they relied instead on an old military organization tied to the system of the "condotta"
traditional feudal forces (Lenzi, II sacco
Italian wars,
6).
army was composed of infantry
noted the change: "nowadays
armour, but by 1528
full
(Fuller,
A Military History,
four, six,
to
At the beginning of the
armies were composed mostly of cavalry, that
wealthy enough to afford a horse and
ni
which assigned prominence
di Roma,
is,
of
90%
men
of the
91). Guicciardi-
or twelve thousand untrained for-
consume, and over-
eigners, poorly
armed and lacking
power
The Sack of Rome, Gl).
the operative word here: teaching a man to shoot a musket
country of ours"
this
"Untrained"
is
leadership, harass,
(Guicciardini,
took almost no time compared to training a long bowman,
traditional knight.
Emperor Charles V, who
Italy as a training
ground
diers to the
invaded
Italy in
of course, a
1516, used
new recruits, before dispatching
Germany (Hale, War and Society, 164).
for his
Netherlands or
first
or,
— —
11
the sol-
Laurie Shepard
Rome,
In the complex political realignment that followed the Sack of
V could not ignore Siena, a strategically important, pro-imperial
His principal concern seems to have been that urban violence among
Charles
city.
the Sienese political factions or monti, and particularly between the pro-
compromise
imperial Popolani and pro-French Nove, might
there (Celse-Blanc, "Alessandro," 20-22, 33). Charles ordered
Soria to the city as
don Lopes de
interests and, fol-
ambassador and protector of imperial
Duke of Amalfi,
lowing the ouster of Alfonso Piccolomini,
his interests
November
The emperor
in
1530, elevated don Lopes to be the de facto ruler of the city.»
of soldiers plus a small number of cavalry to Siena.
also sent a garrison
Dandelet has recently suggested that the portrayal of the Spanish soldier
crude and violent
as
best understood as a literary topos (Dandelet, Spanish
is
Rome, 37), but there
is
plenty of literary and archival evidence of the hard-
ship suffered by the Sienese in this period at the hands of the Spanish
troops.9
presence of the occupying garrison of armed foot soldiers must
The
have underscored the political impotence of the
citizens,
their anxiety
"Under don Lopes and the military captain don Ferrante Gonzaga, the exiled Nove
were restored to power in Siena. The important point is that internal and exterwere inextricably bound
nal politics
French support
means
as a
monti used imperial intervention or
as the
to acquire
power
in the city.
^In Aurelia, for example, there are various complaints: the servant Famelico (naturally)
laments his terrible hunger
Spanish do not allow planting to go on
burning
don
down homes
Lopes's request
of the heart
(I.viii).
is,
(I.iv; V.i),
giorno danegia,
cial
sachegia
trascorre
e
300
la città
la
paga
et
li
tutto
similmente
si
il
The entry on
many soldiers causes:
altre infinite spese a la nostra
con quaranta
"et
perché sono a
Don Lopez
Signor
trova a servirlo di V. S.
bargello
Accademici, Aurelia, 33,
in
guardia
cen-
tempo
denari per essere
il
capitano Morale con vin-
il
concorrendo
Republica, et trovandosi exaustissima di denari per
si
può; di
modo
i
che se di
non
n. 87).
— 12 —
al
supremo
sen-
può trattenere li
subbito non ci si provede
quali
può, nascere scandolo tanto grande quanto immaginare
in
ogni
li
disordinate spese et straordinari] travagli passati. Ricorriamo
né senza loro fare
la
ne menarà
fanti et dieci cavalli et
ato per aiuto in tanta necessità di denari, senza
stipendiati,
lo exercito
Dominio" (Celse-Blanc
quali bisogna di subbito provedere
il
that
8 January 1531 addresses the finan-
fanti et lo illustrissimo
ticinque cavalli et
is
whether in military matters or affairs
n. 42).
hardship the billeting of so
tocinquanta a
le
and of course the principal complaint
Sienese Consiglio generale, 247, 13 October 1530, calls
Accademici, Aurelia, 21,
de
Spanish soldiers are accused of
reform and the return of peace to the city "tanto più quanto
for
de
(I.iv).
