Fra vita e scena. Appunti sulla commedia senese cinquecentesca

Thanks to the activity of a large handful of academies, coteries and printing shops specialized in the emerging theatrical publishing, during the Renaissance, the city of Siena developed a peculiar ‘society of the spectacle’, which mirrored -and commented on- the everyday and political life of its citizens. This monograph investigates the corpus of comedies produced and consumed within the Accademia degli Intronati of Siena during the 16th Century. The work defines their dramaturgical profile, characterized by a tragicomic style, storybook-like vicissitudes, a highly expressive language, and performing and staging excellence much appreciated outside of Siena. These carnival comedies, seemingly disengaged, weaved together a complex coded message of political nature, in dialogue with the factionalism that was tearing apart the Republic. Once the comedies lost their vital links with the city audience, following the Medicean conquest of Siena, they knew a vast fortune across Europe - mediated by the many printed editions and the international travelling shows of the professional actors of the Commedia dell'Arte -, up to Shakespeare and Lope de Vega.