A literary historical essay originally written in 2010
Cecchi, Giovan Maria. The
Horned Owl. Translated and edited with introduction by Konrad Eisenbichler.
Waterloo, ON.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1981.
Giovan Maria
Cecchi’s The Horned Owl, or L’Assiuolo, is a sixteenth century
comedy set in the Tuscan city of Pisa. Generally regarded as Cecchi’s great
comedic masterpiece, L’Assiuolo
brings to the stage the adulterous affair of two young university students who
both fall in love with the same married woman.[1]
Written in 1549 for Florence’s
Carnival, The Horned Owl is a social
commentary on the underlying flaws of Tuscan marriage practices and the
consequential treatment of women. In his play Cecchi outlines what he sees as
the fundamental problems of a poorly matched marriage that of age and
temperament. Specifically, he illustrates through the adulterous affairs of his
characters, that a couple’s compatibility is dependent on their corresponding
age. By examining Cecchi’s The Horned Owl
in conjunction with Machiavelli’s famous adulterous comedy The Mandrake, and “The Wooer and the Maiden” from Erasmus’ Ten Colloquies, this paper will
demonstrate the frustration of some of the intellectual elite with the
institution of marriage.
One of the most
popular styles of comedy during the Italian renaissance was the erudite comedy,
based on the ancient Roman comedic styles of the playwrights Terence and
Plautus.[2]
These plays consisted of five acts, dealt exclusively with secular matters, and
most importantly reflected upon social life and customs.[3]
The Quattrocento and Cinquecento erudite comedies imitated the style,
convention, and meter of Plautus and Terrence. Plots, tropes and characters
were commandeered and rewritten by contemporary playwrights in order to be more
appealing to an early modern audience. [4]
The reworking of these classical
comedies was necessary, as direct translations of the plays were considered to
be tedious and dull. Battista Guarino and Pandolfo Collenuccio, two well known
translators of Terrence and Plautus’ work, have been accused of corrupting the
plays, by imposing a different meter, which drew out the dialogue and
consequently robbed it of its meaning and humour.[5]
Despite, or perhaps because of, the popularity of the erudite comedies there
were always authors who tried to claim a reinterpretation of an ancient play as
their own. Such direct plagiarism was something Cecchi particularly abhorred,
as he makes clear in his prologue to La
Dote.[6]
L’Assiuolo, however, is
not a true erudite comedy. Although it follows the five-act convention, style,
staging and critiques social conventions, its plot and even characters are not
influenced by Terrence or Plautus making it an ‘original’ comedy. Something
Cecchi makes quiet clear in the prologue to his play.
It’s taken neither from Terrance nor
Plautus, but as you’ll hear, from something which happened recently in Pisa
between some young students and gentlewomen.[7]
This type of comedy
is referred to as a Commedie Osservate.[8]
This comedic style differs from
the erudite comedy in its use of the Tuscan prose style, and plots that are not
drawn from ancient playwrights but are meant to reflect and critique
contemporary Tuscan life.[9] The
Horned Owl, most notably breaks from the erudite form because it does not
end with a marriage. Which in the erudite comedy resolves the sexual/moral
transgressions of the characters, thereby restoring the moral social hierarchy.[10]
Instead L’Assiuolo ends with the
consummation and secured future exploits of an adulterous affair, a taboo subject
that would never have been permitted in ancient Rome.[11]
This allows the play to retain classical form but introduce a contemporary and
original subject.
Cecchi, however, does
borrow heavily from one author, Boccaccio. It is from the Decameron and the tradition of the Italian Novella that Cecchi draws
his inspiration for The Horned Owl. Boccaccio,
in particular, evokes in his stories the power of nature and love triumphing
over social convention.[12]
It is from him and the Italian Novella
that Cecchi is given licence to engage in the topic of adultery, and shows it as
a justifiable course of action for women trapped in unhappy marriages.[13]
It is this tradition that presents Cecchi with the opportunity to openly criticize
the Tuscan marriage customs and the treatment of women.
