El Convidado de Piedra in Naples in 1625

vol. X of Geschichte des Dramas (Leipzig, 1874), p. 636. 7.Op. cit., p. xxviii. 8.Victor Said Armesto, ed., Las mocedades del Cid (Madrid, 1952), p. xxvi. 9.Hurtado y Gonzalez Palencia, Historia de la literatura española (Madrid, 1940), vol. II, p. 626. 10.Otis H. Green, "New Documents for the Biography of Guillen de Castro y Bellvis." Revue Hispanique, LXXXI (1933), p. 259. 11.Mérimée, op. cit., p. 559. 12.Hymen Alpern, ed., La tragedia por los celos (Paris, 1926), p. 37. 1 3.Op. cit., p. xvii. 14.Angel Valbuena Prat, Literatura dramática española (Barcelona, 1950), p. 174. 15.Carlos Ortigoza Vieyra, Los móviles de la comedia (Mexico, 1957), [vol. II], p. 7 ?. 16.Op. cit., p. 560. 17.Op. cit., I, xlv. El Convidado de Piedra in Naples in 1625 by Joseph G. Fucilla Northwestern University In support of the claim that El BurUdor de Sevilla was already known in the Spanish theatrical world as early as 1623, Tirso scholars, among them Raúl Porras Barenechea and Doña Blanca de los Ríos, have cited the lost play by Juan Francisco Vallejo, No hay Plazo que no Lygue ni Deuda que no se Pague, which was performed in Lima during that year as recorded by Guillermo Lohmann in his Arte Dramático en Lima durante el Virreinato (Madrid, 1945). Here he notes, on page 173, that the title is identical with two verses in the canción from El Burlador, Act III, Scene XX.1 While our Tirsistas contention may eventually prove to be true, it has not been further observed that the caption is also a refrán and as such appears in Correas' Vocabulario de Refranes, compiled during the second decade of the seventeenth century.2 In other words, instead of being a reproduction of our play or a refundición, it may very well deal with a completely different and unrelated dramatic piece. The vagueness of this data consequently confers a greater significance than it might otherwise have upon the copy of a lease in the Archivio Notarile of Naples (Notar Diego de Crescenzo. Protocollo, anno 1625, fol. 285, which involves the rental of furniture and other equipment in the Teatro di San Bartolomeo in that city to be utilized for a representation of II Convitato di Pietra. At the San Bartolomeo theatre plays were regularly given in Spanish by Spanish actors, this one by the troupe of the actor-manager Pedro Osorio who some years before, 1609 and 1613, had been a member of the company of Domingo Balbin in Spain and had appeared in the latter year in a comedia by Godinez, La Reina Ester? The Archivio Notarile document is reproduced herewith thanks to the courtesy of Dr. Ulisse Prota Giurleo, the leading living authority on the history of the theatre in Naples, from whom I have obtained my transcript: 21 ottobre 1625—Francisco de Valentia, Comico Spagnuolo, riceve de Bartolomeo, affittatore del Jus de rapresentare comedie, spettante all'Hospedale degl 'Incurabili di Nap., la stanza di Santo Bartolomeo con li palchetti, come al presente si ritrovano sani e non guasti, centoquaranta sedie di paglia, dudeci filari di sedie di legname, uno canale di castagno per fare il Convitato di pietra, due scale di chiuppo [pioppo], la scena con quattro case per lo domo, uno bancone con tre casionetti con loro chiave, un altro bancone con dui cascionetti con loro chiave , la chiave della porta, tre chiavi de palchetti, due chiavi per entrare alle sedie et corritori, uno bancone per sedere, et una cascietta di recuperare denari con due chiavi, due blanduri [lorcieri] di legname; quale stanza et robbe nel modo ut supra detto Francisco promette tenere et conservare a quelle restituire a detto Bartolomeo nel dì che Pietro Ossorio, autore di Comedie, con sua Compagnia lasciaranno de recitare in detta stanza, sane et non rotte conforme di sopra, altramente detto Francisco sia tenuto a tutti danni, spese et interesse se ne debbia stare a semplice fede da farsi da detto Bartolomeo, senza altro obligo di prova. In pace etc. Actually, this bit of information had been noted by Dr. Prota Giurleo a number...