The Venetian Origins of the Commedia dell'Arte

The Venetian Origins of the Commedia dell'Arte is a striking new enquiry into the late-Renaissance stirrings of professional secular comedy in Venice, and their connection to the development of what came to be known as the Commedia dellArte. The book contends that through a symbiotic collaboration between patrician amateurs and plebeian professionals, innovative forms of comedy developed in the Venice region, fusing high and low culture in a provocative mix that had a truly mass appeal. Rich with anecdotes, diary entries and literary often ribald comic passages, Peter Jordan's central argument has important implications for the study of Venetian art, popular theatre and European cultural history.