The Lena

Is considered to be Ariosto’s best play, set in Ferrara and written in verse, characterised by both comic and realistic elements which insert themselves between the ‘scene’ and the ‘city’. The Lena was staged in Ferrara a first time in 1528 (together with the Negromante and the Moscheta by Ruzante) and then a second time in 1529. It went on stage again in 1532, as part of a cycle of plays in which Ruzante also took part, with some of the scenes modified and a new prologue. This definitive version was printed in 1535 in< two editions linked to the printing of the Negromante (Venice 1535) and was then printed again by Gabriele Giolito de’ Ferrari in 1551. The protagonist, Lena, has a comic image that does not set off a true and proper theatrical plot but acts more as a catalyst of defects, summing up in itself the arid laws of utility and egoism, immobility  and the mere ‘economic sense’ of human life. In her is the sum of certain realistic characteristics that are new as compared to those of the procuress of Latin theatre. The setting in Ferrara is rich in realism for that city’s audience, who are however, by contrast with the Suppositi, brought into contact with a city that emanates, within its more subtle folds, a sense of malaise and latent pessimism. The play tells the story of young Flavio, son of Ilario, in love with Licinia, daughter of Fazio. In order to have her Flavio entrusts himself to Lena, a procuress who is also his neighbour, and Fazio’s mistress. Her accomplice is her sordid husband Pacifico, whilst the man who pulls the strings of events is the servant Corbolo. After a number of vicissitudes caused by Lena’s designs, the bawd is condemned to frustrating defeat whilst Flavio and Licinia are able to accomplish their dream. The structure of the fabula reduces to a minimum the play on mix-ups and exchanges, concentrating on the ‘linear’ tale of love between Flavio and Licinia, without narrative superfoetations.

Sebastiano Serlio, The Comic Scene, from the Second Book of Perspective, 1545, Paris