The Cassaria

Ariosto’s interest for theatre is apparent as of  1493, when he becomes part of the theatre company wanted by Duke Ercole I d’Este for the purpose of staging plays both in Ferrara and in other cities. Within a context of precocious and intense interest in theatre, Ariosto gives life to modern playwriting through a mediation of the Latin models of Plautus and Terence, with  a great deal of care for the construction of the scene addressed to the courtly world. The Cassaria, staged during carnival in 1508, against the backcloth of a city scene painted by Pellegrino da Udine, is Ludovico’s first play in prose. On the subject of the staging of the Cassaria there is a letter that Bernardino Prosperi sent on 8 March 1508 to Isabella d’Este Gonzaga in which he praises the construction of the scene: ‘una contracta et prospectiva de una terra cum case, chiesie, torre, campanili e zardini, che la persona non se può satiare a guardarla per le diverse cose che ge sono, tute de inzegno e bene intese, quale non credo se guasti, ma che le salvarano, per usarla del'altre fiate’. The first edition of the text, without typographical indications, dates back to 1509. It was on this one that the subsequent eight reprints of the work in the course of the XVI century were modelled. The Cassaria, with a prologue in tercets, has as its explicit objective that of accomplishing something new and never before attempted and indicates as elements of recognition of comedy the fabula and plays (here in the sense of ‘arguments’, ‘misunderstandings, and ‘plays on words’). The plot of the play is decidedly thin and does not include any substantial characters: in a Greek city two youths (Erofilo and Caridoro) try to have two young girls (Eulalia and Corisca) held as slaves by the pimp Lucrano. The cassa or case that gives the play its title (modelled on Plautus) is the key object around which there are a series of misunderstandings and lots of conniving, with the resolving presence on the scene of servi e giuntatori (servants and mediators).