Carlo Goldoni

Carlo Goldoni (born Feb. 25, 1707, Venice—died Feb. 6, 1793, Paris) was a prolific dramatist who renovated the well-established Italian commedia dell’arte dramatic form by replacing its masked stock figures with more realistic characters, its loosely structured and often repetitive action with tightly constructed plots, and its predictable farce with a new spirit of gaiety and spontaneity. For these innovations, Goldoni is considered the founder of Italian realistic comedy.

The precocious son of a physician, Goldoni read comedies from his father’s library when young and ran away from school at Rimini in 1721 with a company of strolling players. Back in school at the papal college in Pavia, Goldoni read comedies by Plautus, Terence, and Aristophanes. Later he studied French in order to read Molière.

For writing a satire on the ladies of the town, Goldoni was expelled from the Ghislieri College in Pavia, and he reluctantly began law studies at the University of Pavia. Although he practiced law in Venice (1731–33) and Pisa (1744–48) and held diplomatic appointments, his real interest was the dramatic works he wrote for the Teatro San Samuele in Venice.

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In 1748 Goldoni agreed to write for the Teatro Sant’Angelo company of the Venetian actor-manager Girolamo Medebac. Although Goldoni’s early plays veer between the old style and the new, he dispensed with masked characters altogether in such plays as La Pamela (performed 1750; Eng. trans., Pamela, a Comedy, 1756), a serious drama based on Samuel Richardson’s novel.

During the 1750–51 season Goldoni promised defecting patrons 16 new comedies and produced some of his best, notably I pettegolezzi delle donne (“Women’s Gossip”), a play in Venetian dialect; Il bugiardo (The Liar, 1922), written in commedia dell’arte style; and Il vero amico (“The True Friend”), an Italian comedy of manners.

From 1753 to 1762 Goldoni wrote for the Teatro San Luca (now Teatro Goldoni). There he increasingly left commedia dell’arte behind him. Important plays from this period are the Italian comedy of manners La locandiera (performed 1753; Eng. trans., Mine Hostess, 1928) and two fine plays in Venetian dialect, I rusteghi (performed 1760; “The Tyrants”) and Le baruffe chiozzote (performed 1762; “Quarrels at Chioggia”).

Already engaged in rivalry with the playwright Pietro Chiari, whom he satirized in I malcontenti (performed 1755; “The Malcontent”), Goldoni was assailed by Carlo Gozzi, an adherent of the commedia dell’arte, who denounced Goldoni in a satirical poem (1757), then ridiculed both Goldoni and Chiari in a commedia dell’arte classic, L’amore delle tre melarance (performed 1761; “The Love of the Three Oranges”).

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In 1762 Goldoni left Venice for Paris to direct the Comédie-Italienne. Subsequently, he rewrote all of his French plays for Venetian audiences; his French L’Éventail (performed 1763) became in Italian one of his finest plays, Il ventaglio (performed 1764; The Fan, 1907).

Goldoni retired in 1764 to teach Italian to the princesses at Versailles. In 1783 he began his celebrated Mémoires in French (1787; Eng. trans., 1814, 1926). After the French Revolution his pension was cancelled, and he died in dire poverty.