ISSN 2279-7149 (online)
www.fupress.com/bsfm-jems
2018 Firenze University Press
Journal of Early Modern Studies, n. 7 (2018), pp. 139-155
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.13128/JEMS-2279-7149-22841
‘Donna il cui carme gli animi soggioga’:
Eighteenth-Century Italian Women Improvisers
Antonella Giordano
Independent Scholar (<a-gi@hotmail.it>)
Abstract
The article, by way of the careers of two of the most famous eighteenth century Italian
improvisers, Corilla Olimpica and Teresa Bandettini, investigates the way in which favourable
socio-cultural circumstances allowed a number of Italian women living in the eighteenth
century to make use of the widespread fashion of their time for extempore poetry to excel in
an occupation, gaining success together with acceptance and advancement in society, thus
taking one of the earliest steps forward in the history of women’s liberation.
Keywords: Corilla Olimpica, Extempore Poetry, Fortunata Fantastici Sulgher, Poetic
Improvisation, Teresa Bandettini
1. Introduction
Io non avrei mai avuto idea dell’entusiasmo estemporaneo, se non avessi veduto il bel
fuoco e non avessi udito i bei trasporti di Corilla. Se questi pregi sieno comuni a tutte
le donne poetesse per la maggiore sensibilità de’ loro nervi, per la maggiore elasticità, e
delicatezza delle loro fibre, e per qualche stravagante prodigioso rapporto dell’utero colla
mente, io non so; ma so bene, che Ella mi è sembrata sempre superiore ne’ suoi voli,
ne’ suoi trasporti, nelle sue immagini, e nelle sue idee a tutti gli uomini poeti, che ho
sentito in suo confronto, e lungi da Lei. (Amaduzzi and De’ Giorgi Bertola 2005, 215)1
1 ‘I would never have had an idea of extempore enthusiasm, if I had not witnessed the
fine fire and heard the fine ardour of Corilla. Whether these virtues be common to all women
poets, owing to the greater sensitivity of their nerves, the greater elasticity and delicacy of their
constitution and to some bizarre, exceptional relationship between the uterus and the mind,
I know not; but I do know well that she has always seemed to me superior in her flights, her
ardour, her images and her ideas to all the male poets I have heard in competition with her,
and alone’. Giordano’s essay has been translated from Italian by John Denton.
antonella giordano140
These are the words used by Giovanni Cristofano Amaduzzi, in a letter
dated 29 April 1777 to abbé Aurelio De’ Giorgi Bertola, when singing the
praises of Corilla Olimpica, the most highly celebrated, popular and envied
woman extempore poet in the eighteenth century. The cornerstone of so
much admiration was the ‘enthusiasm’ generated in audiences by Corilla’s
‘fine fire’ and ‘fine ardour’. Gifts that lay behind her superiority to ‘all male
poets’ were sensitivity, delicacy, and ‘some bizarre, exceptional relationship
between the uterus and the mind’. Thus Amaduzzi took the overpowering
emotions aroused in audiences to be the characteristic aspect of the female
improviser’s extempore performance, acknowledging Corilla’s singularity as a
specifically feminine quality. However, when listing her virtues, her ‘ideas’, i.e.
the originality of her poetry, come last, after her ‘flights’, ‘ardour’ and ‘images’.
The clues provided by this eyewitness account are very useful departure
points in understanding the phenomenon of eighteenth-century poetic
improvisation in Italy, a genre in which women not only found room for
manoeuvre but also excelled.2 Considering the period in which extempore
poetry ‘became customary and set up a tradition’ (Croce 1918, 219), i.e.
1700 to 1850, among the leading names in the genre we find a substantial
female group. From Bernardino Perfetti, the first of the major professional
improvisers in the eighteenth century, to Giuseppe Regali and Giannina
Milli, the last ones, together with other famous names such as Francesco
Gianni, the Napoleonic Imperial poet and Tommaso Sgricci, who improvised
whole tragedies, among a large group of minor figures,3 the names Maria
Maddalena Morelli (Corilla Olimpica), Teresa Bandettini and Fortunata
Fantastici Sulgher stand out.
The aim of this article is to investigate one of the earliest stages in the
long, hard struggle for women’s liberation, limited to eighteenth-century
extempore poetry, which is quite distinct from the nineteenth-century
patriotic brand, with special attention devoted to the former’s two leading
female representatives: Corilla Olimpica and Teresa Bandettini.
2 For bibliography on eighteenth-century extempore poetry, apart from information
in the writings of contemporary Italian letterati and foreign travellers on the Grand Tour,
as well as entries covering individual male or female improvisers and Arcadian shepherds/
shepherdesses in the major biographical reference works and the relevant chapters in the
leading histories of Italian literature, see Vitagliano 1905; Croce 1918 and 1949; Gentili
1980; Di Ricco 1990 and Fernow 2004.
3 Reading the names in the index of the study by Vitagliano, among the long since for-
gotten female improvisers we find: Teresa Bacchini, Maria Beoti, Beatrice Bugelli dal Pian
Degli Ontani, a certain Gazzeri, Teresa Gualandi Gnoli, Lucrezia Landi Mazzei, Maria
Domenica Mazzetti Forster (aka la Menichina di Legnaja), Anna Maria Parisotti, Livia
Sarchi, Rosa Taddei (1905, 141-142 and 181-188). We can add Livia Accarigi and Emilia
Ballati Orlandini (see Giordano 1994, 23-32 and 37-39).
