''La veniexiana'' ("The Venetian Woman") is a comedy play in five acts from around 1536, written in the

Venetian language Venetian, wider Venetian or Venetan ( or ) is a Romance language spoken natively in the northeast of Italy,Ethnologue mostly in the Veneto region, where most of the five million inhabitants can understand it. It is sometimes spoken and often ...

by an unknown author.Carolyn Balducci and Martin W. Walsh (2000): ''La Veniexiana (1535)'' Volume 34 of ''Carleton Renaissance Plays in Translation'' Dovehouse Editions Canada; 83 pages. G. Padoan, ed. (1994): ''La veniexiana. Testo originale a fronte''. Marsilio; 160 pages. Giorgio Padoa (1974): ''La Veniexiana''. Volume 20 of ''Medioevo e Umanesimo''. Antenore; 153 pages. John Gassner, Edward Quinn ''The Reader's Encyclopedia of World Drama'' 2002 p.895 "B. W. Venexiana. La (The Venexiana. first half of sixteenth century). An anonymous Italian comedy." It is titled The Venetian Comedy in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

;DeBellis (1972)Robin Healey (2011): ''Italian Literature Before 1900 in English Translation: An Annotated Bibliography, 1929-2008''. University of Toronto Press; 1150 pages. and the Venetian title is often written with modernized spelling ''La venexiana''. The play tells the story of Julio, a young man who arrives in Venice and falls in love with a young married woman. The anonymous play was discovered by E. Lovarini in a Venetian book at the

Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana The Marciana Library or Library of Saint Mark ( it, italic=no, Biblioteca Marciana, but in historical documents commonly referred to as ) is a public library in Venice, Italy. It is one of the earliest surviving public libraries and repositorie ...

in Venice, and published by him in 1928.Paul Larivaille (2017): ''La Comédie vénitienne''. Volume 39 of ''Bibliotheque Italienne''. Les Belles lettres; 304 pages. It is believed to have been composed between 1535 and 1537. It has been attributed to the learned and lettered

Girolamo Fracastoro Girolamo Fracastoro ( la, Hieronymus Fracastorius; c. 1476/86 August 1553) was an Italian physician, poet, and scholar in mathematics, geography and astronomy. Fracastoro subscribed to the philosophy of atomism, and rejected appeals to hidden c ...

of Verona (1478–1553), but this attribution is far from proved. The comedy plays on the dialects of

Tuscany Tuscany ( ; it, Toscana ) is a Regions of Italy, region in central Italy with an area of about and a population of about 3.8 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence (''Firenze''). Tuscany is known for its landscapes, history, art ...

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...

and

Bergamo Bergamo (; lmo, Bèrghem ; from the proto- Germanic elements *''berg +*heim'', the "mountain home") is a city in the alpine Lombardy region of northern Italy, approximately northeast of Milan, and about from Switzerland, the alpine lakes Como ...

. Julio, the educated foreigner, speaks Tuscan. The Venetian women (Anzòla and Valiera) and their maids speak Venetian, while the porter speaks

Bergamasque The Bergamasque dialect is the western variant of the Eastern Lombard group of the Lombard language. It is mainly spoken in the province of Bergamo and in the area around Crema, in central Lombardy. Bergamasque has official status in the pro ...

.Hermann W. Haller ''The Other Italy: The Literary Canon in Dialect'' 1999 p.135 "The new vertical plurilingualism is fully at work in the anonymous five-act ... and genuine early theatrical jewel La venexiana ..." The play was adapted in 1958 by

Ingmar Bergman Ernst Ingmar Bergman (14 July 1918 – 30 July 2007) was a Swedish film director, screenwriter, Film producer, producer and playwright. Widely considered one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time, his films are known ...

as the

Swedish television Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

drama '' The Venetian'' (''Venetianskan''), and in 1986 by

Mauro Bolognini Mauro Bolognini (28 June 1922 – 14 May 2001) was an Italian film and stage director of literate sensibility, known for his masterly handling of period subject matter. Early years Bolognini was born in Pistoia, in the Tuscany region of Italy. ...

as the erotic movie '' The Venetian Woman'' (''La venexiana'').

References

Italian plays 1530s plays Renaissance plays {{16thC-play-stub