Maurice Sand, "Tartaglia the stutterer (1650)". Originally published in Masques et bouffons, une histoire illustrée de la comédie italienne (1862).
Tartaglia (Italian for 'Stutterer') is a dainty character in the commedia dell'arte. He is farsighted and with a minor stutter (hence his name; cf. Spanishtartamudear), he is usually classed as one of the group of old characters (vecchio) who appears in many scenarios as one of the lovers (innamorati). His social status varies; he is sometimes a bailiff, lawyer, notary or chemist. Dramatist Carlo Gozzi turned him into a statesman, and so he remained thereafter. Tartaglia wears a large felt hat, an enormous cloak, oversized boots, a long sword, a giant moustache and a cardboard nose. He usually represents the lower working class, but at times the middle or upper class in the commedia dell'arte.
The Tartaglia mask appeared in Naples around 1610. Actors Ottavio Ferrarese and Beltrani da Verona became one of the first actors of it. The mask reaches its greatest popularity by the second half of the 17th century. In the 18th century, actors Agostino Fiorilli and Antonio Sacchi played this role in the plays of Gozzi, but for Gozzi this mask no longer has such a limited framework, in his plays this mask can be worn, for example, by the minister ("The Raven") and the royal son ("The Love of Three Oranges").
Other fictional characters named Tartaglia
In the opera Le maschere by Pietro Mascagni, one of the servants is Tartaglia, whose aria ("Quella è una strada") requires him to stutter.
There is a voluble Sgt. Gino Tartaglia, played by Charles Calvert, in the radio crime drama Broadway Is My Beat.
In the game Genshin Impact, the 11th of the Fatui Harbingers, who are all named after the commedia dell'arte, is known as Tartaglia (Chinese:达达利亚) or Childe (Chinese:公子), though his real name is Ajax.
Harlequin is the best-known of the comic servant characters (Zanni) from the Italian commedia dell'arte, associated with the city of Bergamo. The role is traditionally believed to have been introduced by the Italian actor-manager Zan Ganassa in the late 16th century, was definitively popularized by the Italian actor Tristano Martinelli in Paris in 1584–1585, and became a stock character after Martinelli's death in 1630.
Zanni, Zani or Zane is a character type of commedia dell'arte best known as an astute servant and a trickster. The Zanni comes from the countryside and is known to be a "dispossessed immigrant worker". Through time, the Zanni grew to be a popular figure who was first seen in commedia as early as the 14th century. The English word zany derives from this character. The longer the nose on the characters mask, the more foolish the character.
Brighella is a comic, masked character from the Italian theatre style commedia dell'arte. His early costume consisted of loosely fitting, white smock and pants with green trim and was often equipped with a batocio or slapstick, or else with a wooden sword. Later he took to wearing a sort of livery with a matching cape. He wore a greenish half-mask displaying a look of preternatural lust and greed. It is distinguished by a hook nose and thick lips, along with a thick twirled mustache to give him an offensive characteristic. He evolved out of the general Zanni, as evidenced by his costume, and came into his own around the start of the 16th century.
Pantalone, spelled Pantaloon in English, is one of the most important principal characters found in commedia dell'arte. With his exceptional greed and status at the top of the social order, Pantalone is "money" in the commedia world. His full name, including family name, is Pantalon de' Bisognosi, Italian for 'Pantalone of the Needy'.
Il Capitano is one of the four stock characters of commedia dell'arte. He most likely was never a "Captain", but rather appropriated the name for himself.
Harlequinade is an English comic theatrical genre, defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "that part of a pantomime in which the harlequin and clown play the principal parts". It developed in England between the 17th and mid-19th centuries. It was originally a slapstick adaptation or variant of the commedia dell'arte, which originated in Italy and reached its apogee there in the 16th and 17th centuries. The story of the Harlequinade revolves around a comic incident in the lives of its five main characters: Harlequin, who loves Columbine; Columbine's greedy and foolish father Pantaloon, who tries to separate the lovers in league with the mischievous Clown; and the servant, Pierrot, usually involving chaotic chase scenes with a bumbling policeman.