Unfortunately there
is very little written in English on Cecchi and nothing concerning the social
criticism of gender and marriage in his plays. Therefore, in order to further
demonstrate these themes within L’Assiuolo,
The Horned Owl will be briefly
compared with Machiavelli’s play The
Mandrake. The plays are complimentary in tone, subject matter, and even
popularity; in fact they were originally preformed together. The complicated
staging of the two plays was accomplished by alternating The Mandrake act per act with those of The Horned Owl. This double feature format was apparently particularly
popular during the festivities of Carnival.[14]
The plot of The Mandrake is similar to The Horned Owl. In The
Mandrake a man from out of town, Callimaco, falls in love with the virtuous
and beautiful woman Madonna Lucrezia who is the wife Nicia Calfucci, another
elderly fool of a lawyer. Callimaco dupes Nicia and then tricks Lucrezia into
sleeping with him all through a series of hilarious events. The only difference
between The Horned Owl and The Mandrake is that Lucrezia is
childless. A critical part in the tricking of both husband and wife is through this
want of a child. What both these plays have in common, and no doubt why they
were paired together, is their criticism of marriage illustrated through the
adulterous affairs. The social critique of marriage in these two plays is subtle.
On the surface The Horned Owl and The Mandrake is an amusing salacious
romp where single men try to get into the beds of other men’s wives. However,
when the layers of the story are pulled back, Cecchi and Machiavelli’s
criticism is that a poorly matched couple leads to an unhappy marriage.
Cecchi’s primary
argument for the poor match is one of age and temperament. The ages of the
characters would have been clear to a contemporary audience by virtue of the
characters’ occupation and status. The two university students Giulio and Rinuccio
considering it is their first year would have been between eighteen and their early
twenties. Loretta the wife of Ambrogio and her younger sister would be of a
similar age to the two students. Considering their rank as well born ladies
they would have been married between the ages of sixteen and eighteen. The play
implicates that Oretta has been married for a few years since it is pointed
out, in act V.ii, that she already has a three-year-old son. Ambrogio a
distinguished Doctor of Law is a member of the educated class, which Italian
tradition dictates means he would have been married in his mid to late
thirties. If we are to assume, as the play infers, that this is Ambrogio’s
first marriage, and as noted with Oretta, they have already been married a few
years, it follows that he is in his early forties. Finally, there is the widow
Madonna Anfrosina mother of Rinuccio. Considering her social status as a wellborn
lady, and the fact that Anfrosina has a twenty-year-old son, she like Ambrogio
is probably in her early forties. The argument that age difference is the
catalyst in a poorly matched marriage would go unnoticed if Cecchi only had the
two unmarried students going after Oretta. However, the element of age is
underscored by having Ambrogio in love with Madonna Anfrosina, a widow with an
adult son. This makes the audience question, why Ambrogio is chasing an old
woman when he has a young wife at home? This issue of the age disparity is made
explicit in Oretta’s soliloquy in Act IV.iii.
Anyone can come to
know in part how unhappy a woman’s lot is if he considers how many
inconveniences we are subject to, how many pleasures we are deprived of, and
under what cruel tyranny we must live our lives. When men have to take a wife,
they nearly always take whoever they please. We, on the contrary, must take
whoever is given us. Sometimes, and I for one can vouch for it, poor me, we
must take one who, to say nothing of his age which would make him our father
rather than our husband, is so rough and in-human one can sooner call him a
two-legged beast than a man. But let’s not talk of the bad luck other girls
have had, and let’s speak of me, the most unlucky one of all. I find myself
married to Messer Ambrogio, who could be my grandfather! He’s rich yes. But
that doesn’t mean I eat any better! Besides having a husband who is old,
there’s the problem of having one who’s jealous, wrongly jealous. And there’s
no one who’s more jealous than him. So, because of his jealousy I am deprived
of pleasure outside the house, and because of his age, of pleasure inside the
house. As if it wasn’t enough for fortune to saddle me with all these problems,
now she’s decided to make a fool of me, to have still greater sport with me by
making this crazy old man fall madly in love with someone else. Now he’s lost
all his mental faculties as well as his physical ones. Poor Oretta, what more
did you need? Stuck for life with a husband who’s old, philandering and senile…
If I didn’t think this was the best medicine to cure the folly in this old
man’s head without to much noise, I’d have handled it differently.[15]
Oretta says the
word age or alludes to Ambrogio age nine times in the soliloquy, constantly
reminding the audience that it is because of the age gap that the marriage is
poorly matched. This incompatibility
and overall unhappy marriage is what gives Oretta permission to engage in the
affair. As previously mentioned, Boccaccio often represented the issue of
adultery as the best course of action when a person feels trapped in an incompatible
marriage, an opinion clearly being echoed here by Cecchi.
