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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
THOUGH the importance of Sforza Oddi's three comedies in the history of the renaissance theatre has been indicated both by Sanesi and by Flamini, there is still no study devoted to him which provides a detailed biography of the author as well as an evaluation of his work. The following article attempts to analyze his plays more fully than has hitherto been done, and to estimate their significance in the history of Italian comedy. The biographical material has been collected and coördinated from a number of scattered writings dating from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries. A certain amount of this material is new, and is the result of research in the libraries of Perugia and Parma. Nothing has been known before about Sforza Oddi's father, apart from his name. The date of the dramatist's first marriage, of the death of his first wife, the fact of his brother's death, and all information drawn from his will (a document previously unknown), and from the record of his doctorate, are mentioned here for the first time.
1 A. Fabbroni, Historia Accademiae Pisanae (Pisa, 1797), p. 199.
2 Sforza Oddi, I morti vivi (Venice, 1578), Title-page.
3 Sforza Oddi, La prigione d'amore (Venice, 1591). Title-page.
4 Sforza Oddi, L'Erofilomachia (Venice, 1586). Title-page.
5 T. Boccalini, Ragguagli di Parnaso (Latterza, Bari: 1912), ii, 60.
6 Acta doctoratum. MS. VIII, C. Biblioteca Universitaria, Perugia.
7 Luigi Bonazzi, Storia di Perugia (Boncompagni, Perugia: 1879), ii, 389.
8 Studji pubblici—loro erezione—regolamenti e providenze—dal 1600 al 1674. MS. I–xi–viii. Parma: R. Università degli studii.
9 Sforza Oddi, Testamento. MS. Fascio I, Miscellanea: num. 595 del catalogo; num. d'Inventario 100, 969. Biblioteca di Brera.
10 iii, 34.
11 Rafaello Sotii, Annali memorie e ricordi, 1540–1588. MS. 121. 170. Biblioteca Comunale, Perugia.
12 Emilia Bonazzi, Le accademie letterarie a Perugia (Campitelli, Foligno: 1915), p. 48.
13 See prefaces to the Erofilomachia and the Prigione d'amore.
14 R. Sotii, op. cit., 34–35.
15 Pompeo Pellini, Della storia di Perugia. MS. 1158–60. N. 109–111. Biblioteca Comunale, Perugia, 2247–2248.
16 Sforza Oddi, De restitutione (Venice, 1606). i, 7; v, 34.
17 G. B. Vermiglioli, Biografia degli scrittori perugini e notizie delle opere loro (Baduel, Perugia: 1828–1829), ii, 146.
18 O. Scalvanti, Cenni storici della Università di Perugia, (Tip. Perugina, Perugia: 1910), p. 52.
19 Sforza Oddi, De restitutione (Venice, 1606), xcii, 95.
20 G. B. Crispolti, Cronica 1578–86. MS. 1158–60. N 109–111, Biblioteca Comunale, Perugia, July 6, 1580.
21 V. Bini, Parte terza della storia dell'Università Perugina, nella quale si tratta dello stato di lei nei secoli XVI e XVII. MS. 1325. lxxxvii, Biblioteca Comunale, Perugia, Quaderno 5.
22 Sforza Oddi, Testamento.
23 Giovanni Savio, Apologia in difesa del Pastor Fido, (Landucci, Venice; 1601), pp. 41–42.
24 Bini, op. cit., ii, 146.
25 Vermiglioli, op. cit., ii, 146.
26 Ibid.
27 Ibid.
28 G. Tiraboschi, Storia della letteratura italiana (Molini, Landi e Co., Florence: 1908), vii, 145.
29 Vermiglioli, op. cit., ii, 147.
30 Fabbroni, op. cit., 199–202.
31 Tiraboschi, op. cit., vii, 745.
32 Vermiglioli, op. cit., ii, 147.
33 O. Lancellotti, Effemeridi. MS. 446.466. G.36–55. Biblioteca Comunale, Perugia, p. 77.
34 Vermiglioli, op. cit., II, 140–141.
35 I. Sanesi, La commedia, (Vallardi, Milan: 1911), p. 273.
36 Sanesi, op. cit., p. 272.
37 Baldeschi says in the preface that the play was written in Sforza's first youth, that is, some years before 1572. The death of Henri II of France, which took place in 1559, is mentioned in the play (iii, 6), and if, as seems probable from the preface, the comedy was written for one of the academies to which Sforza belonged, it must have been composed in or after 1561, when both societies were formed.
38 Allacci, in his Drammaturgia, says that this letter first appeared in the fourth edition of the play, but I am informed by Professor Walter Bullock that it is to be found in the edition of 1578 in the Biblioteca Communale of Perugia, and in the 1582 edition in his own collection. It is also contained in the edition of 1586, in the library of the University of Toronto.
39 A. Saviotti, “Torquato Tasso e le feste pesaresi del 1574.” GSLIt, xii, 404–417.
40 Vermiglioli, op. cit., ii, 148.
41 A. Stiefel, “Die Nachahmung italienischer Dramen bei einigen Vorlaüfern Molières,” Zeitschrift für französische Sprache und Literatur, xxvii, 189–265.
42 K. von Reinhardstoettner, Plautus, spätere Bearbeitungen plautinischer Lustspiele. (Friedrich, Leipzig: 1886), p. 527.
43 Stiefel, op. cit., p. 253.
44 L. Moland, Molière et la comédie italienne. (Didier et Cie. Paris: 1867), p. 46.
45 Vermiglioli, op. cit., ii, 149.
46 A. Zeno, Annotations on Fontanini's Biblioteca della eloquenza italiana. (Pasquali, Venice: 1753), i, 371.
47 Boccalini, op. cit., ii, 60 ff.
48 G. B. Andreini, Saggia Egiziana (Florence, 1604), p. 31.
49 This edition is not mentioned by Allacci, but a copy bearing this date is in the library of the University of Toronto.
50 Stiefel, op. cit., pp. 255–256.
51 Sanesi, op. cit., p. 353.
52 J. Lothian, “Sforza d'Oddi's Erofilomachia the Source of Hawkesworth's Leander,” MLR, xxv (July, 1930), 338–341.
53 J. A. J. Desboulmiers, Histoire anecdotique et raisonnée du Théâtre Italien (Paris, 1769), i, 49.
54 As late as 1717 a scenario taken with every detail from the Prigione d'amore was performed by the company of Luigi Riccoboni in Paris. It was entitled Les iumeaux, and is contained in Le nouveau théâtre italien (Briasson, Paris: 1729), i, 47.