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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
The romantic career of that unhappy favorite of Queen Elizabeth, Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex, like the histories of Mary Stuart and of the Maréchal de Biron, has been often used as a subject for tragedy in Spanish, French, Italian, German, and English. Several of these plays have been studied more or less carefully at different times, so that I shall not do more than summarize those versions briefly before passing on to my main subject, the relation between Niccolo Biancolelli's Regina Statista d'Inghilterra and its commedia dell'Arte variants, of which the one presented here is hitherto unpublished.
1 R. Schiedermair, Der Graf von Essex in der Literatur, Kaiserslaubern, 1908; A. Schneider, Altere Essexdramen… Beilage zum 46n Jahresberichte der K. K. Staatsoberrealschule im IV Bezirke Wiens, Wien, 1901 (Unsatisfactory); A. Schaeffer, Geschichte des spanischen National Dramas, Leipzig, 1890, II; H. C. Lancaster, “La Calprenède Dramatist,” Modern Philol., July and November, 1920.
2 The British Museum catalog erroneously notes Dar la vida por su Dama, 1638, [A. Coello] and El Conde de Sex, 1750 [L. Coello?] as two different plays by different authors; Dar la vida por su Dama in some editions has a subtitle, ò El Conde de Sex but it is the same play as the second listed in the catalog.
3 Hamburgische Dramaturgie, IX ff.
4 There is at least a possibility that the Spaniard, Antonio Perez, in London and intimately acquainted with Essex in 1595 and in France under the protection of Henri IV after that, may have been the retailer of some of the facts of this tragic story; cf. W. B. Devereux, Lives and Letters of the Devereux, Earls of Essex, in the Reigns of Elizabeth, James I. and Charles I. 1540-1646. London, 1853.
5 Histoire du théâtre français, etc., Paris, 1747, vol. XII, pp. 110-11. There is a longer discussion of La Calprenède's play in vol. V., 1745, pp. 477-480.
6 For details about this interesting family of actors and writers, cf. L. Rasi, I comici italiani. Biografia., bibliografia, iconografia, Firenze, 1897, Vol. I, under Biancolelli.
7 B. Croce, I teatri di Napoli, nuova edizione, Bari, 1916, Chaps. V ff. I present other evidence of the close contact between Spanish and Italian playwrights and actors in an article on the Maréchal de Biron on the Stage, Mod. Philol. XX, Feb., 1923. Cf. also A. Belloni, Il Seicento, Milano, 1898-9, pp. 288 ff.
8 The printing is so careless that there is not even agreement between the lists of Dramatis Personae and the characters as they appear; no Duca is listed, yet one appears in several scenes as a Councillor of the Queen, the Cap. Scarabombardone of the list is called Frangimonte when he enters; Scatarello, the gardener of the list, is called Calcatruffo in 1, 2. Moreover the entrances are very inexact, e.g., in 1, 6, the Conte enters, according to the stage directions, yet he evidently does not really do so, until two scenes later. Other stage directions are often wrong, e.g., in II, 3; the punctuation is extraordinarily bad and the lettering often unclear.
9 A. Bartoli printed one of these in his Scenari inediti delta commedia dell' arte …. Firenze, 1880, suggesting, evidently without investigation, that it derived from the Abbé Boyer's play. Another, unprinted, is listed as No. 13 in the second volume of the large collection of MS. scenarios described by B. Croce in Una Nuova raccolta de scenari, Gior. Stor., XXIX, 1897, and attributed by G. Caprin to its Spanish original, Dar la vida, etc., without a recognition of Biancolelli's version; cf. Caprin, La commedia dell'arte al principio del secolo XVIII, Rivista teatrale, 1905, a study particularly of the Spanish-Italian interrelations. The scenario I print below is from the collection in the Biblioteca Casanatense in Rome, first described by F. De Simone Brouwer in Rendiconto della reale accademia dei Lincei, classe di scienze morali, etc., Ser. V, vol. X, 1901. One scenario in this collection, compared by Brouwer with Biancolelli's play because its title is similar—La regina statista regnante—has nothing in common with Biancolelli's play. Brouwer compares the scenario printed below—Gl'honesti amori della Regina d' Inghilterra con la morte del Conte di Sex—to Bartoli's scenario, which indeed it does closely resemble, but does not recognize the similarity between them and Biancolelli's tragedy.
10 The Unhappy Favourite; or The Earl of Essex, a tragedy, acted at the Theatre Royal, by their Majesty's Servants. Written by John Banks—1682. The Earl of Essex, a tragedy by Henry Jones. Adapted for Theatrical Representation. As performed at the Theatre Royal, in Convent-Garden. Regulated from the Prompt Books, by permission of the Managers, London J. Bell, British Library….MDCCXCI. Played 1753 and first printed in that year.
