The First Italian Actresses, Isabella Andreini and the Commedia dell’Arte

Abstract

This chapter examines the lives and careers of some of the first commedia dell’arte actresses, who worked in Italy and toured to other European countries, such as France, Spain and England, from the mid-sixteenth century until the first decades of the seventeenth century. Several of these actresses, such as Isabella Andreini, Vittoria Piissimi and Vincenza Armani, were also talented singers, musicians and dancers, as well as writers experimenting in diverse genres. Some, such as Isabella Andreini and Diana Ponti, even ended up taking on managerial responsibilities within their troupes. The most distinguished of them, Isabella Andreini, was assigned a place in an all-male literary academy, a position rarely held by women in the period. Nevertheless, their lives were fraught with difficulties. In a theatre system dominated by men, they had to struggle against widespread misogyny and prejudice from the church and in society at large. Their pioneering careers are fundamental not only to the development of Italian theatre but also to European theatre generally and to the status of women within the whole theatrical system.