commedia erudita

commedia erudita, (Italian: “learned comedy”), 16th-century Italian dramatic form that, unlike its theatrical contemporary, the vernacular and improvisational commedia dell’arte, followed scripts written in Latin or Italian that were based on the scholarly works of earlier Italian and ancient Roman authors. Because the language used in the commedia erudita was not easily comprehensible to the general public, these plays were performed for the nobility, usually by nonprofessional actors (dilettanti). Sources for commedia erudita included the...