eighteenth-century italian women improvisers 141
2. A Hybrid Art
Extempore poetry has very ancient origins, with roots in various periods and
cultural settings, both popular and high, illiterate and literate. It is a poetic
genre in which the creative process is ‘improvised’ on themes suggested by
members of the audience during a performance. In the eighteenth century,
though retaining all the features of an impromptu performance, it was not
only a leftover from a period characterised by orality, but also had points of
contact with more orthodox, ‘noble’ literature, inasmuch as the breeding
ground of improvisation lay in poetic material from the Greek and Roman
traditions, Dante’s Divine Comedy, fifteenth-sixteenth century chivalric
epics, and Renaissance and Arcadian verse. This ‘literary’ material, cleverly
or mechanically made use of by the performer, was supported by the
persuasive resources of orality, without which it would have shown all its poor
essence. Thus, eighteenth-century improvised poetry was certainly linked
to the literary environment, though retaining orality as its main feature (of
‘composition’, since improvisation is extempore, of ‘communication’, that
is, performance, and ‘transmission’, which is left to memory), as well as the
performer’s competence and appeal and audience involvement, all typically
theatrical. So we are dealing with a hybrid phenomenon, halfway between
poetry and theatre. It was on this ambiguous balance that the great reputation
of the eighteenth-century extempore poet relied in his/her role as a new bard of
ancient ancestry and at the same time the product of the taste and historical,
political and social conditions of his/her own time.
As a crucial link between the ancien régime and the contemporary
world, the eighteenth century witnessed the passage from a phase of great
uncertainty and immobility to one of excitement, an urge for renewal, which
led to profound socio-cultural changes impacting both the figure and role
of the members of the literary profession, as well as the reputation of the
female intellect, and, more generally, women’s access to culture. During
the eighteenth century, with the spread of less reactionary ideas about the
education of girls, the ever growing circulation of printed books and the
increase of fashionable salons and Arcadian colonies to which women were
admitted, the opportunities for them to make contact with the literary
environment increased.
Although widespread female education was a long way off, a number
of books on the subject were published in the eighteenth century,4 which
did not deny women’s right to education in principle. One of the subjects
‘allowed’ was literature, which, together with music and dancing, made up
the triad of the artes foemininæ, which were accepted, since they belonged to
4 For a general survey of eighteenth-century didactic/moral writings concerning
women’s education see Guerci 1987 and 1988.
antonella giordano142
the domain of entertainment. During the century, albeit limited mostly to
the nobility, women’s education became ever more common, though its end
was seen as a way to improve their role as family members and certainly not
as a stage in their social emancipation. The age-old prejudice limiting the
fair sex to ‘needle and spindle’ was hard to demolish; confined to the private
sphere, women had to excel in the difficult art of daily life involving, apart
from domestic duties, denial of the right to personal dreams and aspirations,
exhibiting perfect altruism, unending understanding and total compliance.
With the spread of the Arcadian Academy, which, by favouring the good
taste of the classics in contrast with baroque excess, introduced poetry to high
society, the various academies were founded and the first salons opened their
doors, presided over by a lady. Following the example of the Parisian salons,
in Rome, Milan, Naples, Venice, Padua, Genoa, Bologna and, only towards
the end of the century, Florence, after the beginning of the rule of the House
of Lorraine, the salons of a number of upper-class ladies became the meeting
places for civilised Italian society. In these new ‘courts’, where high culture was
ensured by the presence of scholars, scientists, artists and intellectuals, women
found a new freedom: they could converse, entertain, express their opinions
openly, without losing any aspect of their femininity, and avoid being accused
of overwhelming ambition or immorality. Women were also admitted to the
various ‘Arcadian colonies’, which, during the century, spread out from Rome to
many other Italian towns, though a misogynous regulation demanded ‘nobiltà
dei costumi’, a minimum age of twenty-four and poetic experience, while men
were only expected to be ‘eruditi’. These environments were halfway between
the public and private spheres, establishing ‘appropriate’ spaces for discussion
and meeting that were less selective from the social and cultural points of view
than the salons, thus facilitating the birth of an initial female intellectual élite.5
More a social than a strictly educational phenomenon, the abstract Arcadia also
permitted fledgling ‘letterati’ dressed up as shepherds and shepherdesses to play
with versifying gallant, satirical, scientific and celebratory themes.
Furthermore, the eighteenth century was the period of the greatest
splendour of opera which, by linking two heterogeneous arts like poetry
and music, was not too distant from extempore poetic performances; the
latter were actually often accompanied by music. It is no coincidence that
the opponents of improvisation used the same moral-intellectual arguments
underpinning the hostility to opera. The rationalism of the period led to
demoting music to a lower rank among the arts, considering it irrational, with
no cognitive value since it was empty of concepts, aiming only to delight the
senses. A stage work in which poetry was at the service of music thus seemed
hybrid, incoherent, implausible and frivolous.
5 On the Arcadian shepherdesses see the valuable data base Donne in Arcadia (1690-1800),
<www.arcadia.uzh.ch>, containing plentiful bio-bibliographical and critical material on the subject.
eighteenth-century italian women improvisers 143
3. A Profession
In a century in which taste was dictated by Arcadian ideals, operatic arias
could be heard in theatres and courts, and in which salons, academies and
fashionable venues were favoured by a frivolous, idle society, the extempore
poetry phenomenon flourished. It was in this sociable context that women,
in line with their well-established reputation as hostesses, found room to
manoeuvre.
However, these favourable socio-cultural circumstances were not sufficient
to explain the wide-ranging nature of this phenomenon. A large group of women
managed to exploit this new fashion, intelligently creating a profession, reaching
success in fashionable society, as well as recognition and social upgrading.
Making use of the Arcadian stamp of approval on taste by way of presenting
a way of creating poetry seen from the viewpoint of technique and mastery
of the classical literary tradition, the female improviser made her appearance
as a professional who spoke, wrote and acted, applauded by her audience.
