1 The greater part of Tessin's notes and letters were published by Siren, Osvald, Nicodemus Tessin d.v:s studieresor i Danmark, Tyskland, Holland, Frankrike och Italicn (Stockholm, 1914).Google Scholar However, Siren's work does not include Tessin's detailed descriptions of Venetian stagecraft, which Tessin observed personally backstage at the Teatro SS. Giovanni Crisostomo and the Teatro SS. Luca in 1687. Tessin's Venetian notes, with a short introduction, appear in Kleine Schriften der Gesellschaft für Theatergeschichte 21 (Berlin, 1966), “Unveroffentlichtes von Nicodemus Tessin, d.j., Reisenotizen über Barock-Theater in Venedig und Piazzola, Herausgegeben und kommentiert von Per Bjurstrom,” pp. 14–41. Gosta M. Bergman discusses Tessin's observations in Venice, Piazzola and other European theatres in detail in his Lighting in the Theatre (Totowa, NJ, 1977), and he reproduces Tessin's alcove sketch on page 97, but his comments do little to explain it clearly.

2 Per Bjurstrom suggests that Torelli's interior setting for Bellerofonte (Venice, 1641, Plate I), might have been a box setting but he says a passage in the Bellerofonte description is open to interpretation. Bjurstrom cites Tessin's description and reproduces the sketch but comes to no firm conclusion as to whether or not it is a box setting. See Bjurstrom, , Giacomo Torelli and Baroque Stage Design (Stockholm, 1962), p. 72.Google Scholar

3 The material from Motta's 16th and 17th discourses of the Costruzionc is cited from my forthcoming publication, Fabrizio Carini Motta, Theatre Architect and Stage Machinist, Translations of Trattato sopra struttura de'teatri e scene, Guastalla, Italy, 1676, and Costruzionc de'teatri e teatrale machine de Fabrizio Carini Motta (1688), unpublished manuscript in the Biblioteca Estcnse, Modena, Italy, with Commentaries by Orville K. Larson.

4 Watson, Ernest B., Sheridan to Robertson, A Study of the 19th Century London Stage (Cambridge, 1926), p. 274.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 The Autobiography of Goethe, trans. Jona Okenford (London, 1845), Pan III, Book XI, p.422.

6 McDowell, John H., “Historical Development of the Box Set,” Theatre Annual (1945), pp. 65–83.Google Scholar

7 Larson, Orville K., “A Commentary on the ‘Historical Development of the Box Set’ (Theatre Annual, 1945),” (1954), pp. 28–36.Google Scholar

8 Lee, Briant Hamor, “The Origins of the Box Set in the Late 18th Century,” Theatre Survey, 18 (November 1977), 44–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Capitolo II, Aggiunta alle Osservazioni sui Teatri (Milan, 1818), which Lee translates as “Concerning Box Settings, Their Advantages and Their Defects: How They Must be Designed According to the Rules of Perspective,” Lee, pp. 48–56. See also Bibiena, Ferdinando, Direzioni delta prospettiva teorica (Bologna, 1732).Google Scholar

10 Court Theatres of Drottningholm and Gripsholm, Description of Plates by Agne Beijer (Malmo, 1933), p. 18. See Plates LXIX and LXLX:2.

11 See The Italian Baroque Stage: Documents by Giulio Troili, Andrea pozzo, Fcrdinando Galli-Bibiena, Baldassare Orsini, translated and with commentary by Dunbar H. Ogden (Berkeley, 1978).

12 Quattro diaghli in materia de rapprcscntazionisceniche (circa 1580), manuscript in the Biblioteca Palatina, Parma, Italy. Allardyce Nicoll published the first English translation of the four dialogues in The Development of the Theatre (3rd ed.; New York, 1937), Appendix B, cited quote, p. 74.

13 This article is an adaptation of a paper read at the annual conference of the American Society for Theatre Research, Lincoln Center, New York, November 16–17, 1979.