Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T06:16:55.376Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Was Commedia dell'arte Performed by Mountebanks? Album amicorum Illustrations and Thomas Platter's Description of 1598

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2009

Extract

Early modern mountebanks, also known as charlatans or quacksalvers, were commercial travelling showmen associated with the sale of quack medicines and other products. They achieved wide recognition as a significant influence on the rise of professional acting, through their employment of performers to attract customers for their wares, and are frequently discussed in the context of early professional popular entertainment. Many depictions of mountebanks include commedia dell'aite costumes, but it has remained an open question whether some of their shows (as well as some of their costumes) fall within the sphere of the commedia dell'arte. Inconclusive evidence is presented by the relatively few studies which incline towards accepting a significant overlap between mountebank activity and the commedia dell'arte and clear-cut distinctions are routinely made between the repertoire of street performers, and that of the comici d'arte. Richards and Richards concede that ‘mountebank stages … may well have been the breeding grounds of many of the first regular actors’, but repeatedly emphasize the distinction ‘between performers of the trestle and those of the stage’, and are careful to dismiss mountebank stage routines as at the most ‘short playlets’. If the presently perceived lack of detailed documentation concerning mountebank entertainment is justified, then so is the cautious approach typified by Richards and Richards. On the evidence presented to date, it would appear that mountebank performances are at most distantly related to the commedia dell'arte.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

My thanks to Wimbledon School of Art, the Harold Hyam Wingate Foundation and Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung for supporting this research with Fellowships. Also to Malgorzata Sugiera, Christopher Balme, Gerda Baumbach and Klaus Neiiendam for inviting spoken versions of this paper; Carol Clark, David Gentilcore, Natsu Hattori, Robert Henke, Ingeborg Krekler, Angelika Leik, Vivian Nutton, Roy Porter, Otto Schindler, Piermario Vescovo, Richard Woodfield, and the contributors to the present volume, for useful discussions; the Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbiittel, DAAD, and Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation; the University of London (Institute for Historical Research, Scouloudi Fund); British Academy; European Science Foundation. Except as otherwise stated, translations into English are mine. (See also my forthcoming monograph: Mountebanks and the Commedia dell'arte in the Time of Ben Jonson: A Documentary Sourcebook).

1. Nicoll, Allardyce, Mimes, Masks and Miracles: Studies in Popular Theatre (New York: Harcourt Press, 1931)Google Scholar; Lea, Kathleen, Italian Popular Comedy, a Study in the Commedia dell'arte 1560–1620, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934)Google Scholar; Pandolfi, Vito, La commedia dell'arte, 6 vols (Florence: Sansoni Antiquariata, 19571961)Google Scholar; Gascoigne, Bamber, World Theatre (London: Ebury Press, 1968)Google Scholar; Taviani, Ferdinando, La commedia dell'arte e la societa barocca: La fascinazione del teatro (Rome: Bulzoni, 1970)Google Scholar; Billington, Sandra, A Social History of the Fool (Brighton / New York, 1984)Google Scholar; Richards, Kenneth and Richards, Laura, The Commedia dell'arte (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990).Google Scholar

2. McDowell, John Huber, An Iconographical Study of the Early Commedia dell'arte (1560–1650) [Yale University, D. Phil, thesis, 1937]Google Scholar; ibid. ‘Some pictorial aspects of early mountebank stages’, Publications of the Modern Language Association, 61, 1946, pp. 84–96; Phialas, P., ‘Massinger and the commedia dell'arte, Modern Language Notes, 65, 1950, pp. 113–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rudlin, John, Commedia dell'arte—An Actor's Handbook (London: Routledge, 1994), pp. 23–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. Richards, and Richards, , The Commedia dell'arte, pp. 2830 and 245Google Scholar. For further discussions of this question see also pp. 17 and 85–6.

4. Gentilcore, David, “Charlatans, mountebanks and other similar people’: the regulation and role of itinerant practitioners in early modern Italy’, Social History, 20, 1995, pp. 297314 (309).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5. Warburg, Aby, ‘I costumi teatrali per gli intermezzi del 1589. I disegni di Bernardo Buontalenti e il libro di conti di Emilio de'Cavalieri’ (first published in 1895)Google Scholar, in Gesammelte Schriften, vol. I, ed. Rougemont, F. and Bing, G. (Leipzig: E.G. Teubner, 1932), pp. 259300 and 394438Google Scholar. See also M. A. Katritzky on Aby Warburg and festivals (in a forthcoming volume on Warburg ed. by Richard Woodfield)

6. Warburg, , Gesammelte Schriften, I, p. 423.Google Scholar

7. See Erenstein, Robert, ‘Theatre iconography: an introduction’, Theatre Research International, 22, pp. 185–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8. See Appendices A and B.

9. de Francesco, Grete, ‘Scharlatane aus drei Jahrhunderten’, Ciba Zeitschrift, 4, 1936, pp. 1259–78Google Scholar; ibid., Die Macht des Charlatans (Basel: Benno Schwabe Verlag, 1937); Jakens, Claire, The Figure of the Charlatan in the Theatre of the Italian Renaissance (Warburg Institute, unpublished M. Phil, thesis, 1977)Google Scholar, Clark, Carol, ‘‘The onely languag'd-men of all the world’—Rabelais and the art of the mountebank’, Modern Language Review, 74, 1979, pp. 538–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ibid., The vulgar Rabelais, (Glasgow, 1983); Jurina, Kitti, Vom Quacksalber zum Doctor Medicinae, die Heilkunde in der deutschen Graphik des 16. fahrhunderts (Köln: Böhlau Verlag, 1985)Google Scholar; Schramm, Petra, Die Quacksalber, Heilkünstler und Scharlatane (Taunusstein: Edition Rarissima, 1985)Google Scholar; Kröll, Katrin, ‘‘Theatrum Mundi’ versus Mundus Theatri. A study of the history of fairground arts in early modern times', Nordic Theatre Studies, 2/3, 1989, pp. 5590Google Scholar; ibid.,’ ‘Kurier die Leut auf meine Art…’ Jahrmarktskünste und Medizin auf den Messen des 16. und 17 Jahrhunderts', pp. 155–86, in Benzenhöfer, U. & Kühlmann, W., eds., Heilkunde und Krankheitserfahrung in der frühen Neuzeit. Studien am Grenzrain von Literaturgeschichte und Medizingeschichte (Tübingen: Niemeyer Verlag, 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ibid. and Cruciani, Fabrizio, ‘A debate on fairground spectacles and historiography, Nordic Theatre Studies, 4, 1991, pp. 152–8Google Scholar; de Rougemont, Marline, ‘Dall'Orvietano al Grand Thomas’, Biblioteca Teatrale, 3032, 1993, pp. 9–14Google Scholar; David Gentilcore,’ ‘All That Pertains to Medicine’: Protomedici and Protomedicati in Early Modern Italy, Medical History, 38, 1994, pp. 121–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ibid. ‘Itinerant Practitioners in Early Modern Italy’; King, Roger, ‘Curing Toothache on the Stage? The Importance of Reading Pictures in Context’, History of Science, 33, 1995, pp. 396416CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Hattori, Natsu, Performing Cures: Practice and Interplay in Theatre and Medicine of the English Renaissance (University of Oxford, unpublished D.Phil, thesis, 1995)Google Scholar; Mimos (issue on ‘Medizin und Theater’), 48, 1996 (authors include: Gerda Baumbach and Maren Goltz, Stefan Hulfeld, Otto Schindler); Schindler, Otto, ‘Comrnedia dell'arte am Josefsplatz und das Phantom der Bibliothèque de l'Opera. Der Mythos des Tabarin und Ms. Rés. 625’, Biblos, 45, 1996, pp. 6192Google Scholar; ibid., ‘‘Mio compadre Imperatore’. Comici dell'arte an den Höfen der Habsburger’, Maske und Kothum, 38, 1997, pp. 25–154; Henke, Robert, ‘The Italian Mountebank and the Commedia dell'arte’, Theatre Survey, 38, 1997, pp. 129.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10. Picot, Emile, ‘Le Monologue dramatique dans l'ancien théâtre français’, Romania, 1872, pp. 438542Google Scholar, (492–6); Holl, Karl, Geschichte des deutschen Lustspiels (Leipzig, 1923Google Scholar: chapter: ‘Das Quacksalberspiel’, pp. 10–); Francesco, , ‘Scharlatane aus drei Jahrhunderten’, p. 1263Google Scholar; ibid., Die Macht des Charlatans, pp. 85–6; Menochio, Giovanni Stefano, Le Stuore overo trattenimenti eruditi [ … ], 5 vols (Rome 16521675), III, 1654, p. 162Google Scholar (cited in Jakens, , The Figure of the Charlatan, p. 24).Google Scholar