command,
in fact, a
The
perhaps caused by the fact that the
(I.ii)
si
si
possa" (Celse-Blanc
Siena 1531: Genesis of a European Heroine
aggravated by the disdain and fear that bourgeois and patricians had always
felt
A
towards the urban and rural lower
problem of
class
degli Intronati
Emperor Charles
de Soria was
more than
welcomed
V
made
garrison of
300 armed
Lelia captures
most
common
Spanish
Italian or foreign. 'o
nationality, the Sienese
and the Accademia
the Spanish nobility,
and
in
turn the Spanish
concessions to loyal Sienese." Even
initially received
Accademici, Aurélia, 19).
whether
classes,
The
with great
pomp and honor
Don
Lopes
(Celse-Blanc in
daily reminder of the Spanish victor
was the
of
soldiers. In Gl'Ingannati the suggested violation
of and hatred for the
viscerally the Sienese's fear
soldier. Hostility
the character of a miles gloriosus
also directed
is
who roams
towards the soldier in
the streets and bullies the
citi-
zens (or at least their servants) with impunity. Giglio pursues the servant
Pasquella, speaking a Spanish interspersed with Italian words,
responds in
Italian.
They understand one another
perfectly:
and she
both are peas-
ants lying through their teeth to cheat each other. Giglio threatens to burn
Gherardo's
(IV. vi),
home
and he
if
later
Pasquella does not return a rosary he has given her
swears to slash her face for the same reason (V.v
Disdain for the poor
is
a
staple
in
Italian
cia plebeia"
minuto
Petrarch
literature.
Boccaccio's Lectura dantis as a prostitution of the
Muse
for the sake
).'2
criticizes
of the
"fec-
(Garin in Umanisti, 17-18). Coluccio Salutati describes xhe popolo
who
participated in the
Ciompi
ribellion as "pestis
ilia"
and "truculen-
tissime belue" (Garin in Umanisti, 26).
Evidence of the lack of hostility towards the emperor,
fact that the Intronati
of the
arrival
were commissioned by the
of the emperor
in Siena in
1
March 1531,
restored a Piccolomini, the
is
the
honour
529-30. Charles V, importuned by
Don
prominent Sienese, removed the inimical
at least in principle,
city to prepare a play in
Lopes de Soria from power in
Marchese del Vasto,
to
command
the
troops there, and reduced the size of the garrison to a hundred soldiers (Celse-
Blanc in Accademici, Aurélia, 23). Cerreta pushes the idea of class further, seeing
the soldier Giglio as a scapegoat for the humiliating presence of the Spanish soldiers billeted in the city; Giglio courts
and
barrasses the servants
by turns, but the
bourgeois and noble characters are spared the boarishness of the
common
"Questa scissione sembra provenire da un inconscio desiderio
di
non contaminare
mondo idealistico e sentimental dell'eroina con elementi
mondo inferiore della gente meccanica, più volgare e
farseschi, propri del
il
Accademici, La commedia, 30-31). In
treats the painful
memories expressed by
Abusive competiveness
is
Lelia in
and
I.iii
too
(Cerreta
in
lightly.
Isabella, buttress their intentions
and none more than the disappointed
off his [Fabio's] lips
rozzo"
opinion, however, Cerreta's reading
not limited to Giglio and Pasquella. All the characters,
with the exception of Lelia and
threats,
my
soldier.
his ears
lover
Flamminio,
and cut out one of his
— 13 —
eyes,
with violent
who
will "cut
and give them
all
Laurie Shepard
A
survey of
the works inspired by Gl'Ingannati reveals the
some of
ehmination of those aspects of the Sienese
convention or international
politics.
work and any
translation of the
first
The
comedy most
soldier Giglio disappears in the
reference to the violation of Lelia by
we know from
Spanish soldiers shortly thereafter. Although
to Cecchi's L'Assaiuolo that the Sack of Rome
and personal disarray of
financial
inimical to comic
became
the prologue
a topos to explain the
opening of a comedy,^^
a family at the
the actual horrors of the sack are not considered comic material by other
and there
writers,
is
certainly
no
similar account of personal pain
from the
mouth of a comic ingenue. As a theatregram, the specificity of Lelia's pain
is blunted; the many cross dressing heroines she inspired are motivated by
love,
but not by the desperation to renew a love that had rescued Lelia from
her shame and perception of being "far from virtually everything human."
As Andrews observes "the dramatists saw
point precisely what might be
felt
their task as to generalize, to pin-
and
by
said
languishing heroines,
all
make them and their language
(Andrews, Scripts and Scenarios, 63).
rather
than to
individual"
startlingly
mentioned
Estienne's early translation of Gl'Ingannati into French,
above,
very faithful to the original, but Giglio and the scenes in which
is
he appears are eliminated.
The Spaniard Lope de Rueda
love intrigue of Gl'Ingannati in los
Lelia's
Enganados
are cut.
The
Italian Lelia
Spanish Lelia a child.
A
was thirteen
decade
at the
but
the obnoxious Giglio
time of the sack
young woman
as a
later,
(editio princeps 1567),
Rome and
imprisonment during the Sack of
uses the essential
(Li),
the
in love, the
Spanish Lelia does not have the intellectual audacity or detachment of her
Italian counterpart. In the scene
Lelia addresses not her
defend her decision to dress
to her [Isabella]
lence to
comic
on
where she
as a
man on
the basis of fortune and love.
a plate" (IV.viii). Perhaps
excess,
reveals her ploy, the Spanish
nursemaid, but her tutor Marcelo and proceeds to
but
it
we should
The
attribute the verbal vio-
lends a tone of aggressive lutiliry to this "mirror" of
the foibles ol the upstanding citizens of Modena
and
their servants.
an incongruous reference to the fact that the governor
who
will
There
is
also
not countenance
the bearing of arms by citizens (IV.ix).
Né
sia chi creda,
l'assedio di
famiglie, o
che questa commedia
Firenze,
da
o da spandimenti
si
cominci o dal sacco
di
altro così fatto accidente'" (Cecchi, L'Assiuolo,
del Cinquecento). ("And don't
di
Roma, o
anyone think that
this
comedy
113
in
Commedie
originates
from the
Sack of Rome, or from the Siege of Florence, or because persons became
placed, or families
Owl,
had to
flee,
or
some other such
3).
— 14 —
dal-
persone, o da sbaragliamento di
event", Cecchi, The
dis-
Horned
Siena 1531: Genesis of a European Heroine
playful ingenue has been transformed into a timid
en.
She does not
Sack of
refer to the
retribution for Christian
sin.''*
Rome
and embarrassed maidbut
in personal terms,
had raped
interested in repeating the accusation that Spanish soldiers
young
as just
Lope de Rueda could hardly have been
girls.
The
lapsed
Dominican monk Matteo Randello (1485-1561)
story of Lelia as part of his collection of tales published in
on the horrors of the sack almost twenty
elaborates
And
retells
the
5 54. '5 Bandello
1
years after the event.
more of your time, I say that here in this dear and honcompany there is not one of us who does not fully recall that the
Germans and the Spanish sacked Rome so cruelly in the year of our Lord
to not take
orable
1527, and although the sins of that city merited punishment, neverthethose
less,
although
Be
Jews.
who
sacked
it,
being Christians, did not do a good thing,
understand that the majority were Lutherans, converts, and
I
that as
may, they behaved worse than Turks and committed
it
such enormous and cruel acts against
sible to recall
opere,
God and
His saints that
it is
impos-
without great pain (my translation from Bandello, Tutte
le
287).
Despite his attempt to rationalize the event, Bandello does not spare the
leadership that allowed soldiers to
Although the
majorit}'
commit
of the
sacrilege, pillage,
pillagers
and robbers
and
rape.
ol both sacred
profane things and the rapists of the holy virgins consecrated to
and
Mary
were, as has already been said, enemies of the faith of Christ, nevertheless,
of
could those
sacrilege, incest,
many who
"Bien tendréis en
saqueada...
"
(I.ii).
sins...";
-'There
is
rape, homicide and other crimes, and
la
Tutte
le opere,
many
(my
translation
memoria comò, cuando por nuestros pecados Roma
my translation). The Spanish
first
acts
realized that
287).
("You well remember how,
interpretation of the sack
retary, in his
governed (them) not have prevented so
practiced the violated religion suffered harm?
from Bandello,
of our
who
articulated
when Rome was
Lelia
is
fue
sacked because
repeating the widely diffused
by Alfonso de Valdés, the imperial
sec-
Dialogue of Lactancio and an Archdeacon.
a link
between Gl'Ingannati and the Bandello
tale that
tigated yet. In his introductory letter Bandello invokes the
I
have not inves-
good memory of
Count Guido Rangone, a soldier and Modenese noble who served both Pope
Clement VII and the French. In GFIngannati, Lelia refers to the fact that her
father was a friend of Guido Rangone, which made him persona non grata to
some people in Modena (I.iii).
— 15 —
Laurie Shepard
The
heroine of his
tale,
two Spanish
thani<;s to
renamed Nicuola, does not
who wager
soldiers
more generous ransom
offer a
she
if
is
Siila,"
constituent parts of
daughter of the lord of Cyprus,
Siila,
who had
with Apolonius, a duke of Constantinople,
guest in her father's court.
probably the most accessible
many of the
source of the story for Shakespeare, reflects
the original Italian comedy.
weakhy father might
him intact.
that her
restored to
Barnabe Riches "Of Apolonius and
When
spent
now
to Constantinople,
ship.
in love
as a
boards a ship for Constantinople in
Siila
ty of preserving her virtue, Siila prepares to
storm that destroys the
falls
some time
pursuit of Apolonius, her beauty captivates the captain. Seeing
a violent
LeUa
suffer the fate of
commit
no
suicide, but
is
possibili-
by
foiled
She reaches land and resumes the
trip
disguised as her brother, Silvio. Riches inclusion of
may
the threat of rape suggests that Shakespeare's choice of names, Viola,
actually be a distant evocation of Lelia violata or violée.'^'
we
Generally
century
as elite
read Italian comedies of the
its
cultural superiority
produced and consumed comédie
mold.
We
edy
be near her
as well as the
to save herself
pinea's,
when
lover,
to dress in men's clothes
the most transgressive character in the
is
most virtuous. She
from
itself as
but detatched account of
woman
Lelia, the first
and entertain
Gl'Ingannati breaks the
teatricals.
rarely hear a voice like Lelia's painful
imprisonment and shame.
in order to
half of the sixteenth-
entertainment: the product of the hedonistic, indulgent
society that sought to display
it
first
dresses as a
com-
to save her life
might be compared
despair. Lelia's audacity
the latter suggests to her small
man
to
Pam-
band of young and unmarried
female friends that they leave the corruption of Florence to seek their
survival in the countryside.
a
good (and/or
lascivious) tale, as
must be understood
own
Although the Decameron was often pillaged
Gherardo himself suggests
scene of Gl'Ingannati, one of its essential messages
virtue
and
in personal
is
for
in the first
that in troubled times
terms and that in such times virtue
often transcends convention. '7
"This idea was suggested to
me
my colleague
by
Matilda Bruckner.
'In the Decameron, Dioneo reminds us in the conclusion to the Sixth Day, of the
need
"
for
unconventional solutions in times
— Donne,
io
conosco ciò che
imporlo non mi potè
tempo
è tale che,
uomini
gli
e le
li
giudici
hanno
umane, tacciono? E ampia
lasciati
i
tribunali?
Le
la
insufficient:
la
da
conceduta
vostra onestà nel favellare,
— 16 —
il
perversità di questa
leggi, cosi le divine
licenzia per conservar la vita è
Per che, se alquanto s'allarga
is
facciate voi, e
donne d'operar disonestamente,
ogni ragionare è conceduto. Or, non sapete voi che, per
stagione,
virtue
che voi mi volete mostrare, pensando che
istorre quello
guardandosi e
when common
ho imposto non meno che
io
come
le
a ciascuno?
non per dover con
Siena 1531: Genesis of a European Heroine
Another way we might
such as Lelia
as a
is
1531: colonized but, despite appearances, undefeated,
intact.
