Pellico and Niccolini: the patriotic theatre

Franco Manzoni

Italian

In Italy, as from the early nineteenth century, along with the development of the urban middle class and the formation of a rather cultivated social stratum, the intellectuals of the period became increasingly interested in the “national question”.
The keeping of a specific cultural tradition had the search for a concrete national identity as its ultimate

meaning and purpose: plays complied with this goal too, and so did melodrama that became extremely popular in this period in Italy.
Besides Manzoni, the Italian drama should then include the works written for the theatre by Silvio Pellico and Giovanni Battista Niccolini.
Silvio Pellico (1789-1854), a men of letters and a patriot, after finishing school, moved to Milan where he met and befriended many intellectuals, both foreign and otherwise, who chose that city as a reference point open to European contacts.
The historic drama “Francesca da Rimini”, staged for the first time in 1815, gave a unanimous triumph in the theatrical field to the man who went down in the history of our literature for his diary “My Prisons” (published in 1832).
"Francesca da Rimini" describes the tormenting story of the well-known Paolo and Francesca who represent

passionate love and the romantic ideal par excellence.
Most of the tragedy deals with the theme of temptation and of the strenuous fight against sin's tricks: in this way the author intended to increase the drama's pathetic tension.
After the terrible experience of the prison in the Spielberg's fortress (Moravia), Silvio Pellico was pardoned in 1830 and returned to Turin where he lived as a librarian working for Barolo's marquis and where he wrote other historical tragedies: “Ester d'Engaddi” (1830), “Gismonda da Mendrisio” (1834), “Leoniero da Dertona” (1834) which, however, were not as successful as “Francesca da Rimini”.
Pellico failed to bring to life again the historical events that he used for his performances. The Middle Ages period, a frequent theme in his tragedies, is seen but a gloomy background of the stage action, a sullen environment destined to give rise to the ideal feelings and figures that inspired his characters.
Even Giovanni Battista Niccolini (1782-1861), a poet who wrote impetuous and linear lines, wrote works for the theatre having national deliverance and the freedom of a whole people as their main themes. He worked at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence as professor of history and mythology, and also as its librarian at the same time.

His dramatic plays which are imbued with a strong civil commitment include “Antonio Foscarini” (1823, staged in 1827), “Giovanni da Procida” (1817, staged in 1830), “Ludovica Sforza” (1834), “Arnaldo da Brescia” (1843) - probably his masterpiece - and “Beatrice Cenci” (1844).
Niccolini's tragedies are deeply influenced by Schiller and Byron although his characters are often brilliantly described in an artificial way and are thus not particularly outstanding.
He used the classical schemes in order to defend the traditional Aristotle's unities, but also chose themes that dealt with the ideals of the nineteenth century imbued with Romanticism and inspired by the a liberal and patriotic afflatus.
Niccolini's academic knowledge sometimes prevent the plot from freely evolving and this sometimes makes the author give the stage action an excessively bookish spirit. Niccolini draws inspiration from the conceptions of the Dantesque and Machiavellian tradition and gets carried away by the reminiscences of the books he loved most with which he often suffocates his characters and his own fantasy. However, he became rather successful thanks to his claims for the establishment of a new political regime.
Niccolini's dazzling verbal fights present in his tragedies, nevertheless, managed to deal with extremely topical issues for his contemporaries, mainly the ideal of freedom that finally became real with the birth and the autonomy of people and of the Italian state.

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