The full range of theatrical activity in Italy in the sixteenth century was wider, perhaps, than academic scholars are yet in a position to recognise. Popular theatre, particularly in rural areas, was resistant but undocumented. It has been revived in municipal drama festivals such as the Montepulciano Bruscelli, where the dramaturgy in its modern version contains features of plot and structure which seem fossilised from the first decades of the Cinquecento, before any humanist input. The development of religious theatre, from the starting point of Quattrocento Sacre rappresentazioni (see above, p. 175), is also a separate story from the one we shall tell here. Inevitably conservative in some respects, it emerged in the seventeenth century having absorbed a number of ‘classical’ features from the more secular genres.

In a single chapter on theatre in the Cinquecento, it is inevitable that we should concentrate on the lasting revolution which took place in dramaturgy and in the very concept of theatre. This was effected by the deliberate resurrection of modes and assumptions of ancient drama – as these were interpreted by Renaissance scholars, and as they were bent to the needs of Renaissance society. The snowballing effect of these changes on all European theatre is generally recognised. By around 1660, in England, France, Spain and northern Europe, the dominance of ‘classical’ models in drama was unmistakable; and like other aspects of Renaissance culture it was a trend which had begun in Italy.