11. Reproduced: Bosch: Schramm, , Die Quacksalber, p. 33Google Scholar; roundel (artist: Giulio Romano): Gombrich, E. H., Symbolic Images (Oxford: Phaidon, 1972)Google Scholar, fig. 128 (see also Warburg, , Gesammelte Schriften, I, p. 303)Google Scholar; German prints: Jurina, , Die Heilkunde in der deutschen Graphik, pp. 155–66.Google Scholar

12. Heppner, A., ‘Jan Steen and the Rederijkers’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 1939/1940, p. 46Google Scholar; Kitching, Laurence, ‘Die deutsche Wanderbühne in Reval zur Zeit der schwedischen Herrschaft’, Maske und Kothurn, 38, 1992/1996, pp. 1745.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13. Kroll, , ‘Jahrmarktskünste und Medizin’, pp. 176–7.Google Scholar

14. Quoted in translation (from an edition of 1645) in Gentilcore, , ‘Itinerant Practitioners in Early Modern Italy’, p. 308.Google Scholar

15. e.g. Cecchini (1620, in Lea, , Italian Popular Comedy, I, p. 60).Google Scholar

16. For example, decreto conferred on Martinelli in 1599 (see note 34, below); Jonson, , Volpone, 1605, II.iii. 39Google Scholar; Borromeo, Paleotti, Ottonelli and others, quoted in Taviani, , La fascinazione del teatro.Google Scholar

17. Barbieri, Niccoló, edited by Taviani, Ferdinando, La supplica, discorso famigliare a quelli che trattano de' comici (Milan: Il Polifilo, 1971 [1634]), p. 126.Google Scholar

18. de Courval, Thomas Sonnet, Satyre contre les charlatans, et pseudomedecins empyriques (Paris, 1610), pp. 101–3.Google Scholar

19. Clark, , The Vulgar Rabelais, pp. 92 and 97Google Scholar. Further examples of charlatan/actors in Hattori, , Performing Cures, pp. 20–1Google Scholar; Gentilcore, , ‘Itinerant practitioners in early modern Italy’, p. 308.Google Scholar

20. Billington, , The Fool, pp. 60 and 63–5.Google Scholar

21. Fynes Moryson, MS. CCC.94, Oxford, p. 502. Parts I–III of Moryson's (1566–1630) account of his travels in the 1590s were published as An Itinerary (London, 1617; facsimile reprint: Amsterdam: Da Capo Press, 1971); selections from Part IV (MS CCC.94, Oxford) as Hughes, Charles, ed., Shakespeare's Europe. Unpublished chapters of Fynes Moryson's Itinerary (London: Sherrat and Hughes, 1903).Google Scholar

22. For bibliographies and/ or reproductions, see: Schünemann, H., ‘Stammbücher’, Schrifttumsberichte zur Genealogie und zu ihren Nachbargebieten, 2, 1965, pp. 67108Google Scholar; Klose, Wolfgang, Corpus alborum amicorum: CAAC. Beschreibendes Verzeichnis der Stammbücher des 16. hunderts (Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann, 1988), pp. 283321Google Scholar; Kurras, Lotte, Zu gutem Gedenken, Kulturhistorische Miniaturen aus Stammbüchern des Germanischen Nationalmuseums 1570–1770 (Munich: Prestel Verlag, 1987)Google Scholar; Taegert, Werner, Edler Schatz holden Erinnerns. Bilder in Stammbüchern der Staatsbibliothek Bamberg aus vier Jahrhunderten (Bamberg: Staatsbibliothek, 1995).Google Scholar

