Italian Influences upon Torres Naharro's Comedia Calamita

In Act 5 of Torres Naharro's Comedia Calamita, the blockhead Torcazo is talked into feigning to be dead in order to test his wife's love for him. Scholars have traditionally found the source of this episode in Bibbiena's La Calandria, but in fact the latter is only one of three sources, and the least important one at that. The principal inspiration is Poggio's facetia 116, wherein a rustic decides to see what his wife would do if he were to die, and a secondary model is Poggio's facetia 268, in which a numskull believes himself dead, but speaks up when he is insulted. Bibbiena's contribution is simply the part where the dunce is persuaded that he can die and resuscitate as often as he likes. Torres Naharro combined the three tales into one, because they all deal with a dunderhead who either plays dead or is made to believe that he is so. The Estremenian author's use of sources is much more complex than had been realized, and includes the Novella genre, as well as the theater. (DM)