Il Dottore, commonly known in Italian as Dottor Balan or simply Balanzone, is a commedia dell'arte stock character, in one scenario being an obstacle to young lovers. Il Dottore and Pantalone are the comic foil of each other, Pantalone being the decadent wealthy merchant, and Il Dottore being the decadent erudite. He has been part of the main canon of characters since the mid-16th century.
Carlo, Count Gozzi was an Italian (Venetian) playwright and champion of Commedia dell'arte.
Pulcinella is a classical character that originated in commedia dell'arte of the 17th century and became a stock character in Neapolitan puppetry. Pulcinella's versatility in status and attitude has captivated audiences worldwide and kept the character popular in countless forms since his introduction to commedia dell'arte by Silvio Fiorillo in 1620.
Tartaglia may refer to:
Turandot (1762) is a commedia dell'arte play by Count Carlo Gozzi after a supposedly Persian story from the collection Les Mille et un jours (1710–1712) by François Pétis de la Croix. Gozzi's Turandot was first performed at the Teatro San Samuele, Venice, on 22 January 1762.
The Servant of Two Masters is a comedy by the Italian playwright Carlo Goldoni written in 1746. Goldoni originally wrote the play at the request of actor Antonio Sacco, one of the great Harlequins in history. His earliest drafts had large sections that were reserved for improvisation, but he revised it in 1789 in the version that exists today. The play draws on the tradition of the earlier Italian commedia dell'arte.
Pedrolino is a primo ("first") Zanni, or comic servant, of the commedia dell'arte; the name is a hypocorism of Pedro (Peter), via the suffix -lino. The character made its first appearance in the last quarter of the 16th century, apparently as the invention of the actor with whom the role was to be long identified, Giovanni Pellesini. Contemporary illustrations suggest that his white blouse and trousers constituted "a variant of the typical Zanni suit", and his Bergamasque dialect marked him as a member of the "low" rustic class. But if his costume and social station were without distinction, his dramatic role was certainly not: as a multifaceted first Zanni, his character was—and still is—rich in comic incongruities.
Burattino, also Burrattino or Burratino, is a minor commedia dell'arte character of the Zanni class.
Le maschere is an opera in a prologue and three acts by Pietro Mascagni to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica.
Commedia dell'arte was an early form of professional theatre, originating from Italian theatre, that was popular throughout Europe between the 16th and 18th centuries. It was formerly called Italian comedy in English and is also known as commedia alla maschera, commedia improvviso, and commedia dell'arte all'improvviso. Characterized by masked "types", commedia was responsible for the rise of actresses such as Isabella Andreini and improvised performances based on sketches or scenarios. A commedia, such as The Tooth Puller, is both scripted and improvised. Characters' entrances and exits are scripted. A special characteristic of commedia is the lazzo, a joke or "something foolish or witty", usually well known to the performers and to some extent a scripted routine. Another characteristic of commedia is pantomime, which is mostly used by the character Arlecchino, now better known as Harlequin.
The Green Bird is a 1765 commedia dell'arte play by Carlo Gozzi. It is a sequel to The Love of Three Oranges. The main plot of The Green Bird has several similarities with the widespread tale The Dancing Water, the Singing Apple, and the Speaking Bird.
Antonio Fava is an actor, comedian, author, director, musician, mask maker and Internationally renowned Maestro of Commedia dell'arte who lives in Reggio Emilia, Italy.
Commedia dell'arte masks are a type of mask worn by performers of the Italian form of theatre, commedia dell'arte. Masks are an integral part of the performance, and each character wears a particular mask design. All masks were originally leather, but are now more commonly made of neoprene. They are an extension of the actors and their costumes, hair, and accessories. The masks create an entirely different face for the people wearing them. Masks in commedia dell'arte speak of the types of characters that each represents, saying that they are an unchanged type.
The theatre of Italy originates from the Middle Ages, with its background dating back to the times of the ancient Greek colonies of Magna Graecia, in Southern Italy, the theatre of the Italic peoples and the theatre of ancient Rome. It can therefore be assumed that there were two main lines of which the ancient Italian theatre developed in the Middle Ages. The first, consisting of the dramatization of Catholic liturgies and of which more documentation is retained, and the second, formed by pagan forms of spectacle such as the staging for city festivals, the court preparations of the jesters and the songs of the troubadours.
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