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[page 120]
Michael A. Zampelli
Trent Revisited:
A Reappraisal of Early Modern Catholicisms Relationship with the
Commedia Italiana
Notwithstanding
Ferdinando Taviani's important observation that the Roman Catholic Church
never launched a systematic attack against the professional theatre,
the Catholic world after the Council of Trent was far more hospitable
to antitheatrical sentiment than it was before. In evaluating this religious
hostility to professional performance, theatre scholarship has borne
the traces of an "antireligious prejudice" that, unfortunately,
hesitates to explore religious realities with the same rigor as it does
theatrical ones.
This
essay aims to deepen our appreciation of the world in which the commedia
italiana matured by situating theatricality and antitheatricality,
comici and clerics, within the more inclusive field of religious
history.(1) This wider frame allows both early modern Catholicism and
the professional theatre to emerge as parties in a cultural conversation
who have particular needs, desires, and interests. Considering these
needs, desires, and interests moves us beyond superficiality and helps
us engage the more dramatic subtext of the relationship between the
Church and the theatre. Essentially, I contend that Trent's disciplinary
and pastoral concerns manifested clear objectives regarding the role
of Catholicism in the "theatre of the world." These objectives
and the tactics for attaining them set professional religion in lively
competition with the professional theatre.
[page 121] Tridentine Reform:
Disciplinary and Pastoral Concerns
The
Council of Trent(2) began in 1545 after many delays and ended in 1563
after several interruptions. It provides a good starting point for exploring
the religious context of theatricality and antitheatricality for two
reasons. First, the event of the council bears the weight of almost
all subsequent attempts at understanding early modern Catholicism.(3)
Second, Trent straddled the shifting plates of a world in flux. At its
beginning it included people who had experienced the institutional hegemony
of the Roman Catholic Church as a fact of life. At its end it included
people who would experience Catholicism as only one force in a cultural
[page 122] marketplace that included
many other political and social forces as well as several other religious
confessions.(4)
The
event of the Council proves an important marker in the history of theatre
because it convenes in the same year as there appears the first extant
evidence of a professional commedia troupethe Paduan contract
of 1545. And it ends one year before there appears the first extant
evidence of a professional commedia troupe that includes an actressthe
Roman contract of 1564 signed by one Lucrezia da Siena.(5) Simply, Trent
is significant because it manifests the Roman Church's efforts at adapting
to a changing world into which the public, professional theatre is making
an entrance. One obvious reason for an increase in antitheatrical sentiment
during the years after the Council of Trent is the growing visibility
of the theatre itself.(6)
Though
it did have some things to say about music and art, Trent made no pronouncements
on the theatreprofessional or otherwise. The council's explicitly
doctrinal concerns regarding original sin, justification, and sacramental
theology probably had little influence on the interaction between theatre
and religion. Trent's disciplinary and pastoral concerns, however, focused
on the relationship between ecclesiastical order and Christian [page
123] living. In this arena the competitive subtext in the
relationship between commedia and church comes clear.
The "Christianization" of ordinary Catholics remains one of
the more striking features of the Council. The reform of religious life
and church offices (that is, the episcopacy and clergy) aimed not only
at eliminating abuses so as to achieve the internal stability of the
religious establishment, but also, and more importantly, to evangelize
and thereby work the sanctification of the ordinary lay person. How
could Catholics be more than superficially religious without the edifying
example of competent pastors who could lead their flocks in the way
of Christian perfection? The disciplinary and pastoral reforms of Trent
sought to make the Church and its representatives a more efficacious
force in ordinary people's lives.
Let us turn now to the most significant of these reforms and consider
their possible effects on religious attitudes toward the professional
theatre.
1. The Residency of Bishops
Presuming
that "only a renewed pastoral body could effectively proclaim the
sacred message to the people," the council proceeded to re-establish
norms for bishops and clergy.(7) The first and most significant of these
norms was the residence of bishops. In the words of the sixth session
of the Council, rather than "wandering idly from court to court,
or abandoning their flock and neglecting the care of their sheep in
the flurry of their worldly affairs," bishops were obliged to live
in their own dioceses discharging their responsibility as shepherds.(8)
In addition, the reform bishops were urged to "visit their diocese,
preach in person, and assure preaching in all their parishes."(9)
The obligation of residence and regular pastoral ministry opened up
the possibility for preached and published antitheatrical sentiment
because bishops grew more aware of and connected to the rhythms of life
in their jurisdiction. These rhythms alternated between work and play,
Lent and carnevale, liturgy and performance.(10)
[page
124] With this emphasis on the obligation of bishops to exercise
ordinary pastoral care in their dioceses came the correlative affirmation
of episcopal power and authority. The bishop was "from then on
to be 'delegate of the Apostolic See' in his own diocese."(11)
Hence, his office demanded the renewed respect of the secular clergy
(of whom he was directly in charge), religious houses (which had often
enjoyed exemption from episcopal jurisdiction), and civil authority
(which had usurped many of the powers of the episcopacy). Championing
episcopal rights placed the local bishop in collateral line with the
secular government. Competition and conflict between the two powers
were certainly not uncommon. In cases where the secular authority strongly
supported theatrical entertainments, as in the Spanish-governed Milan
during the archiepiscopacy of Carlo Borromeo (discussed more fully below),
religious antitheatricalism functioned not only as an admonition to
the Christian faithful but also as an affirmation of ecclesiastical
influence in the face of secular government.(12)
2. Reform of the Clergy
Though the reformed bishop functioned as the pastor of the local church,
he could not undertake the Christianization of the people by himself.
