(Bianchi, Giovanni Antonio)
De i vizi, e de difetti del moderno teatro e del modo di corregergli, e d’emendarli ragionamenti VI. Di Lauriso Tragiense pastore arcade.
Roma, Niccolo & Marco Pagliarini 1753.
Full Description
4to. xii + 345 + (1)pp, 6 engraved plates, 2 engraved text ills. Contemporary vellum.
Bianchi (1686-1758), a member of the “Arcadian” literary academy in Rome under the pseudonym “Lauriso Tragiense”, presents his views on the theatre in the form of imaginary dialogues between an Italian nobleman and older and younger literary friends. Although Bianchi was himself a priest, with strongly conservative opinions on staging, on acting and even on accompanying music, he had written a series of tragedies with moral or sacred themes from the 1720s onwards, and he offers what is probably the most detailed and learned mid-eighteenth century justification of religious drama in terms of Thomist and other theology. He also sees the sacred drama of his own time as the direct heir of the drama of classical Greece and Rome, and plates at the end of the volume, from drawings by Pietro Torrelli, illustrate the ground plans of typical Greek and Roman theatres. Berlin Cat 2789 ; Cicognara 761.