A similar concern
appears in Machiavelli’s The Mandrake
in which the issue of age and compatibility is reinforced. For example, the age
of the suitor Callimaco, who is in his thirties, is made explicit when he
recounts his life story. Lucrezia’s young age is also implied when it is
revealed that she and Nicia have been married for six years, making Lucrezia in
her mid twenties. In Act V.iv during Callimaco’s retelling of he and Lucrezia’s
night together the audience is reminded that age is a factor in the compatibility
of the adulterous couple. “In any case, by this time she’d had a good taste of
the difference between my performance and Nica’s, between the kisses of a young
lover and those of an old husband.”[16]
Additionally, the
notion of incompatible temperaments, and a lack of affection play a part in a badly
matched marriage. As Machiavelli’s character Ligurio says in act I.iii, “all
too often you see a sharp witted man end up with an ass, or the other way
round, a sensible woman get landed with a dolt”.[17]
You can see a similar line of thought coming from Oretta in her soliloquy where
she describes her husband as a “two-legged beast”. This difference in temperament, as Cecchi and Machiavelli
demonstrate, only serves to compound the problem of incompatibility already
present with the difference of age.
The problem with
marriage customs in which there is an age gap and a lack of familiarity between
the couple is hardly novel. Erasmus in his “The Wooer and the Maiden”, from his
Ten Colloquies first published in the
1520s, discusses exactly this issue of what makes a good marriage. In this
passage Pamphlius, the wooer, explains why it would be a good idea if Maria,
the maiden, and he got married.
In addition,
between my own line – not an altogether uncompatible one, I believe – and yours
there has long been intimate friendship. In fact, you and I have known each other
to our fingertips, as they say, since childhood and our temperaments are pretty
much the same. We’re nearly equal in age; our parents, in wealth, reputation,
and rank. Finally – and this is the special mark of friendship, since excellent
by itself is no guarantee of compatibility – your tastes seem to fit my
character rather well.[18]
For Erasmus a
happy and productive marriage is dependent on how well the couple compliment
one another. He specifically touches upon the same concerns as Cecchi, those of
age, and temperament, as being an important feature of a well matched marriage.
Of course there is no evidence that Cecchi ever read any of Erasmus’ work, Erasmus
being a native of The Netherlands, and Cecchi by his own admission having never
travelled far from Florence.[19]
However, considering the popularity of Erasmus’ work, particularly his Colloquies, it is not unreasonable to
assume that Cecchi at least knew of his writings.[20]
Nonetheless, what both authors illustrate is the dissatisfaction of the male
educated population with the current social customs around marriage. What
Cecchi, Machiavelli, and Erasmus are all trying to articulate is that in order
for a marriage to work there must be more than just the concern of whether or
not the bride is a virgin. Young girls marrying old men “which would make him
our father rather than our husband” as Oretta puts it, immediately places
strain on the relationship. The age gap alone dampens the possibility of true
affection developing between the couple leaving the pair with an unsatisfactory
marriage.