23. Felix Platter (1536–1614), diary entry, 3 November 1552. He refers to his album [stambiechlein] again in the entry for 6 March 1557 (Boos, Heinrich, Thomas und Felix Platter. Zur Sittengeschichte des XVI Jahrhunderts (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1878), pp. 195 and 279).Google Scholar

24. Interfoliated copies of the Antwerp 1564 edition used as albums include two in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich; mountebank picture (p. 188) is reproduced in Jurina, , Die Heilkunde in der deutschen Graphik, p. 128 & fig. 167.Google Scholar

25. Trautmann, Karl, ‘Aus altbayerischen Stammbüchern’, Altbayerische Monatsschrift, 3, 1901–, pp. 5361, 7285 and 132140Google Scholar; Nevinson, J. L., ‘Illustrations of Costume in the Alba Amicorum’, Archaeologia, 106, 1979, pp. 167–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Use O'Dell, , ‘Jost Amman and the Album amicorum. Drawings after prints in autograph albums’, Print Quarterly, 9, 1992, pp. 31–6Google Scholar; Salmen, Walter, ‘Stammbuchillustrationen als musikgeschichtliche Quelle’, Hamburger fahrbuch fur Musikwissenschaft, 12, 1994, pp. 235–42Google Scholar; Katritzky, M. A., ‘Carnival and comedy in Georg Straub of St. Gallen's printed album amicorum of 1600’ [forthcoming].Google Scholar

26. Hansen, Günther (edited by Asper, Helmut), Formen der Commmedia dell'arte in Deutschland (Emsdetten: Verlag Lechte, 1984).Google Scholar

27. Hallar, Marianne, Teaterspil og Tegnsprog, ikonograftske studier i commmedia dell'arte (Copenhagen: Akademisk Vorlag, 1977).Google Scholar

28. Leik, Angelika, Frühe Darstellungen der Commedia dell'arte: eine Theaterform als Bildmotiv (Neuried: ars una Verlag, 1996), 89, n.231.Google Scholar

29. Ludovico Zorzi, commentary to illustrative supplement in C. Vivanti and Romano, R. eds., Storia d'Italia, vol.II (Turin, 1974).Google Scholar

30. Album of Jacob Heckelsberger, Royal Library, Copenhagen (reproduced: Katritzky, M. A., ‘The Recueil Fossard 1928–88’, in Cairns, Christopher, ed., The Commedia dell'arte from the Renaissance to Dario Fo (Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press, 1989), pl. V).Google Scholar

31. Les Souhaits des hommes (in De Montaiglon, A., ed., Recueil de poésies françaises des XVe et XVIe siècles, 13 vols (Paris 1855), III, p. 138)Google Scholar; Picot, , ‘Le Monologue dramatique’, pp. 492–6Google Scholar; Scala, Flaminio, Il teatro delle fauole rappresentatiue [ … ] divisa in cinquanta giornata (Venice, 1611)Google Scholar, II, La fortuna di Flauio Comedia (in Pandolfi, La commedia dell'arte, II, pp. 180–6); Medii, Thomae [ = Tommaso Medio], Fabella Epirota (Venice, 1483)Google Scholar; ‘Farce nouvelle d'un pardonneur, d'un triacleur et d'une taverniere’ (in Viollet-le-Duc, , ed., Ancien théâtre françois, 10 vols (Paris, 1854), II, pp. 5063)Google Scholar; Heywood, John, The Play Called the Four PPGoogle Scholar, c.1545 (in Gassner, John, ed., Medieval and Tudor Drama (New York, 1963), pp. 232–62 and 247–8)Google Scholar; Braca, Vincenzo, Prime Sautabanco (c.1596)Google Scholar; Il ciarlone doe uno che canta in banco [Siena 1546] (in Pandolfi, , La commedia dell'arte, I, pp. 123–30)Google Scholar; Marston, John, Antonio and Mellida (London, 1602Google Scholar: Induction); Jonson, Ben, Volpone (London, 1605)Google Scholar; Shakespeare, William, Comedy of Errors (c.1591)Google Scholar, I, ii, 101; V, 238; ibid., Hamlet (c.1602), Iv,vii,114; Othello, (c.1604), I,iii,61; Coriolanus (c.1608), III,ii,132; Whetstone, George, An Heptameron of Civill Discourses. Containing: the Christmasse Exercise of Sundrie well-courted Gentlemen and Gentlewomen (London, 1582)Google Scholar; Shklanka, Diana, ed., A critical edition of George Whetstone's 1582 ‘An Heptameron of Civill Discourses’ (New York: Garland Press, 1987).Google Scholar

