The World of Harlequin: A Critical Study of the Commedia dell'Arte (review)

162 Reviews p.287 on the mourning robes of the women of Cyprus). The maps remdn the same but are more usefully regrouped, while the bibUography has been updated. Best of dl are the 33 pages of notes which replace the 17 pages of the eartier edition. These clearly reflect new directions of research and emphasis in the fifteen years since the first English edition (eg. p.296 n.22 on oaths of fedty). For this done the second edition is essential reading for all students of the Crusades! While this review is not intended as a panegyric, it is stimulating to find such advances in a second edition from a leading scholar. Due to certain tangentid views thefirstedition had difficulties as a teaching tool, despite its avowed purpose to be for 'university students ... (and) members of the general pubtic'. Historians with forcefd opinions are always more interesting to read. In opening up the debate, as such, by referring to a variety of discussion in both his text and notes, Mayer adds greater breadth to this work (e.g. on the vexed question of Urban II and 'Jerusdem'). Subtle changes to the section on the origins of the MiUtary Orders, for example, reflect new emphases. It would be possible to continue in simtiar vein on many other issues. The translation by John Gillingham is masterly, dthough there are a few obscure passages such as that on James of Vitry and heretics or Bddwin m and MeUsende's efforts 'to compose a maritd discord'. Overall this second edition is a chaUenging addition to Crusade literature in the EngUsh language and the only barrier to its place on the bookshelves of dl students of the Crusades is its high cost in Australia. To any specidist student of the Crusades it is an essentid introduction to the wider spectrum of discussion and research which characterize Crusader Studies in the last decade. In every sense, in comparison with thefirstedition this is a far finer work. Even the cover is more aestheticaUy pleasing! Shefdi S. Rovik Sydney Nicoll, A., The World of Harlequin: A Critical Study of the Commedia dell'Arte, 2nd ed., Cambridge, C U P . , 1986; paperback, R.RP. A U S $54.00. When Nicoll's survey of the commedia dell'arte appeared in 1963, it was a welcome remedy to romantic treatments of the genre. It supplemented Widfred Smith and K.M. Lea's works, which had appeared in 1912 and 1932 respectively, and quickly established itself as a standard work in thefield.Since Nicoll was able to make use of dl but the last volume of Vito Pandolfi's massive sixvolume compilation of sources (La commedia dell'arte, Florence, Sansoni, 1957-61), as well as of other standard primary and secondary sources, the work Reviews 163 has a sound scholarly base. Nevertheless it remains largely descriptive. The first chapter attempts a definition of the genre through its distinguishing features: scenarios, words and actions, characterisation, improvisation, 'literary discipline', actors and parts. The next two chapters, liberally iUustrated, describe the four main masks (Pantdone, the Dottore and the two servants in their various incarnations), and the remdning masks and the unmasked innamorati respectively. The fourth chapter, 'The Comic Scene', attempts to reconstruct how the commedia dell'arte worked in performance, mdnly on the basis of the printed scenarios and later Uterary treatments of the genre, but apparently without anyfirsthand experience of working on stage with actors and canovacci and improvisation. The find chapter, 'Triumph and Decline' looks at the popularity of various troupes in Itdy and abroad until the suppression of the Comedie Itdienne in 1780. There is a brief epilogue, a bibliography that has not been brought up to date, and five pages of footnotes. It is an indication of the state of theatre studies in the English-speaking world that this is still the best general work avdlable on the subject of the commedia dell'arte. In Itdy, work has been proceeding in a variety of directions: towards systematic publication of all the surviving scenarios and the treatises (particularly through II Polifilo in Milan); towards rediscovery of the performance techniques (through the workshops conducted by Dario Fo at Rome Umversity...