In The Horned Owl, Cecchi, is sympathetic
to his female characters, painting them as victims of jealous husbands and
lascivious schemes. He makes a particular point of illustrating how a bad match
is far more to the detriment of women than to men, as illustrated by Oretta’s
lamentations in her soliloquy. Additionally, Cecchi specifically shows the
forced confinement of women by jealous husbands. There are many scenes that
centre on Ambrogio locking up his house so no one can get in or out, especially
his wife. In act I.I Giulio comments “She doesn’t come to the door or to the
window the poor woman is held like a prisoner by Messer Ambrogio, who is
insanely jealous of her.” [21]
Yet, Cecchi’s
strongest illustration of the unnecessary and cruel confinement of women is the
fact that Oretta, the object of so much desire, does not appear until act IV.
This is true of all the ladies in the play.[22]
Violante, Oretta’s sister, does not appear until act three and the Widow
Anfrosina never makes an appearance. This lack of female visibility reinforces
the idea of ladies as confined and separate from men in Italian society. This
was obviously a conscious decision on Cecchi’s part since there is opportunity
to introduce all three ladies at once in act I.II where the maid reveals a
description of the ladies’ plot against Ambrogio to Giulio. What Cecchi could
have done was have the actual scene with the ladies, at the end of which the
maid as an aside explains that she would tell Giulio of the plot. However, there
is the problematic issue of staging. The
Horned Owl subscribed to the traditional erudite format in which only a single
set was employed, in this case a street set. Since the scene was supposed to
have taken place inside the convent this presents an obvious difficulty.[23]
Yet this off stage conversation could have appeared onstage with a simple rewrite.
One in which Oretta, accompanied by her sister Violante and Madonna Anfrosina walk
back from the convent together, thus appearing on the street with their servant
escort, while discussing their plot.[24]
Instead Cecchi chose to keep the ladies hidden away until the second half of
the play.
This deliberate
lack of female visibility could be commenting on two things. First, it reflects
on the lack of agency wellborn ladies in bad marriages must be contented with. As
illustrated by the fact that no lady is seen on the street unescorted, the only
exception being Oretta when she is dressed as a man in act IV.iii. This socially
acceptable confinement subsequently constricts a wellborn woman’s ability to
navigate the city and its places. This is shown by the fact that Oretta, as described
by the other characters in the play, is only allowed to move between her home
and the convent. Therefore denying
her agency within the home, due to her bad marriage, and outside the home, due
to social rules of acceptability. Secondly, Cecchi seems to be commenting on
the fact that the confinement of women is necessary if the couple is poorly
matched. As the author shows, for the patriarchal social structure, and by
extension masculine honour, to be maintained within the bad marriage, a woman’s
movements must be limited otherwise she might be sought by someone who is more
complimentary.
Although not
unique Cecchi’s critique of the flaws of Tuscan marriage practices is
interesting. He and Machiavelli’s focus on age disparity as a catalyst for the
bad marriage infers a sense of dissatisfaction with the current system. In
particular, Cecchi’s treatment of his female characters shows a great deal of
sensitivity towards the engendered misogyny that was so prevalent in
Renaissance Italian society. The attention paid to the plight of women in these
poorly matched marriages shows an understanding of how such treatment can
negatively affect a woman’s virtue while at the same time undermining a man’s
honour. That is not to say, however, that Cecchi was a feminist. His perception
of women is still one seen through a masculine lens. As demonstrated by he and Machiavelli’s
use of the Courtly love, and Italian Novella’s traditional male fantasy of the
tricked woman’s submission to her lover. Cecchi is a man writing for men, and
despite his sympathies his play still lacks a genuine female voice. Nevertheless,
The Horned Owl’s comedic critique of
marriage and the consequential treatment of women, offers insight into how
educated early modern men may have perceived and lamented these social
institutions.
Works Cited
Cecchi, Giovan Maria. The
Horned Owl. Translated and edited with introduction by Konrad Eisenbichler.
Waterloo, ON.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1981.
Eisenbichler, Konrad. Introduction to The Horned Owl, by Giovan Maria Cecchi. Translated and edited by
Konrad Eisenbichler, ix-xxxiv. Waterloo, ON.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press,
1981.
Erasmus, Desiderius. “The Wooer and the Maiden”. In Ten Colloquies. Translated and edited by
Craig R. Thompson, 22-36. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Educational Publishing,
1957.