32. Moryson: MS. CCC.94, An Itinerary, Shakespeare's Europe; Coryat, Thomas, Coryat's crudities. Hastily gobled up in five Moneths travells in France, Savoy, Italy, Rhetia commonly called the Grisons country, Helvetia alis Switzerland, some parts of high Germany and the Netherlands; Newly digested in the hungry aire of Odcombe in the County of Somerset, and now dispersed to the nourish ment of the travelling Members of this Kingdome, 2 vols (Glasgow: James MacLehose, 1905 [first edition: 1611])Google Scholar; Keiser, Rut, Thomas Platter d.J.: Beschreibung der Reisen durch Frankreich, Spanien, England und die Niederlande 1595–1600 (Stuttgart: Schwabe Verlag, 1968)Google Scholar; diary of an unnamed Englishman's visit to Italy (British Library MS. Sloane 682: f. 20v dates the volume to 1610); letter dated 11 March 1602 from the Florentine P. Vinta to his brother Belisario (cited in Lea, , Italian Popular Comedy, II, p. 361).Google Scholar

33. Barbieri, , La supplica (1634)Google Scholar; de Courval, Sonnet, Satyre contre les charlatansGoogle Scholar; Guarinonius, Hippolytus, Die Grewel der Verwüstung Menschlichen Geschlechts (Ingolstatt, 1610).Google Scholar

34. For example, a Milanese oder of state of 1566 (in Hattori, , Performing Cures, p. 22)Google Scholar; a Mantuan, decretoGoogle Scholar conferred on Tristano Martinelli in 1599 and renewed in 1613 (in Ferrone, Siro (ed.), Comici dell'arte: corrispondenze (Florence: Le Lettere, 1993, 2 vols, I, p. 365)Google Scholar; Rastel, John, The third booke, declaring by Examples out of Ancient Councels, Fathers, and Later writers, that it is time to beware of M. lewel (Antwerp, 1566)Google Scholar, preface: compares preachers to mountebanks; Garzoni, Tomaso, La Piazza Universale di tutte le professioni del mondo (Venice, 1586), pp. 123 and 158Google Scholar; ibid., The Hospitall of Incurable Fooles (London, 1600).

35. The dates in Platter's account conform to the customs of the country he is in. At this period, Swiss dates are ten days behind those of the Gregorian calendar, which had already been adopted in, for example, France.

36. See Appendix A, and Katritzky, M. A., ‘Mountebanks, mummers and masqueraders in the diary of Thomas Platter (1595–1600) [forthcoming].Google Scholar

37. His father Thomas I Platter (c.1499–1582) may have us ed journal records to compile his autobiography in 1572, and his brother Felix I Platter (1536–1614) revised his own student journals in 1612.

38. Their father, Thomas I, was, by his own account, born to the sound of the church bells of ‘Herren Fastnacht’ (the Sunday before Shrove Tuesday), 10 February, 1499. His activities as a Basle school-master included the regular staging of plays acted by his pupils.

39. MS. AXV 7 & 8. ff. 262r–265v (= Appendix A). The fair-copy manuscript of Thomas II's travel journal, compiled during the period 1604–5, now in the University Library, Basle (with his album amicorum), was published in 1968 (Keiser, , Thomas Platter d.J.Google Scholar): Vischer, Christoph, ‘Die Stammbücher der Universitätsbibliothek Basel. Ein beschreibendes Verzeichnis’, in Festschrift Karl Schwarber (Basel, 1949), pp. 247–66Google Scholar. Numerous earlier publications give partial and inaccurate impressions of Platter's experiences: Félix et Thomas Platter à Montpellier 1552–1559—1595–1599. Notes de voyage de deux étudiants balois, publiées d'après les manuscrits originaux appartenant à la bibliothèque de l'université de Bâle (Montpellier: Chez Camille Coulet, Libraire, 1892); Jennett, Sean, Journal of a younger brother. The life of Thomas Platter as a medical student in Montpellier at the close of the sixteenth-century (London: Frederick Muller, 1963)Google Scholar. Bibliography: Hans Lieb, ‘Römische Inschriften in der Reisebeschreibung des jüngeren Platter, Thomas, Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde, 1955, p. 53, n.6.Google Scholar

40. See Appendix A.

41. Platter (University Library, Basle, MS. AXV 7 & 8, f. 78r). Real tennis was played in large covered halls free of central pillars, with tiered seating around the sides.

42. Garzoni, , La Piazza Universale (1586)Google Scholar; Moryson (1590s, in MS. CCC.94, 631); Guarinonius, , Die Grewel (1610), p. 214Google Scholar; de Courval, Sonnet, Satyre contre les charlatans, pp. 81, 93–4 and 97Google Scholar; Coryat, , Coryat's crudities (1611, 1905 edition, I, pp. 409–10).Google Scholar

43. Rastel, , The third booke (1566), f.(Aiii)rGoogle Scholar; Whetstone, , An Heptameron of Civill Discourses, 1582, f.(Aiii)vGoogle Scholar; letter of 1602 (in Lea, , Italian Popular Comedy, II, p. 361).Google Scholar

44. Jonson, , Volpone (1605), II. ii. 1,489, 69.Google Scholar

45. Rastel, , The third booke (1566), f.(Aiii)rGoogle Scholar; Moryson (1590s, in MS. CCC94, pp. 415, 469, 600 and 631); MS. Sloane 682 f.19r, 13 May 1610; Coryat, , Coryat's crudities, 1611 (1905, I, pp. 267 and 410)Google Scholar; Scala 1611 (in Pandolfi, , La commedia dell'arte, II, p. 181)Google Scholar; de Courval, Sonnet, Satyre contre les charlatans, p. 94.Google Scholar

46. Appendix B: VI, VII, XVII, XVIII, XXII.

47. Appendix B: XXI.

48. Coryat, , Coryat's crudities, 1611 (1905, I, p. 410).Google Scholar

49. See Katritzky, M. A., ‘The mountebank: a case study in early modern theatre iconography’Google Scholar [forthcoming in a volume edited by William Twining].

50. Hummelen, W. M. H., ‘The Boundaries of the Rhetoricians' stage’, Comparative Drama, 28 (1994), pp. 235–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

51. Rudlin, , An Actor's Handbook, pp. 4950.Google Scholar

52. Coryat, , Coryat's crudities, 1611 (1905, I, p. 411).Google Scholar

53. See Appendix A.

54. Henke, (‘The Italian mountebank’, pp. 1314)Google Scholar suggests that mountebanks played an important role in the dissemination of humanist literature by selling, performing and in some cases even publishing short printed pamphlets and anthologies of literary works.

55. Whetstone, , An Heptameron of Civill Discourses, 1582, f.(Liii)vGoogle Scholar; Decreti conferred on Martinelli in 1599 & 1613 (in Ferrone, (ed.), Comici dell'arte, I, pp. 365 and 395)Google Scholar; Coryat, , Coryat's crudities, 1611 (1905, I, pp. 410–2)Google Scholar; Rastel, , The third booke, 1566, f.(Aiii)vGoogle Scholar; Jonson, , Volpone, 1605, II ii. 6, 16, 59, 74, 90–1, 129, 141, 222–3.Google Scholar

56. Rastel, , The third booke, 1566, f.(Aiv)vGoogle Scholar; early sixteenth-century poem (Les Souhaits des hommes, p. 138); Jonson, , Volpone, 1605, II. ii. 166, 196Google Scholar; Braca, c.1596 (in Jakens, , The Figure of the Charlatan, pp. 106 and 120)Google Scholar; Coryat, , Coryat's crudities, 1611 (1905, I, p. 412)Google Scholar; MS. Sloane 682 f.19r, 13 May 1610; Scala 1611 (in Pandolfi, , La commedia dell'arte, II, p. 181).Google Scholar

57. Appendix B: I & II.

58. Appendix B: I & II.

59. Rastel, , The third booke, 1566, ff.(Aiii)v-(Aiv)rGoogle Scholar; Schramm, (Die Quacksalber, p. 37)Google Scholar, reproduces a painting of around 1620 in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam which shows a Dutch quacksalber mounted on horseback and dressed in an elegant red suit, accompanied by an assistant who displays his certificates.