Her repertoire was grounded in solid academic study and general knowledge,
enabling her to deal with any subject proposed, good knowledge of metre, so
as to create her verse quickly, and a good memory. But in her improvisation she
used all the techniques making up the appeal of an actress, whose advantages she
enjoyed while also running the risks involved. While their poetess colleagues,
by publishing a sonnet in one of the multitude of collections of poetry, gained
limited recognition, the women improvisers made money out of their art, which
was being established as a real profession. This was how they gained financial
independence from men and the family. By emancipation they became ‘public’
celebrities. Even the most admired queens of the salons held conversations in
their home environment, in the private sphere which had imprisoned women for
centuries. The female improvisers, on the other hand, like actresses, performed in
public, toured Italy, appeared on stage, held master classes in improvisation for
a fee; in short, they left the private sphere to face the public domain. Actually,
the female improviser gave more performances in private, rather than public
environments: theatres, salons and academies being private spaces. But the way
in which she presented herself was different. While the lady who ruled over
her salon was a ‘private’ hostess, because she held conversations in her own
home, with a carefully selected group of people, simply for pleasure, the female
improviser presented herself as a ‘public’ entertainer, since she was entering
other people’s private spaces, where she did not know her audience and offered
her talents in exchange for money or gifts. But a woman performing in public
becomes a ‘public woman’, just a short step from being considered a prostitute.
The new freedom won by these improvisers inevitably led to the accusations of
immorality that had always made life difficult for women working in theatres.
Right from the first-stage performances by the comediennes of the
Commedia dell’Arte, actresses were taken to be ‘siren enchantresses’, ‘Satan’s
snares’, temptresses of lust, the woman who ‘vende a prezzo vile su per le scene,
antonella giordano144
i gesti e la favella’ (De’ Sommi 1968, 95).6 All biographical notes accompanying
printed verses by a female improviser, this also being true for poetesses and all
women writers in general, deliberately foreground the honesty, purity, great
loving care for the family shown by her, together with her literary-artistic merits,
the explicit purpose being to distance the traces of immorality inevitably linked
to her profession. Adele Vitagliano, for example, wrote of Fortunata Fantastici
Sulgher: ‘as a poetess she was not that much superior to her contemporaries,
but had the merit of linking literary skill with domestic virtues, making her
family happy and intelligently educating her children’ (1905, 139-140). It is also
significant that Teresa Bandettini tried to ‘legitimise’ the profession recently
achieved by publishing learned translations, thought out rhymes, tragedies
and epic poems, thus aiming to elevate with a literary ‘licence’ a fame that she
herself acknowledged to be ephemeral and doubtful.7
4. ‘Carmine Temira edocet, oblectatque Corilla, / Tu quocumque animos vis,
Amarilly, rapis’
Corilla Olimpica (Maria Maddalena Morelli, Pistoia, 1727-1800) oblectat,
Fortunata Fantastici Sulgher (in Arcadia, Temira Parraside, Livorno, 1755-
1824) edocet, Teresa Bandettini (in Arcadia, Amarilli Etrusca, Lucca, 1763-
1837), rapis. This is how Father Pagnini, an eminent Greek scholar from
Pistoia, depicted the three most important eighteenth-century women
improvisers, linking their names in the Latin couplet quoted in the title of
the present sub-section, which in the free translation of the same author reads:
Con gli improvvisi accenti
Temira spande di saper torrenti
Corilla in ogni petto
Mirabile diffonde alto diletto:
E Tu Amarilli, puoi,
Gli spiriti rapir ovunque vuoi. (Maylender 1926-1930, I, 277)8
6 ‘Sells for vile money on the stage gestures and language’. This is how an anonymous
H.N.A. described an actress to Leone De’ Sommi.
7 Together with the large number of verses in the various collections of eulogies,
Bandettini published a translation from the Greek of Paralippomeni di Omero di Quinto
Smirneo Calabro, the tragedies Polidoro and Rosmunda in Ravenna and the poem La Teseide.
For a thorough bibliography of Bandettini’s printed works see the above mentioned data
base Donne in Arcadia (1690-1800), <www.arcadia.uzh.ch>.
8 ‘With her impromptu words / Temira effuses torrents of knowledge, / Corilla in every
heart / spreads marvellous high delight: / and you, Amarilli, can / ravish our minds and
take them wherever you wish’.
eighteenth-century italian women improvisers 145
Humble origins, premature intelligence, obstinacy, perseverance and
boundless ambition were common to the two most famous women improvisers
of the eighteenth century. Neither Corilla nor Amarilli were of noble birth or
from rich families, and it was arguably this very humble condition that lay
behind their decision to take up the profession of improviser.
The case of Bandettini is particularly informative, as an example of
ambitious self-instruction which was to turn her from being an illiterate
dancer into the favourite of educated high society, a legitimate, salaried
professional.9 She was acclaimed, admired and idolised by the most illustrious
men of her time, the extempore art being a true profession, in exchange for
immediate monetary reward or fruitful protection, which bestowed upon her
glory, honours and unending eulogies, but also resulted in disappointment,
compromises and limitations. ‘Quanto è sterile l’alloro!’ (Di Ricco 1990, 45)10
she wrote disappointed to Bettinelli, after one of many let downs. She could
live on her activities as an extempore poetess, but was forced to go on ever
longer and exhausting tours to support her ‘sickly’ husband and son, to the
extent of ‘overstretching’ her talent. Obliged to write opera libretti which she
herself considered ‘monstrous’ in the hope of being employed by the Austrian
court as reader to the Empress and Court Poet, Teresa was forced to sell
her art only to pander to the taste and interests of her time.11 Like Isabella
Andreini in the early seventeenth century who, by carefully building up her
public image and the distribution of printed works, had freed actresses from
9 See Vannuccini 1899, 501-526 and 732-756; Vitagliano 1905, 98-115; Di Ricco 1990;
Giordano 1994, 40-58, and the above-mentioned data base Donne in Arcadia (1690-1800),
<www.arcadia.uzh.ch>.