The comedy may
attempt to heal the wounds of the body
Lelia,
on the
we
playfulness
its
politic.
virtue
and wit
may
it
Whether
an
also be
useful or not
it is
of the genesis of a heroine such
as
recognize that as a comic ingenue she
is
political significance
imperative that
is
it
its
in
be a political allegory for occupied Siena in the
period following the Sack of Rome. In
to speculate
comic character
interpret the invention of a
symbol of her authors, the intelHgentia of Siena
unique: in her pain, in her personal evocation of a tragic event in Italian
history,
and
in her ironic wit.
MA
Boston College,
Works Cited
Accademici Intronati
.
Gl'Ingannati,
l'opere
mai alcuna cosa sconcia seguire
la
ma
del
and
by
maculerà con
per dar diletto a voi e a altrui,
non che
di'
non mi pare che
ci si sia
infino a questa ora stata
in atto
si
sia
mac-
non conosca
ma
ragionamenti sollazzevoli
i
alcuno
Appresso, chi è colui che
l'aiuto di Dio.
vostra onestà? La quale
trans,
possa nello avvenire riprendere
vi
nostra brigata, dal primo
onestissima, per cosa che detta
si
Commedie
Penguin, 1978.
non veggio con che argomento da concedere
ulata né
in
in Five Italian Renaissance Comedies, ed.
New York:
alcuno. Oltre a questo
195-289
Borsellino. Milan: G. Feltrinelli, 1962.
193-287
Bruce Penman.
con
di Siena. Gl'Ingannati, vol. 1, pp.
Nino
Cinquecento, ed.
il
la
terrore della
morte non credo che potesse smagare'" (Boccaccio, Decameron, 776-777).
["Ladies,
tion
I
am
you have
aware, no
raised
is
less that
you
insufficient to
are,
of what
move me
that times are such that as long as ladies
immorally, every form of speech
is
I
have ordered, but the objec-
change
to
my
mind,
and gentlemen take
permitted.
Now,
are
for
I
believe
care not to act
you not aware
that
because of the corruption of these times, judges have abandoned their tribunals,
the laws, both of
God and man, have fallen silent, and everyone is granted free
own life? And so, if you were to stretch the bounds of your
rein to protect his
chastity
somewhat with your
storytelling, never
meaning
to follow this with
improper actions, but only with the intention of providing pleasure for yourselves and for others, I do not see how in the future any plausible argument
could be used to
criticize
moment, our company
said here,
and
it
anyone.
besides,
has behaved most
does not seem to
honor, nor, with God's help, will
how
And
virtuous you are, and in
my
it
me
first
day
until this very
honorably, regardless of what has
that any act whatsoever has
opinion no amusing
make you any
Musa and
little stories
less
our
knows
or even the
virtuous than you are"
Bondanella, 401).
— 17 —
been
sullied
ever be sullied. Moreover, everyone
terror of death, for that matter, could
(Boccaccio, Decameron, trans.
from the
Laurie Shepard
La commedia
Florindo Cerreta. Florence: Leo
degli Ingannati, ed.
Olschki,
S.
1980.
Aurelia (comédie
.
Université de
anonyme du XVIe
siècle),
ed. Mireille Celse-Blanc. Paris:
Sorbonne Nouvelle, 198L
la
GVlngannati, pp. 205-285 in Five Comedies from the Italian Renaissance, ed.
trans, by Laura Giannetti and Guido Ruggiero. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
and
University Press, 2003.
Andrews, Richard.
Scripts
and Scenarios. The Performance of Comedy in Renaissance
New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Cambridge, UK, and
Italy.
Randello, Matteo. Tutte
le opere,
ed. Francesco Flora. 2 vols. Alessandria: Edizioni
dell'Orso, 1993.
Boccaccio, Giovanni. Decameron, ed. Vittore Branca. Turin: Einaudi,
e.
1980,
1984.
Boccaccio, Giovanni. The Decameron, trans.
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