From Ferrara to Venice: Plautus in Vernacular and Early Italian Comedy (1486-1530)

The short Plautine revival in translation that signaled the return of ancient comedy to the stages after more than a millennium had its origins (1486) in the courtly shows promoted by Ercole d’Este in Ferrara and terminated in Venice, where, in addition to a rich sequence of Plautine performances, the only printed editions of these texts handed down to us were produced (1530). The comedies of Plautus were initially staged by non-professional performers, who used modern versification and improvisation abilities to represent such plays in front of a court audience. These shows were a source of inspiration for authors like Ariosto, who started a new form of comic production, in which the traditional characters and plots that had characterized ancient comedy were transformed in new masks and scenarios.