10 ‘When the laurel wreath is sterile’. Letter dated 9 September 1795. Bandettini’s letters
to Bettinelli can be consulted in the Biblioteca Comunale in Mantua, Fondo Bettinelli, busta
2, Teresa Bandettini; while those from Bettinelli to Bandettini are in the Biblioteca Statale in
Lucca, Ms. 644.
11 In a letter to Bettinelli, from Vienna, dated 14 January 1802, she wrote: ‘Ora sto compo-
nendo un dramma per questo Teatro, anzi un mostro poi che vogliono che si rinunzi al buon
senso. Avrà per titolo La morte di Ettore; devo storpiare Omero se voglio servire ai pregiudizi
chiamati convenienze teatrali de’ due eroi che rappresentano Achille ed Ettore. È forza però pie-
gare alla necessità e sacrificare a certe viste particolari l’onor delle Muse e d’Apollo. Il Metastasio
fu fortunato, egli scriveva in tempi in cui la musica era ligia della poesia; ora questa è una schiava
tiranneggiata dal capriccio di poche note in cadenza. Da banda adunque gli scrupoli, io farò
un’opera come un intercalare con le rime obbligate, e ballerò sulla corda co’ piè legati’ (Di Ricco
1990, 25n.; ‘I am now writing a libretto for this Theatre, or rather a monstrosity in which they
want me to sacrifice common sense. Its title will be La morte di Ettore; I must distort Homer if I
wish to bow to the prejudices called convenienze teatrali of the two heroes representing Achilles
and Hector. One must however obey necessity and sacrifice to certain sights the honour of the
Muses and Apollo. Metastasio was fortunate. He wrote in times in which music was the servant
of poetry; now the latter is a slave at the mercy of the whim of a few notes. Away with all qualms
therefore, and I shall write a libretto with set rhymes, dancing on a rope with bound feet’).
antonella giordano146
accusations of being whores and had managed to go down in history as the
famous amorosa of the ‘Compagnia dei Gelosi’,12 Amarilli placed all her hopes
in her epic poem entitled Teseide, which was the source of her intellectual
credentials, and dreamed of going down in history as the heir to the glory
of Ariosto and Tasso.
For Corilla Olimpica, who experienced an ambiguous but uproarious
renown and led the lifestyle of a princess, adored and protected by the most
illustrious celebrities of her time, the career as an improviser was, on the other
hand, an ongoing test of ambition, an unending race to overtake herself.13
With a free, independent character, as the first woman to be crowned in the
Capitol in Rome and become a court poetess, Maria Maddalena Morelli
was quite capable of managing her fame, nonchalantly surviving outrageous
scandals, of which she was often the innocent victim:
Fu la prediletta di principi, di regine, di imperatori; per lei profusero carmi e madrigali
letterati e poeti; perfino il pontefice Pio VI permise che sul suo capo si ponesse quella
simbolica fronda di alloro che avea cinto il capo superbo d’un Petrarca. E dire che
la sua vita privata fu delle più irregolari: separata dal marito, dignitario spagnolo,
noncurante dell’unico figliuolo, a quando a quando amante di questo o di quell’abate,
di questo o di quel principe, vagò di corte in corte a fianco di un Ginori o di un
principe Gonzaga, senza che l’essere espulsa talvolta da una città o da uno stato la
sconcertasse punto. (Villani 1915, 450)14
Adventuress and prima donna, the forerunner of the femme fatale in later
centuries, she was soon followed as a model by generations of poetesses and
12 Isabella Andreini also seems to have been an improviser. Her son, Giovan
Battista Andreini, relates how his mother: ‘In Roma fu non solo dipinta, ma coronata
d’alloro in simulacro colorato fra ’l Tasso e ’l Petrarca, alor che doppo una mensa fattale
dall’Illustrissimo e Reverendissimo Cardinal Cinzio Aldobrandini dov’eran pur presenti
sei cardinali sapientissimi, il Tasso, il Cavalier de’ Pazzi, l’Ongaro et altri poeti preclari,
sonettando e scrivendo improvvisi, la stessa, dopo il Tasso, ne portò il primo vanto’ (Andreini
1984, 28; ‘in Rome she was not only painted but crowned with a laurel wreath in effigy
between portraits of Tasso and Petrarch, after a banquet offered by the Most Excellent,
Most Reverend Cardinal Cinzio Aldobrandini in the presence of six most learned cardinals,
Tasso, Cavalier de’ Pazzi, Ongaro and other famous poets writing and improvising sonnets
in a contest in which Andreini came second only to Tasso’).
13 See Ademollo 1887, Vitagliano 1905, 85-97, Giordano 1994, 119-137 and 201-237, Ama-
duzzi 2000, Fabbri 2002 and data base Donne in Arcadia (1690-1800), <www.arcadia.uzh.ch>.
14 ‘She was the favourite of princes, queens and emperors. Men of letters and poets
showered her with odes and madrigals. Even Pope Pius VI allowed her to be crowned with
the symbolic laurel wreath which had been placed on the proud head of Petrarch. And
yet her private life was unorthodox: separated from her husband, a Spanish dignitary,
neglecting her only son, on several occasions the lover of this or that abbé, this or that
prince, she wandered from court to court together with a Ginori or a Prince Gonzaga,
without turning a hair when she was expelled from a town or state’.
eighteenth-century italian women improvisers 147
women writers. Some believe that she inspired the novel Corinne ou l’Italie
(1807) in which Madame de Staël, by way of the story of Corinna, an
extempore woman poet, who plays instruments, sings, dances, draws, acts and
engages in conversation, criticised the exclusion of women with intellectual,
literary and artistic aspirations.