60. de Courval, Sonnet, Satyre centre les charlatans, pp. 93–4.Google Scholar

61. Moryson, (1590s, in MS CCC.94, p. 600).Google Scholar

62. Jurina, , Die Heilkunde in der deutschen Graphik, figs. 155170.Google Scholar

63. Henke, , ‘The Italian mountebank’, p. 7.Google Scholar

64. Jonson, , Volpone, 1605, II. v. 1115.Google Scholar

65. Coryat, , Coryat's crudities, 1611 (1905, I, p. 412).Google Scholar

66. Jones, Inigo and Davenant, William, Britannia Triumphans (1638, in Orgel & Strong 1973, figs. 343 and 356).Google Scholar

67. Jonson, , Volpone, 1605, II. 50–2Google Scholar; Shakespeare, , Coriolanus, c.1608, III. ii. 131–7.Google Scholar

68. Medii, , Fabella EpirotaGoogle Scholar (1483, original and translation in Jakens, , The Figure of the Charlatan, p. 59).Google Scholar

69. Early sixteenth-century poem (Les Souhaits des hommes, p. 138); Farce nouvelle (sixteenth century, in Ancien theatre françois, II, pp. 50–63); Whetstone, , An Heptameron of Civill Discourses, 1582Google Scholar, f.(Liii)v; Moryson, (1590s, in MS. CCC.94, p. 600)Google Scholar; Braca, c.1596 (in Jakens, , The Figure of the Charlatan, p. 93)Google Scholar; de Courval, Sonnet, Satyre contre les charlatans, pp. 98100, 103–4 and 106Google Scholar; Coryat, , Coryat's crudities, 1611 (1905, I, pp. 411–2)Google Scholar; Wardens' or Chamberlains' Accounts (27 Nov. 1616, in Lea, , Italian Popular Comedy, II, p. 361)Google Scholar; Garzoni, , La Piazza Universale, 1586, pp. 758–63Google Scholar; Barbieri, , La supplica, p. 127.Google Scholar

70. Quoted in translation in Gentilcore, , ‘Protomedici and protomedicati’, 1994, p. 133.Google Scholar

71. Arboro della pazzia, 1568, in Katritzky, M. A., ‘Italian comedians in Renaissance prints’, Print Quarterly, IV, 1987, fig. 167Google Scholar; Franco, Giacomo, Mountebanks in the Piazza San Marco, Venice, 1610Google Scholar, in Duchartre, Pierre Louis, The Italian Comedy (New York, 1966), p. 63.Google Scholar

72. Whetstone, An Heptameron of Civill Discourses, 1582, f.(Mi)v; Moryson, (1590s, in MS. CCC.94, 600)Google Scholar; letter of 1602 (in Lea, , Italian Popular Comedy, II, p. 361)Google Scholar; Guarinonius, , Die Grewel (1610), p. 214Google Scholar; de Courval, Sonnet, Satyre contre les charlatans, pp. 94–5, 102–3 and 173–4Google Scholar; Coryat, , Coryat's crudities (1611, 1905 edition, I, pp. 410 and 412)Google Scholar; Scala 1611 (in Pandolfi, , La commedia dell'arte, E, pp. 181 and 185).Google Scholar

