Origin and development of the collection
The collection of theatrical works of the Casanatense is particularly conspicuous, and its origins can be traced back to the private library of the Casanate containing 160 miscellaneous volumes of dramas from the 16th and 17th centuries. The initial nucleus was then significantly expanded by the Dominican fathers especially in the period from 1728 to 1794 (under the prefectures of Minorelli, Agnani, Schiara, and Audiffredi), and in the first half of the 19th century.
Collection structure
The theatre collection includes both stage theatre (comedies, tragedies, sacred dramas) and musical theatre (librettos of melodramas, cantatas, festivals, tournaments, serenades, oratorios, etc.). There are several manuscripts, and the number of editions from the 16th to the 19th century is notable; the presence of printed texts from the 20th century is minimal. Most are editions in Italian (about 8,000), but there are also those in Latin, and in other foreign languages, especially French and Spanish.
Rarity
As far as manuscript production is concerned, it is certainly worth mentioning the collection of 103 seventeenth-century Commedia dell’Arte scenarios in two volumes (MS.1211-1212): Della scena de’ soggetti comici parte prima [1618] and parte seconda [1622] by the amateur actor Basilio Locatelli. Or the 48 scenarios (MS.4186) inspired by the typical conventions of seventeenth-century Spanish theatre.
Among the printed works, we remember the rare edition of 1611 containing the scenarios of the performances of an exponent of the Commedia dell’arte such as Flaminio Scala (Il teatro delle favole rappresentative).
The authors
For opera librettos, the presence in the printed collections of authors such as Aurelio Aureli, Giovanni Francesco Busenello, Giovanni Faustini, Pietro Metastasio, Niccolò Minato, Giovanni Andrea Moniglia, Matteo Noris, Francesco Silvani, Arcangelo Spagna, Apostolo Zeno is noteworthy. While, as far as the stage theatre is concerned, just to name a few, there are dramas by Terence, Plautus, Ludovico Ariosto, Torquato Tasso, Vittorio Alfieri, Carlo Goldoni, Jean Racine, Moliere, Pierre Corneille, Lope de Vega.
Read more:
La Biblioteca teatrale dal ‘500 al ‘700. La raccolta della Biblioteca Casanatense, a cura di L. Cairo e P. Quilici, Roma, Bulzoni, 1981
G. Di Fonzo, La raccolta teatrale della Biblioteca Casanatense… tesi V corso di reclutamento bibliotecari, Scuola Superiore della Pubblica Amministrazione, a.a. 1984-85
A. Alloro e B. Mussetto, Il teatro italiano dell’800 nelle raccolte casanatensi, Roma, De Luca editori d’arte, 2008
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