Fortunata Fantastici Sulgher had a somewhat different, less tumultuous
career.15 She was more learned than Corilla and Amarilli (Temira edocet),
had begun studying Greek and Latin and other foreign languages as a
girl, as well as history, philosophy, morality, botany and even anatomy and
achieved ‘una certa reputazione’ (‘a certain reputation’), especially in Florence,
where, every Wednesday, she opened the rooms of her house near the Ponte
Vecchio ‘al fiore dei cittadini e dei forestieri’ (Pera 1897, 8; ‘to the cream of
local citizens and visitors’). She became particularly famous for her ‘facili e
piacevoli’(‘easy and pleasant’) poems, even though they were often ‘infarciti
di erudizione soverchia e di ingombrante mitologia che mortificavano la
vivezza del sentimento’ (Vitagliano 1905, 138; ‘stuffed with excessive erudition
and cumbersome mythology which upset the liveliness of feeling’). She
is remembered for an extempore competition, which, in December 1749,
saw her in a duet with Teresa Bandettini in a dialogue on the mythological
theme of ‘Hero and Leander’ in the presence of Vittorio Alfieri. We have an
exceptional eye-witness account of this performance, in the shape of a letter
written by the otherwise unknown Dr Piccioli to his friend Giovanni Rosini:
Amico caro,
io sono uscito in questo momento pazzo, fanatico, sorpreso al segno del delirio dal
famoso improvviso. Che piena di Bellezze, che cose grandi, inarrivabili, divine, che ho
sentito stasera! Mai più mi troverò a tanto … Questa è la più grande improvvisatrice,
che io abbia sentita; anche più di Gianni; ha la vivacità di fantasia com’esso, ma una
Locuzione, una frase così poetica, che il Suo linguaggio è quello dei Classici; maggior
economia d’esso nelle immagini, giacché tu sai che esso era troppo ardito, maggior
proprietà nell’Epitetare, nel quale genere m’ha sorpreso, giacché che tu sai che gli
improvvisatori prendono ordinariamente quello che si presenta; ed Essa pare che
scelga sempre il più proprio, il più conveniente, e il più vero nel soggetto … Arrivò
alle otto, e un quarto, la Bandettini, essendosi fatta aspettare, perché l’ora destinata
era vanti l’otto … Eccole tutte e due a sedere dirimpetto. Credi lo Spettacolo era
interessante al sommo. Veder due donne che interessavano un pubblico intero. Era il
trionfo del Bel Sesso. Cominciò la Fantastici con un complimento bellino, grazioso, e
adatto. Piacque, e si sentì gl’applausi. Rispose graziosamente la Bandettini, e piacque
anch’essa. Si sentì un poco di differenza nello stile, ma non vinse assolutamente.
Fu chiesto il tema, e tutti in silenzio. Alfieri dal suo angolo disse: ‘Bene via, Il ratto
d’Europa’. S’oppose a questo tema; che non poteva cantarsi in dialogo, come avrebbero
15 Cf. Vitagliano 1905, 138-140; Di Ricco 1990, 27-29 and 217-228; Giordano 1994,
155-164 and data base Donne in Arcadia (1690-1800), <www.arcadia.uzh.ch>.
antonella giordano148
desiderato. Dunque fu dato Ero, e Leandro. Cominciò la Fantastici facendo Leandro
e disse benone. Rispose benissimo la Bandettini facendo da Ero. È impossibile il
dirti quanto fosse bene trattato per ambe le parti, come ben concentrato il dialogo, e
quanto interessante. Riceverono pieni applausi. Pareva che una desse coraggio all’altra
… Fu cantato dopo dalla Bandettini il tema d’Alfieri. Amico è incredibile quello che
disse. Che vive descrizioni. Ella dipinse un Toro più bello di quello di Ovidio … (Di
Ricco 1990, 217-219)16
5. The Sacred Poetic Fire
Dr Piccioli left ‘like a madman, a fanatic, overwhelmed and almost delirious
by the famous improvisation’ by Amarilli and Temira. The cause of this
highly emotional state was the enthusiasm the hearer felt during and after
the woman improviser’s performance. Corilla Olimpica was the undoubted
expert in provoking the ‘sacred poetic fire’. In the letter from Amaduzzi to
Bertola quoted above, this extraordinary phenomenon is described in its
various stages (beginning, continuing and sublimation) and states (rapture,
vision, passion, frenzy and transfusion of passion). After a slow, unsure,
hesitant beginning linked with an initial state of concentrated meditation,
inspiration was ignited:
16 Undated letter in the Lucca Archivio di Stato, Carte Tommaso Trenta, filza 18,
lettera 53. ‘Dear friend, I have just left like a madman, a fanatic, overwhelmed and almost
delirious by the famous improvisation. What beauty, what magnificent, unrepeatable,
divine things I heard this evening! Never will I experience anything like it again … She is
the greatest woman improviser I have ever heard; even greater than Gianni; she has his vivid
imagination, but such a poetic turn of phrase making her language that of the Classics;
less vivid images than him, since, as you know, he was too daring, more appropriate in
her choice of epithets, in which she surprised me, since, as you know, improvisers usually
make use of what is to hand; and she always seems to choose what is most appropriate,
most proper, the truest in the subject … Bandettini arrived at a quarter past eight, keeping
people waiting, the appointed time being before eight … There they were sitting opposite
each other. Believe me that the performance could not have been more interesting. Seeing
two women attracting the attention of the entire audience. It was the triumph of the fair sex.
Fantastici began with a nice, graceful, appropriate compliment. This was well received and
she was applauded. Bandettini replied gracefully and was also appreciated. There was only
a small difference in style, but she was not the winner outright. The theme was requested;
nobody spoke. Alfieri, from his corner, said ‘Let us start with the Rape of Europa’. This
theme was unacceptable, since it could not be conducted as a dialogue, as they wished.
So Hero and Leander was suggested. Fantastici began in the role of Leander very well.