73. Appendix B: XI.

74. Appendix B: XVII.

75. Appendix B: I, II.

76. Appendix B: IV, V, XIV.

77. Appendix B: VIII, IX, X, XII, XIII, XV, XVIII, XIX.

78. Appendix B: III, XXI.

79. Appendix B: XVI.

80. Appendix B: XX.

81. Appendix B: IV, V, VIII, IX, XX (violin); X, XIV, XXI (lute); XII (pipe).

82. Appendix B: IV, V.

83. Duchartre, , The Italian Comedy, pp. 324–5 and 331.Google Scholar

84. Appendix B: XV; XX; and XIII &. XVI.

85. Appendix B: XVI.

86. Appendix B: II, XII, XIII, XIX (violin); X, XI, XV (lute).

87. Grimmelshausen, 's Springinsfeld (1670, ed. Scholte, (Halle: Niemeyer Verlag, 1928), pp. 3843)Google Scholar, describes an episode in which Simplicius attracts a large crowd of customers for his wares by imitating animal and bird noises on his violin.

88. See Appendix A.

89. Picot, , ‘Le Monologue dramatique’, pp. 493–5.Google Scholar

90. Clark, , ‘Rabelais and the Art of the Mountebank’, p. 550 n.2 (in translation).Google Scholar

91. Il ciarlone (in Pandolfi, , La commedia dell'arte, I, p. 130).Google Scholar

92. Rastel, , The third booke, 1566, ff.(Aiv)v-(Av)r.Google Scholar

93. Moryson, (1590s, in MS. CCC.94, p. 600).Google Scholar

94. Coryat, , Coryat's crudities, 1611 (1905, I, pp. 410–2).Google Scholar

95. Rastel, , The third booke, 1566, f.(Av)r.Google Scholar

96. Braca c.1596 (in Jakens, , The Figure of the Charlatan, pp. 93 and 120).Google Scholar

97. Garzoni, (La Piazza Universale (1586), p. 761).Google Scholar

98. Moryson (1590s, in MS. CCC.94: pp. 415, 469, 600 and 631).

99. Garzoni, , The Hospitall, 1600, p. 6.Google Scholar

100. Jonson, , Volpone, 1605, II.ii. 70–1Google Scholar; 110–126, 177–194; II.v.2; II.vi.14–15.

101. MS. Sloane 682 f. 19r, 13 May 1610; Guarinonius, , Die Grewel (1610), p. 214Google Scholar; de Courval, Sonnet, Satyre contre les charlatans, p. 103.Google Scholar

102. Coryat, , Coryat's crudities, 1611 (1905, I, pp. 410–2).Google Scholar

103. Ottonelli 1652 (in Taviani, , La fascinazione del teatro, pp. 327, 341, 361, 385 and 504Google Scholar; Richard, and Richards, , The Commedia dell'arte, p. 28).Google Scholar

104. see Appendix B: XVI & XX.

105. Katritzky, , ‘Scenery, set and stages’, figs. 22, 24.Google Scholar

106. Molinari, Cesare, La commedia dell'arte (Milan, 1985), p. 77Google Scholar; Richards, and Richards, , The Commedia dell'arte, p. 86.Google Scholar

107. King, , ‘Curing toothache on the stage?’, pp. 396 and 412Google Scholar. His plea for the ‘open interpretation of images and their contexts’ offers a valuable corrective to methodological weaknesses of the type highlighted by Cruciani with respect to mountebank and commedia dell'arte studies ‘of German or Anglosaxon provenance’ (Kröll, and Cruciani, , ‘A debate on fairground spectacles’, pp. 152–5)Google Scholar. Cruciani's criticisms centre on points of view developed with respect to intensive research on very specific and limited groups of documents, which are then granted general applicability for a much wider range of documents. Licenses (Henke, , ‘The Italian mountebank’, p. 9)Google Scholar; the gruesome tooth-pulling scene which dominates the mid-sixteenth-century farce Il ciarlone (in Pandolfi, , La commedia dell'arte, I, pp. 125–9)Google Scholar, and pictures such as Dionisio Minaggio's vivid feather picture of 1618 of a charlatan holding up the tooth of a client seated in front of him on his trestle stage (McGill University, Montreal, reproduced: Lomer, Gerhard, ‘Feather pictures of the commedia dell'arte’, Theatre Arts Monthly, 14, 1930, pp. 807–10)Google Scholar indicate that some early modern charlatans certainly pulled actual teeth.