Ferraro, Bruno. Introduction to The Slave Girl, by Giovan Maria Cecchi.
Translated and edited by Bruno Ferraro,
ix-xxxiii. Ottawa: Dovehouse Editions, 1996.
Machiavelli, Niccolò di Bernardo. “The Mandrake”. In Ariosto's The supposes, Machiavelli's The
Mandrake, Intronati's The Deceived: Three Italian Renaissance Comedies.
Edited by Christopher Cairns. Translated with introduction by Jennifer Lorch,
Kenneth and Laura Richards, and Nerida Newbigin. 181- 241. Lewiston, NY: The
Edwin Mellen Press, 1996.
Radcliff-Umstead, Douglas. Carnival
Comedy and Sacred Play: the Renaissance Dramas of Giovan Maria Cecchi.
Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1986.
Radcliff-Umstead, Douglas. The
Birth of Modern Comedy in Renaissance Italy. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1969.
Rummel, Erika. Erasmus on
Women. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996.
[1] Douglas Radcliff-Umstead, Carnival
Comedy and Sacred Play: the Renaissance Dramas of Giovan Maria Cecchi
(Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1986), 85.
[2] Douglas Radcliff-Umstead The
Birth of Modern Comedy in Renaissance Italy (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1969), 60-3, Konrad Eisenbichler, Introduction to The Horned Owl, by Giovan Maria Cecchi, translated and edited by
Konrad Eisenbichler, (Waterloo,
ON.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1981), xi.
[3] Eisenbichler, xi.
[4] Radcliff-Umstead The Birth of
Modern Comedy in Renaissance Italy, 63.
[5] Apparently an accusation made by historians and contemporaries alike.
Radcliff-Umstead The Birth of Modern
Comedy in Renaissance Italy, 63-4.
[6] Of course none of the erudite comedies were original, all plots and
forms had been taken from ancient playwrights. The notion of plagiarism comes
from not giving credit to Terrence and Plautus in the Prologue as was the
custom. Radcliff-Umstead The
Birth of Modern Comedy in Renaissance Italy, 63.
[7] Giovan Maria Cecchi, The Horned
Owl, translated and edited with introduction by Konrad Eisenbichler,
(Waterloo, ON.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1981), 3.
[8] Eisenbichler, xi
[9] Radcliff-Umstead Carnival Comedy
84-5, and Bruno Ferraro, introduction to The Slave Girl, by Giovan Maria Cecchi,
translated and edited by Bruno Ferraro (Ottawa: Dovehouse Editions, 1996)
xv-xvi
[10] Eisenbichler xxi-xxii
[11] Eisenbichler xviii
[12] Radcliff-Umstead Carnival Comedy,
84.
[13] Radcliff-Umstead Carnival Comedy,
84.
[14] Eisenbichler, xii.
[15] Cecchi, 49.
[16] Niccolò di Bernardo Machiavelli, “The Mandrake”, in Ariosto's The supposes, Machiavelli's The
Mandrake, Intronati's The Deceived: Three Italian Renaissance Comedies,
edited by Christopher Cairns, translated with introduction by Jennifer Lorch,
Kenneth and Laura Richards, and Nerida Newbigin. (Lewiston, NY: The Edwin
Mellen Press, 1996), 235.
[17] Ibid.,190.
[18] Desiderius Erasmus, “The Wooer and the Maiden”, in Ten Colloquies translated and edited by Craig R. Thompson
(Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Educational Publishing, 1957), 30.
[19] Eisenbichler, x.
[20] Erika Rummel, Erasmus on Women
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), 25, 39.
[21] Cecchi, 7.
[22] Ladies as in reference to women of title. Two women do appear before
this time, the servant, Agnola, and the Hypocrite, Madonna Verdiana.
[23] Radcliff-Umstead The Birth of
Modern Comedy in Renaissance Italy, 64, Eisenbichler, xii.
[24] Since wellborn ladies would not have walked the streets unescorted.
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