Bandettini also did well in the role of Hero. I cannot tell you how well both contestants
did, how the dialogue was to the point and how interesting it was. They were both well
applauded. One seemed to instill the other with courage … then Alfieri’s theme was recited
by Bandettini. My friend, her words were incredible. What vivid descriptions. She depicted
a bull finer than that of Ovid …’.
eighteenth-century italian women improvisers 149
Vinto, che Ella avesse o la usa ritrosia, o il suo timore, cominciava il suo canto bassamente,
tentava tutte le vie per destare il fuoco, e sempre ne vibrava qualche scintilla, ma
mancavano i suoi versi del pregio dell’unità, e della orditura d’un ordinato lavoro. Si
sprigionava in appresso il fuoco rinchiuso, grandeggiava a poco a poco, e si diffondeva
ne’ sentimenti, nelle parole, nella voce, e nel gesto fintanto che non scoppiava in un
incendio, che tutto avvampava, che la rendeva gigante, che la astraeva fuori di se, che
la rapiva in alto, e quasi la trasportava a cimentarsi colla Divinità. Allora la celerità del
suo canto, la rapidità delle sue espressioni, la felicità de’ pensieri, e tutte le sue esterne
operazioni erano un annuncio di quel fuoco celeste, che era in lei disceso, e che agiva su di
lei senza veruna sua precisa, e riflessiva cooperazione. Quelli che la accompagnavano col
suono, erano affaticati estremamente in seguitarla, e quelli, che l’udivano, elettrizzati da
quel fuoco contagioso non potevano fare a meno di non dar segni di tanto scuotimento,
e di tanta impressione. (Amaduzzi and De’ Giorgi Bertola 2005, 215)17
This contagious fire is transmitted to the audience and bounces back from
them to the poet who receives a fresh impulse from the enthusiasm of his/
her listeners.18 This phenomenon is explained scientifically today by cognitive
neuroscience as ‘one of the many neural expressions of a basic functional
mechanism of our brain-body system called “embodied simulation” ’ (Gallese
2014, 55). This emotional reaction is caused by mirror neurons, i.e. motor
neurons which are activated both when we act and when we see others act.
The signs of poetic inspiration or afflatus are to be seen externally, involving
total commitment of the senses: the face reddens, the eyes light up, the gaze
becomes rapt and distant, absorbed in a world of images and visions; the voice
17 ‘After having overcome her usual hesitation, or worry, she began her poem with a low
voice, trying out all the ways for lighting the fire, always creating some sparks, but her verses
lacked the merit of unity, and an orderly framework. Subsequently she unleashed the hidden
fire, gradually towering over others and spread out in feelings, words, voice and gesture up
to the point at which she burst into flames, which flared up making her a gigantic figure,
disengaging herself, enrapturing her on high, almost uplifting her to face God Himself. Thus
the speed of her reciting, the velocity of her expressions, the bliss of her thoughts and all her
outward looking activities were the forerunners of that heavenly fire, which had descended
upon her and acted on her without any precise, reflective cooperation on her part. Those who
accompanied her with instruments had great difficulty in following her and her listeners,
electrified by that contagious fire, could not avoid showing signs of such agitation and shock’.
18 Saverio Bettinelli, in his treatise entitled Entusiasmo, describes ‘il sacro fuoco poetico’
(‘the sacred poetic fire’) as a ball bouncing from the improviser to the audience and vice
versa: ‘Il quale fremito e fuoco diffondesi negli uditori, che gridan per gioja tratto tratto, e
s’alzan dal luogo, e applaudono, e pajono in lui assorti, e trasformati, e trasportati con lui,
ripercotendosi come palla da lui a loro, da loro a lui l’entusiasmo, ed a vicenda crescendosi
insieme le scosse della immaginazione, e della sensibilità’ (1799, 48; ‘the excitement and fire
spreads among the listeners, who cry out with joy from one moment to the next, and they
jump to their feet applauding and seem engrossed by him and transformed and rapt by him,
their enthusiasm bouncing like a ball from him to them and vice versa and the tremors of
imagination and sensitivity mutually increased’).
antonella giordano150
becomes louder and gestures more agitated; all the body is overwhelmed by the
flux of ideas, and images evoked by the rhythm of the rhymes:
Non si taccia, come nel principio, e nell’incremento di quel suo fuoco animatore
acquistava negli occhi un certo truce, ma un truce amabile, e graziosamente rigoglioso,
che insieme rendeva intenso il suo sguardo, smaltavale il viso d’un insolito colore, e le
donava quella giovinezza che Tibullo assegnò eterna ad Apollo … Grande in appresso
era il sudore, che le grondava dal viso, e che le inondava tutto il corpo, e grande era
la commozione di tutti i sensi, e la dissipazione de’ spiriti, onde restava infiacchita
per molte ore. (Amaduzzi 2005, 216)19
At the height of her rapture, the poetess fell into a kind of trance, in the grip
of the creative madness of Dionysus, i.e. divine possession.
Confessava poi Ella, che il fuoco poetico non le era prontamente propizio, benché
pronto avesse il dono delle rime e che perciò le conveniva cercarlo, scuoterlo, e
sprigionarlo a poco a poco. Soggiungeva, che prendeva diletto Essa medesima,
quando lo vedeva in sua proprietà, e che da se medesima s’accorgeva di dir cose, che
arrivavano nuove, ed inaspettate anche alla sua immaginazione. Diceva però, che quasi
nulla intendeva cosa dicesse, quando era nell’apice del suo furore; ed infatti Ella non
riconosceva mai per sue certe cose vibrate, ed entusiastiche, che restavano impresse
nello stupefatto uditorio; e che le si ripetevano dopo l’improvviso, benché provasse
una modesta compiacenza d’averle dette. (217)20
6. An Example of Professionalism
If Corilla was the undisputed expert in bringing out the sacred poetic fire,
but proved to be unable to defend herself from envy, enemies and political
19 ‘We should not overlook the fact that, as at the beginning, and in the increase of her
animating fire she took on a kind of menace in her eyes, but it was an amiable, gracefully
lush menace, which made her gaze intense, painting her face with an unusual colour
and bestowed upon her the youthfulness that Tibullus ascribed to Apollo as eternal …
Subsequently she began to perspire, the sweat pouring from her face and covering her whole
body and the emotion of all the senses and dissipation of spirits was enormous, so that she
was weakened for many hours …’.
