Comedy of a Duke of Ferrara

Anon. (before 1597)

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Historical Records

Nördlingen

On 18 January, 1604, a group of touring actors petitioned the authorities at Nördlingen, deep in Southern Germany and on the edge of the Duchy of Württemburg, for permission to perform. They listed their repertoire of ten plays, including a play about Romeo and Juliet, and one described as 'vonn Annabella eines hertzogen tochter von Ferrara' [of Annabella, daughter to a Duke of Ferrara] (Trautmann, 1882, 625-6). This petition was rejected by the town authorities, but is recorded in their archives.

Rothenburg ob der Tauber

There are two undated petitions in the archives of the town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber, fifty miles away from Nördlingen and also on the edge of the Duchy of Württemburg. In these two documents, an unnamed group of comedians offer a total of twelve plays for performance, several of which correspond to the ten on the Nördlingen list. Among the Rothenburg titles is a play 'vonn Annabella, Eines Margraffen tochter von Montferrat' [of Annabella, daughter to a Margrave of Montferrat]. (Trautmann, 1894, 60-7). The usual scholarly assumptions are that the two Rothenburg lists result from the activities of the same group of English comedians, probably the company of Robert Browne, formerly of the Admiral's Men; that they are contemporary with the Nördlingen list, which is also Robert Browne’s company; and that the two plays about a daughter called Annabella are in fact different descriptions of the same play.

Strasbourg

In 1597, a group of English comedians under the leadership of Thomas Sackville had performed at Strasbourg. On 25 July Baron Waldstein watched them perform Comoediae, ab Anglis factae de quodam Duce Farrari, 'comedies made by the English about a certain Duke of Ferrara' (Schrickx, 330).

Dresden

In 1626, yet another group of English comedians twice performed a play recorded as 'Comoedia vom Hertzog von Ferrara' [the comedy of a Duke of Ferrara] (Herz, 66).

Hecatonphila

There is also a record of the play, of a sort, in an English print pamphlet, Hecatonphila: The Art of Love, or, Love Discovered in an Hundred Several Kinds (1598). After commendatory material, Hecatonphila opens with a four-page 'Argument' which begins as follows:

Vincentio Bentiuoli beeing Duke of Ferrara, a solemne contract of mariage was cõcluded, betweene Ludouico his Sonne, and faire Annabella, Daughter to the Marquesse of Mont-Ferrat. And when the tìme of the Nuptialls came to bee perfourmed, there wanted no resort of honorable Personages, nor anie magnificent cost and royall pompe, as might well beseeme a matter of such importance, as also the time so necessarily vrging it. Triumphes, Tiltes, Maskes, Barriers, were one while Companions with this gracious Assemblie, then another while stately Tragedies, and queint conceited Comedies holpe to beguile the idle howres: & when neither of these were thought expedient, then ciuill discourse and familiar conference liberally passed between the Lords and Ladies.

(Hecatonphila, A7r-A7v.)

One night, a group of these lords and ladies are waiting for one of the comedies to begin. While the actors are preparing, a gentlewoman who calls herself Hecatonphila ('a hundred loves') gets up onto the stage and delivers a long speech to the young women present, a speech which appears under a fresh heading and actually takes up the whole of the rest of the pamphlet.

Theatrical Provenance

In existence by 1598; particularly associated with the English comedians in Germany, where it seems to enjoy a long career.

Probable Genre(s)

Comedy ending in marriage.

Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

No source yet discovered, but there are (possibly) two analogues.

Tiberius und Annabella

It has long been recognized that the lost play seems to connect to an untitled extant German-language comedy called, by its nineteenth-century editor, Tiberius von Ferrara und Annabella von Mömpelgard, and often referred to simply as Tiberius und Annabella.

Tiberius und Annabella is a text of uncertain date which survives in manuscript (Gdansk Stadtbibliothek MS 2421, fos. 65-86) and which was published in a scholarly edition by Johann Bolte in 1895. It has striking similarities to what we can see of 'The Comedy of a Duke of Ferrara', similarities that are made all the clearer by the extra information about the lost English play. Tiberius und Annabella features a Duke of Ferrara; a Margrave; and Annabella, daughter of the Margrave, who ends up marrying the Duke of Ferrara's son. These four characters map well onto the four characters known in connection with the 'Comedy of a Duke of Ferrara'.

References to the Play

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Critical Commentary

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For What It's Worth

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Works Cited

Karl Trautmann, ‘Die Älteste Nachricht über eine Aufführung von Shakespeares Romeo und Julie in Deutschland (1604)’, Archiv für Litteraturgeschichte, 11 (1882): 625–6. Karl Trautmann, ‘Englische Komödianten in Rothenburg ob der Tauber’, Zeitschrift für vergleichende Literatur, 7 (1894): 60–7. Willem Schrickx, Foreign Envoys and Travelling Players in the Age of Shakespeare and Jonson (Wetteren: Universa, 1986), 330 Emil Herz, Englische Schauspieler und englisches Schauspiel zur Zeit Shakespeares in Deutschland (Hamburg: Leopold Voss, 1903), 66. Leon Battista Alberti, Hecatonphila (London, 1598).

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