The rejuvenation of the Christian life depended upon a well-trained
and energetic clergy. Hence, Trent made provision for the establishment
of seminaries to train secular priests, though these did not appear
in great number for very many years. Domenico Sella reminds us that
the seminaries were "aimed at turning out priests who, in terms
of education, piety, moral conduct and outward decorum would stand as
models of Christian living and exude the high dignity and the distinct
nature of the clerical status."(13) Clerics, as supposed models
of virtuous living, became the object of much criticism and correction
regarding dress, behavior and lifestyle; they were frequently chastised
for attending the commedia mercenaria precisely because they
gave bad example. Attending the [page 125]
professional theatre visibly lowered their status in the community;
priests at plays undermined efforts at reconstructing the role of clerics
in the social order.
Further,
as Jean Delumeau notes, since "one of the scourges of the ecclesiastical
society of the time was the enormous number of wandering clerics"
who exercised priestly functions in exchange for payment, the council
attempted to put an end to itinerant professional priestcraft by decreeing
that "no one could be admitted to holy orders without having enough
to live on."(14) Interestingly, such a concern parallels the antitheatricalist
distrust of itinerant professional players who earned a living by finding
audiences willing to pay for performance. The connection in this case
is itinerancy; having no established domicile, wandering priests and
performers introduced a foreign, uncontrollable element into early modern
society. The exchange of money, then, rather than ongoing membership
in a hierarchically ordered community provided the basis for relationships.
No doubt the monetary link also proved very suspicious because it eluded
external regulation.
3. Reform of Religious Life
The atmosphere of reform permeated even the walls of convents, monasteries
and apostolic houses of religious orders that had traditionally enjoyed
a certain freedom from the ordinary jurisdiction of the church. Clerics
who belonged to religious communities were urged to "practice the
strictest observance of their rule" that their witness might not
only result in their own salvation but in the edification of the larger
Catholic community.(15) Most pertinent to this inquiry, however, is
the attitude toward religious women. In the end, the conciliar decree
on religious life demanded two things with regard to women: first, that
"'[u]nder pain of eternal damnation,' bishops will re-establish
nuns' clausura [or cloister] wherever it has fallen into abeyance, and
see that it is rigorously maintained where it still holds;" second,
that a woman neither be forced to enter religious life against her will
nor be prevented from doing so should she desire it.(16)
[page
126] These pronouncements reveal the period's absolute conviction
that women required regulation, either through marriage or through the
structures of religion. Notwithstanding the eventual establishment of
apostolic congregations of women who would teach, nurse and care for
the poor (e.g., the Ursulines, the Sisters of the Visitation, the Sisters
of Charity),(17) Trent's insistence on the stricter observance of cloister
in the case of women suggests that "unattached" women could
not be allowed to take part in public transactions or move about ad
libitum without conjuring the possibilities for compromising virtue
(theirs and others') and occasioning immorality.
Though
this fundamentally misogynistic attitude was hardly an invention of
early modern Catholicism, it certainly contributed to the religious
ambience of the later sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Not surprisingly,
then, religious antitheatricalists of the period fixed their disapproving
gaze on the highly visible actresses who from the mid-sixteenth century
on performed with and, in several cases, assumed the management of commedia
troupes. The professional actress was almost a religious anti-type,
seemingly unregulated, certainly uncloistered, probably unchaste, and
disturbingly visible in the marketplace.(18)
4. Primacy of Preaching
As Robert Bireley notes, "[p]reaching as a mode of evangelization...was
as important to Catholics as it was to Protestants in the sixteenth
century."(19) In fact, the final cause of the episcopal, clerical
and religious reform just mentioned remained the effective preaching
of the Christian message to ordinary women and men. And since that message
was preserved within [page 127]
the sacred scriptures and the tradition of the Church, the council identified
preaching as the "chief duty" especially of bishops (praecipuum
episcoporum munus) but also of the lower clergy.
This
focus on preaching the Word of God not only connected Tridentine reform
with Protestant reform, but it also placed a central religious activity
in direct competition with professional theatricals. The aims of preaching
coincided, at least in part, with the aims of Renaissance theatre: to
teach, to move, and to please.(20) In a manner not unlike the itinerant
comici of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, touring preachers
of religious orders were often contracted by ecclesiastical patrons
to perform during the strong seasons of the liturgical year such as
Lent.(21) Like actors, preachers found themselves playing before discriminating
urban audiences making use of a variety of performative strategies to
insure an effective hearing. Manuel Morán and José Andrés
Gallago reveal that the delivery of a typical baroque sermon involved
the kind of theatrical expertise sported by comici. Since
reading from the pulpit was not admissable, and
reciting by heart was considered fitting only for beginners...[the]
most common practice was to get the scheme of the sermon well fixed
in mindits formal structure, exempla, ideasand commit
that scheme to memory, leaving the rest to improvisation.(22)
In the religious world made possible
by the Council of Trent, professional religion competed with professional
theatre in very concrete ways; hence, the emergence of religious antitheatrical
sentiment within this world is hardly surprising.(23)
[page 128]
A Case in Point: Carlo Borromeo
In
order to graft some flesh on the preceding skeleton of an argument by
substantiating its claims with reference to concrete historical details,
we turn to a consideration of the antitheatrical sentiment of Carlo
Borromeo (1538-1584). As cardinal archbishop of Milan from 1565 to 1584,
Carlo Borromeo defined the emploi of the reforming Tridentine
prelate. His views of Christian life and worship shaped the self-understanding
of reform-minded pastors and proved a valuable currency in subsequent
centuries. