The Substance of Sicilian Puppet Theater Past and Present Jo Ann Cavallo Professor of Italian Columbia University n franCiS ford CoPPoLa’S medieval and Renaissance poems that had The Godfather: Part II, a Mafia boss driven my research since my graduate walking through New York City’s Little student days. Twenty years and several trips IItaly stops in front of an outdoor puppet to Sicily later, you could say I’m a bona fide theater performance to watch two knights opera dei pupi enthusiast. In addition to wielding swords, then quickly turns away, bringing puppet theater into my scholarly remarking that the action is too violent for studies and teaching, I created a website him. While his response is meant to be ironic (eboiardo) to make the chivalric matter for the viewer—the notorious mafioso, in fact, staged in puppet plays (as well as in other is about to be assassinated—I’ll admit that performance and artistic traditions) more until a couple of decades ago I might have widely available to students and the general had the same reaction if I had chanced upon public.1 Although Sicilian puppetry is often one of the fierce swordfights that are the advertised as “folklore,” puppeteers are hallmark of the genre. But in the late 1990s, actively engaged in nothing less than a friend presented me with Catanese dramatizing in a meaningful way souvenir puppets named Orlando, Rinaldo, masterpieces of medieval and Renaissance and Angelica, and told me that Sicilian Italian (and European) literature. This essay puppeteers were staging the same epic first outlines the principal chivalric narratives narratives that I was teaching at Columbia that found their way into traditional University. Although I hadn’t previously given Sicilian puppet theater, and then turns to any thought to this performance tradition, how today’s puppeteers are refashioning the those three two-foot-tall puppets dangling in stories for contemporary audiences. my living room proceeded to stare at me daily until I decided to go see for myself how 1 The website eBOIARDO (Epics of Boiardo and Other Italian Authors: a Research Database Online) can be Sicilian puppet theater brought to life the found at edblogs.columbia.edu/eboiardo. Objects of History 139 9.30_Athenaeum Review ISSUE 3_FINAL.indd 139 10/3/19 11:02 AM 140 9.30_Athenaeum Review ISSUE 3_FINAL.indd 140 10/3/19 11:02 AM Angelica. Stanley Marcus Sicilian Marionettes Collection. Luigi Pulci’s late fifteenth-century Morgante Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin. acknowledges this nepotistic incentive when announcing Charlemagne’s plan to invade Spain. The emperor thus becomes doubly Locating the distant starting point of responsible for the ensuing tragedy, first by Sicilian puppet theater narratives takes us out his reckless decision to attack a foreign realm of Italy and into the Pyrenees where, in the for selfish reasons, and subsequently by his imaginary world of medieval Carolingian epic, choice of Gano (Ganelon) as his messenger. Charlemagne’s rearguard, led by the paladin Pulci also introduces the knight Rinaldo Roland, is ambushed by Spanish Saracens at (Renaud in the medieval French rebel baron the mountain pass of Roncevaux as a result cycle) into the battle as the hero who returns of betrayal by the emperor’s treacherous from the East and singlehandedly transforms brother-in-law Ganelon. It was of no matter a tragic defeat into an ultimate victory, that according to the historical record saving all of Christendom in the process Charlemagne’s rearguard was actually (Morgante 25.170). Having previously attacked by local Basques as his army returned recounted Charlemagne’s unjust persecution from fighting in Spain alongside Muslim and banishment of Rinaldo, Pulci’s depiction (Abbasid) allies in 778. In the ensuing literary of the paladin’s heroism at the battle of tradition, Christendom was locked in Roncevaux superimposes the themes of inexorable conflict with the Saracen enemy rebellion and vindicated rights onto a because, as Roland famously says in an early familiar story of religious warfare. twelfth-century version of the Chanson de Another fifteenth-century poet, Matteo Roland, “Pagans are wrong and Christians are Maria Boiardo, opens his Orlando Innamorato right” (Song of Roland l. 1015). Refusing early (1482-3) announcing a scandalous backstory on to call for reinforcements, the hero that he claims had been kept hidden to save eventually succumbs alongside his Orlando from embarassment: Charlemagne’s companions and is taken to heaven, leaving allegedly stalwart paladin had actually fallen his fiancée Aude to die of grief back home at hopelessly in love at first sight with Princess the news of his demise, and compelling Angelica of Cathay and had deserted both the Charlemagne to return with his troops to emperor and his own wife to traverse the avenge the rout with a definitive victory over globe as a would-be Arthurian knight-errant the Spanish Saracens and their allies. seeking to win the damsel’s affection. The Frankish paladins’ spirit of sacrifice and Yet we are advised not to be shocked at the devotion to king, God, and country thus lent news of Orlando’s enamorment since moral support to military efforts against the No strong arm, no audacity, “infidel” in Spain and the Holy Land. No blade well-honed, no shield or mail, Yet the story of the battle of Roncevaux No other power can avail, underwent substantial changes before it first For in the end Love conquers all (Orlando Innamorato 1.1.2). appeared on the puppet theater stage. Some early Italian versions shifted the war’s motivation from the need to liberate Spain Indeed, Boiardo emphatically affirms the from Saracen rule, to Charlemagne’s desire to superiority of Arthurian over Carolingian bestow a Spanish kingdom upon his nephew themes due to the fact that King Arthur’s Orlando (Roland), with the paladin vowing knights not to consummate his marriage to Alda displayed their worth in many battles (Aude) until he could make her a queen. and sought adventure with their ladies Objects of History 141 9.30_Athenaeum Review ISSUE 3_FINAL.indd 141 10/3/19 11:02 AM whereas Charlemagne’s court Thanks to various prequels and sequels, some puppeteers extended the timeline closed its gates to Love and only followed holy wars even further, linking the cycle back to the (Orlando Innamorato 2.18.1-2). exploits of Alexander of Macedonia and forward to the Crusades. It would typically Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1533) brought a take a year or more of nightly performances conclusion to Boiardo’s unfinished poem for puppeteers to complete just the cycle of imagining that Orlando’s love and jealousy the paladins of France. For example, the had led him to a state of insanity—thus the Palermitan puppeteer Mimmo Cuticchio Orlando Furioso poem’s title —before the refers to a sequence of 371 plays in his knight eventually regained his epic stature family’s repertory, while the Catanese- thanks to the English prince Astolfo’s trip to American puppeteer Agrippino Manteo the moon to recover his wits. Although staged a cycle consisting of 394 consecutive Ariosto’s continuation did not take plays in his New York City theater in the Charlemagne’s army into Spain, it did imagine 1920s and 1930s.3 a decisive Christian victory over the Saracens In the mid-1950s, however, television in of North Africa culminating in a singular the home, the post-war economic boom, battle of three against three on the island of and an unprecedented indifference toward Lipadusa (the historical Lampedusa). local cultural traditions led audiences to Puppeteers were already dramatizing abandon this form of entertainment. episodes from Pulci’s Morgante, Boiardo’s Most companies sold their puppets to Orlando Innamorato, and Ariosto’s Orlando collectors and were forced to seek their Furioso, among other works, in the early livelihood through other means. The tradition nineteenth century. A transformative did not die out completely, however. Since moment for puppet theater occurred in the revival of the 1970s, a small number of 1858-60, however, when the Sicilian Giusto remaining, reactivated, or newly formed Lo Dico incorporated these epics into his puppet theater companies have offered a monumental prose compilation entitled much reduced repertory to accommodate La storia dei paladini di Francia cominciando audiences largely unfamiliar with the subject da Milone conte d’Anglante fino alla morte di matter. Contemporary puppeteers often Rinaldo (The History of the Paladins of France stage one of three episodes taken from the from Count Milone of Anglante to the Death medieval and Renaissance epics mentioned of Rinaldo).2 This interlaced chronological above: the first is the rivalry between Rinaldo succession of events, comprising almost 3000 and Orlando for Angelica, which condenses pages and stretching from the vicissitudes an extended narrative sequence from of Orlando’s father Milone to beyond the battle of Roncevaux, was so universally adopted by puppeteers that it has often 3 Although most extant scripts are jealously guarded by puppeteer families and their heirs, Agrippino Manteo’s been referred to as their “Bible.” In 1895-96 canovacci were donated to the Italian American Giuseppe Leggio published an expanded Museum of New York by his descendants and should soon be available online. For more information, see version with additional episodes, including edblogs.columbia.edu/eboiardo/sicilian-puppet- Charlemagne’s birth and youth taken from theater/puppet-scripts. an early fifteenth-century prose account by Andrea da Barberino (Reali di Francia). 2 For a complete list of Lo Dico’s sources, see Orlando. Stanley Marcus Sicilian Marionettes Collection. Pasqualino, L’opera dei pupi, 66-70. Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin.