Portret van Francesco Andreini, RP-P-OB-66

Francesco Andreini (c. 1548 – 1624) was an Italian actor mainly of

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 , , and . Charact ...

plays. He began his career playing the role of the unsophisticated love-stricken young man. Later he played the role of Capitan Spavento ("Captain Fright"), a Pickwickian character of excessive fatigue. He died on January 1, 1624, in Mantua, Italy at the age of 76. Francesco Andreini was part of the start of commedia dell'arte and had he not brought this type of theater elsewhere; it would not have made it further to the mainstream media and developed further into multilingualism and oral and textual transmissions. His role of Capitano made its way into modern media with adapted versions solely based on the original Capitano. Francesco had an impact on today's theater and improvisation. (Jaffe-Berg, Erith) https://earlytheatre.org/earlytheatre/article/view/779

Life

Andreini was a soldier under the banner of the Medici in the

Ottoman–Venetian War (1570–1573) The Fourth Ottoman–Venetian War, also known as the War of Cyprus ( it, Guerra di Cipro) was fought between 1570 and 1573. It was waged between the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Venice, the latter joined by the Holy League, a coalition o ...

. He turned to theatre after 8 years in a Turkish jail. Andreini was born at

Pistoia Pistoia (, is a city and ''comune'' in the Italian region of Tuscany, the capital of a province of the same name, located about west and north of Florence and is crossed by the Ombrone Pistoiese, a tributary of the River Arno. It is a typi ...

. He was a member of the company of

i Gelosi I Gelosi (; "the Zealous Ones") was an Italian acting troupe that performed commedia dell'arte from 1569 to 1604. Their name stems form their motto: , long thought to mean "Virtue, fame and honour made us jealous", or "We are jealous of attainin ...

which

Henry IV of France Henry IV (french: Henri IV; 13 December 1553 – 14 May 1610), also known by the epithets Good King Henry or Henry the Great, was King of Navarre (as Henry III) from 1572 and King of France from 1589 to 1610. He was the first monarc ...

summoned to

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

to his bride, the young queen

Marie de Medici Marie de' Medici (french: link=no, Marie de Médicis, it, link=no, Maria de' Medici; 26 April 1575 – 3 July 1642) was Queen of France and Navarre as the second wife of King Henry IV of France of the House of Bourbon, and Regent of the Kingdom ...

, thus introducing the

style to France. Andreini married sixteen-year-old Isabella Canali in 1578, when he was 30. She and their son,

Giambattista Andreini Giambattista Andreini (9 February 1576 – 7 June 1654) was an Italian actor and the most important Italian playwright of the 17th century. Life Born in Florence to stage stars Isabella Andreini and Francesco Andreini, he had a great success ...

, were also distinguished in the arts.

Accomplishments

He published his dialogue as Captain Spavento as "La bravura del Capitano Spavento." This dialogue takes place between the captain and his servant, Trappola. Francesco Andreini wrote four to five page boasts in his publication of his dialogue; although Andreini may have elaborated on these speeches in print, it is clear that he was trying to give the audience the intense verbosity within. Similarly, Andreini elaborates on the fact that the doctor was only talk, while the lovers could get carried away with themselves to any extent. Andreini spoke a handful of languages including Italian, Turkish, English and French. He used a combination of these languages while performing. As Capitano, he often combined Italian and Turkish claiming it was Arabic. He also used

Grammelot Grammelot (or gromalot or galimatias) is an imitation of language used in satirical theatre, an ''ad hoc'' gibberish that uses prosody along with macaronic and onomatopoeic elements to convey emotional and other meaning, and used in association w ...

in his works, and was one of the original inventors.

Notes

References

* *Jaffe-Berg, Erith. "New Perspective on Language, Oral Transmission, and Multilingualism in Commedia Dell'arte." Gale Academic OneFile, July 2008, https://www.coursehero.com/file/60079538/Assignment-empirical-researchdocx/. Attribution: * {{DEFAULTSORT:Andreini, Francesco 1540s births 1624 deaths People from Pistoia Italian male actors Commedia dell'arte 17th-century Italian male actors 16th-century Italian male actors 16th-century theatre managers 17th-century theatre managers 16th-century Italian businesspeople 17th-century Italian businesspeople