DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.36838#0408
CASTIGLIONE S PROLOGUE
883
himself ordered the costumes, and sent to a well-
known maker at Mantua for gold-embroidered caps.
Bibbiena had promised to write a prologue, but his
composition only arrived the day before the per-
formance, too late to he learnt by heart by the reciter,
and in its stead one written by Castiglione himself
for the occasion was delivered amid great applause
from the audience. This prologue is printed in some
old editions of ' La Calandria,' and deserves to he
preserved, if only as a proof of the versatility of the
author s talents :
' You are to-day spectators of a new comedy
entitled "La Calandria," written in prose, not in verse,
in the vulgar, not in the Latin tongue. It is called
" Calandria " because it is about Calandro—a per-
sonage whom you will hnd so foolish that perhaps it
will be difficult for you to believe that any human
being could ever make himself so ridiculous ! But if
you remember others like him whom you may have
seen and heard—above all, Martino da Amelia, the man
who thought the moon was his wife, and imagined
himself in turn a god, a woman, a hsh, and a tree—
you will not wonder that Calandro could believe and
commit the follies that you will see. Since this
comedy deals with the familiar things of everyday
life, the author did not think well to use verse, con-
sidering that prose and words unfettered by metre are
better ht for ordinary use. That it is not ancient
ought not to displease you, as long as it is in good
taste, because things new and modern always please,
and are more agreeable than old and time-worn
themes, which have become tedious by long use. It
is not in Latin, because the author, wishing to be
understood by many who are not learned, and being
above all anxious to please, has chosen the vulgar
tongue, so that he may equally delight all his hearers.
And, besides, the tongue which God and Nature
883
himself ordered the costumes, and sent to a well-
known maker at Mantua for gold-embroidered caps.
Bibbiena had promised to write a prologue, but his
composition only arrived the day before the per-
formance, too late to he learnt by heart by the reciter,
and in its stead one written by Castiglione himself
for the occasion was delivered amid great applause
from the audience. This prologue is printed in some
old editions of ' La Calandria,' and deserves to he
preserved, if only as a proof of the versatility of the
author s talents :
' You are to-day spectators of a new comedy
entitled "La Calandria," written in prose, not in verse,
in the vulgar, not in the Latin tongue. It is called
" Calandria " because it is about Calandro—a per-
sonage whom you will hnd so foolish that perhaps it
will be difficult for you to believe that any human
being could ever make himself so ridiculous ! But if
you remember others like him whom you may have
seen and heard—above all, Martino da Amelia, the man
who thought the moon was his wife, and imagined
himself in turn a god, a woman, a hsh, and a tree—
you will not wonder that Calandro could believe and
commit the follies that you will see. Since this
comedy deals with the familiar things of everyday
life, the author did not think well to use verse, con-
sidering that prose and words unfettered by metre are
better ht for ordinary use. That it is not ancient
ought not to displease you, as long as it is in good
taste, because things new and modern always please,
and are more agreeable than old and time-worn
themes, which have become tedious by long use. It
is not in Latin, because the author, wishing to be
understood by many who are not learned, and being
above all anxious to please, has chosen the vulgar
tongue, so that he may equally delight all his hearers.
And, besides, the tongue which God and Nature