20 ‘She later confessed that the poetic fire was not immediately favourable to her,
although the gift of rhyming was readily available to her and so it was best for her gradually
to search for it, bestir and unleash it. She added that she was delighted when she realised that
she possessed it and was saying things that were new and unexpected in her imagination.
She did say, however, that she understood hardly anything of what she was saying, when
she was at the peak of her frenzy, and actually never acknowledged to be hers certain highly
emotional things that reached the astonished audience, and that they repeated to her after
the improvisation, although she appeared mildly content to have said them’.
eighteenth-century italian women improvisers 151
exploitation, Amarilli was not only her equal as far as allure and magnetic
attraction were concerned (the lines by Vittorio Alfieri in the title of this
article: ‘Donna, il cui carme gli animi soggioga’ – ‘Woman whose poetry
enslaves minds’ – were dedicated to her; Alfieri 1912, 172), but was able to
manage her personality with an expert hand, as we have seen, and practised
her art with outstanding professionalism, prudence and intelligence.
To begin with, Teresa Bandettini had an excellent feeling for audiences,
as well as making an intelligent use of codified strategies, foreseeing
complements, greetings and thanks from her audience, she often indulged
in extempore jokes ad personam (see Di Ricco 1990, 163-164), or avoided
subjects which could be unpleasant or politically ‘dangerous’, as when,
reciting Conte Ugolino in Tuscany in 1794 she avoided ‘tutto quel che di
spiacente dice Dante dei Pisani’, or in the Allocuzione di Virginio alla Figlia,
omitted ‘tutte quelle espressioni sonanti Libertà e Patriottismo’ (214)21 which,
in a climate of Thermidorian reaction to revolutionary excess, could have
been unwelcome. She was an expert director of her performances, carefully
selecting the formulas used to invite members of the audience to suggest a
theme, passing from one subject to another, or interrupting the narrative,
making intelligent use of metre or moving the account on with strategies
such as overturning worn out clichés.
In her private life her behaviour was impeccable. She was married to Pietro
Landucci, who also came from Lucca, an actor (‘primo grottesco’), therefore her
equal, never linking her name with gossip and being very careful not to provoke
envy. For example, as soon as she arrived in Florence, where the now aging
Corilla no longer performed, but where Fantastici Sulgher lived and presided
over a salon, she avoided an extempore performance for a fee before a Florentine
audience in a tavern, so as not to be criticised, not to attract attention, and not to
let people think that she wanted to undermine Temira’s reputation. Moreover,
Bandettini disliked performing in theatres, thinking that it was unseemly to
resemble stage performers too closely: the former dancer, ennobled thanks to
extempore poetry, whose career had begun on the stage, had no intention of
returning there (Chelini 1794 in Di Ricco 1990, 195).
Her whole life had been devoted to the mirage of finding a safe haven
under the protection of a powerful patron. After being granted a pension by
the Duchy of Modena, she ended up her career as court poet in Lucca, the
tiny state of her birth, and became aware of the disappointment holding this
office involved. Lucca was not Vienna, to which she had aspired: Imperial
Poetess with a diploma and pension.
21 ‘All the nasty things Dante says about the Pisans’; ‘all those expressions involving
Liberty and Patriotism’. Dettaglio delle Accademie tenute a Livorno nell’autunno del 1794
dalla celeberrima Sig.ra Teresa Bandettini poetessa incomparabile, Lucca, Archivio di Stato,
Carte Tommaso Trenta, filza 28, n. 15.
antonella giordano152
7. The Border between the Judgement of Eyes and that of the Ear
Both Amarilli and Corilla refused to publish the transcriptions of their
improvisations, imagining the risk of transferring to the page and print poems
composed for listeners. Extempore poetry is a violent, impetuous exercise
which can give rise to marvellous though intermittent, random results and
does not produce permanent values. Proud of their talents, but also quite
aware of the specificity and limits of their art, both of them realised that
it was impossible to preserve its merits beyond a public performance. If we
know some of the extempore lines this is thanks to hurried transcriptions
by witnesses present at performances distributed in a somewhat clandestine
way. Amaduzzi was also aware of this when, in the above-mentioned letter
to Bertola, he noted that the poetic value of an ‘Immortal Lady’ like Corilla
Olimpica remained ‘senza documento, e senza orme durevoli per essere
le migliori sue cose condannate ad essere un ristretto pabulo dell’aure, e
dell’orecchie, ed uno stupor passeggiero dell’intelletto’ (Amaduzzi and De’
Giorgi Bertola 2005, 218).22 Metastasio, too, who, describing in a letter to
Algarotti ‘l’inutile e maraviglioso mestiere’ (‘the useless, marvellous art’) he
had abandoned, but in which he had made his initial virtuoso efforts, wrote:
Poiché, riflettendo in età più matura al meccanismo di quell’inutile e maraviglioso mestiere,
io mi sono ad evidenza convinto che la mente condannata a così temeraria operazione
dee per necessità contrarre un abito opposto per diametro alla ragione. Il poeta che scrive
a suo bell’agio elegge il soggetto del suo lavoro, se ne propone il fine, regola la successiva
catena delle idee che debbono a quello naturalmente condurlo, e si vale poi delle misure e
delle rime come d’ubbidienti esecutrici del suo disegno. Colui all’incontro che si espone a
poetar d’improvviso, fatto schiavo di quelle tiranne, convien che prima di rifletter ad altro
impieghi gl’istanti che gli son permessi a schierarsi innanzi le rime che convengono con
quella che gli lasciò il suo contraddittore, o nella quale egli sdrucciolò inavveduto, e che
accetti poi frettolosamente il primo pensiero che se gli presenta, atto ad essere espresso da
quelle benché per lo più straniere, e talvolta contrarie al suo soggetto. Onde cerca il primo a
suo grand’agio le vesti per l’uomo, e s’affretta il secondo a cercar tumultuariamente l’uomo
per le vesti. Egli è ben vero che se da questa inumana angustia di tempo vien tiranneggiato
barbaramente l’estemporaneo poeta, n’è ancora in contraccambio validamente protetto
contro il rigore de’ giudici suoi, a’ quali, abbagliati dai lampi presenti, non rimane spazio
per esaminare la poca analogia che ha per lo più il prima col poi in cotesta specie di versi.
Ma se da quel dell’orecchio fossero condannati questi a passare all’esame degli occhi, oh
quante Angeliche si presenterebbero con la corazza d’Orlando e quanti Rinaldi con la
cuffia d’Armida! Non crediate però ch’io disprezzi questa portentosa facoltà, che onora
tanto la nostra spezie; sostengo solo che da chiunque si sagrifichi affatto ad un esercizio
tanto contrario alla ragione non così facilmente:
22 ‘Without documentation, and lasting traces, her best things being limited nourishment
for the air and ears and a passing wonder for the mind’.
eighteenth-century italian women improvisers 153
…Carmina fingi
posse linenda cedro, et levi servanda cupresso. (Metastasio 1954, 327-328)23
8. Conclusions
As an often overlooked phenomenon, seen as minor, when it was not openly
looked down upon by literary critics (see Croce 1918 and Dionisotti 1967,
86), including contemporary ones, extempore poetry had an ambiguous
reputation, combining admiration for boundless versatility, wealth of
language and flair and the irrepressible suspicion of this incredible ability to
produce a stream of impromptu verse. While it is true that illustrious men of
letters such as Foscolo, Manzoni, Monti, Alfieri, Goldoni, and Pindemonte,
showered this or that improviser with praise, they certainly did not mistake
a performance in an academy for a certificate of eternal poetic glory. Apart
from the words of Metastasio, the sonnet written by Alfieri in praise of
Bandettini is symptomatic; the line ‘Donna, il cui carme gli anima soggioga’
is followed by ‘Rimar mi fa, benché tal rime io danni’ (i.e. although the lady
enthrals listeners with her poetry, Alfieri does not have a high opinion of its
literary quality). Furthermore, Goldoni’s admiration for Bernardino Perfetti,
in his Mémoires, was contradicted in Poeta fanatico, where the fashion for
improvisation seen as the expression of the spread of the mania for composing
verse, is harshly satirised. Yet again, when Monti was praising Amarilli’s
‘veloci carmi’ (‘lively poems’) and her ‘eleganza ne’ bei modi ardita’ (Monti
23 ‘Since, thinking, at a more mature age, about the mechanism of that useless, marvellous
art, I have come to the conclusion that the mind forced into such a rash operation must
dress in clothes diametrically opposed to reason. The poet writing at leisure chooses his
theme, examines its purpose, orders the chain of ideas that are to lead him naturally to this
end, and makes use of metres and rhymes as obedient executors of his plan. On the other
hand, he who faces the challenge of extempore poetry, enslaved by these tyrannies, ought
to, before thinking of other things, make use of the minutes allowed to him to arrange
the rhymes to be matched with those of his opponent, into which he slipped carelessly,
and then hurriedly accept the first thought that enters his mind, suitable to be expressed
by them albeit mostly foreign and on occasion in opposition to his subject. Whence the
former searches for the clothes for the man at his convenience, while the latter hurriedly
and frantically for the man for the clothes. If the extempore poet is barbarously enslaved by
this inhuman lack of time, he is admittedly compensated by protection from the severity of
his judges, who, blinded by present flashes, have no room for examination of the minimal
analogy of before and after in this type of poetry. But if from the ear they were forced to
pass on to examination by the eyes, oh how many Angelicas would show themselves with
Orlando’s breastplate, and how many Rinaldos with Armida’s coif! Do not think that I
disdain this extraordinary ability, which greatly honours our species; I only maintain that
from anyone who makes the sacrifice of practising an art so contrary to reason: … can we
expect that such verses should be made / as are worthy of being anointed with the oil of
cedar, and kept in the well-polished cypress?’ (Letter from Vienna dated 1 August 1751. The
Latin lines at the end of the passage quoted are from Horace, Ars Poetica, 331-332).
antonella giordano154
1969, 236, 239; bold and finely shaped elegance’), no man of letters was
willing to consider an improviser a true poet. Admittedly, in the eighteenth
century the widespread social importance of literary phenomena provided
the poetic improviser with a substantial, relatively differentiated audience, in
his/her presence in salons, academies and theatres; this type of audience was
more accustomed to listening than reading and was therefore better disposed
towards oral expression as compared with nineteenth century private reading
practices. Extempore poets had a very ambiguous nature: they presented
themselves as the new bards, but were really only entertainers; indeed, in a
society grounded in written culture, they could only be able manipulators
of literary products made inflexible by tradition, devoid of their original
function. It was precisely in this dysfunctional orality that they could play a
legitimate role. The improvisers themselves were quite aware of this and never
challenged official culture, only aiming to be accepted by it.
It may well have been in the ambiguity of the role of the extempore
poet, and in these apparent contradictions, that the success of the women
improvisers lay. They could be tolerated by the moral prejudices of a society
which, nevertheless, and in spite of the Enlightenment, remained deeply
male-centred. On the other hand, persons who met considerable difficulties in
being considered autonomous individuals could feel comfortable practising a
phenomenon which drew upon a way of creating verse empty of individuality.
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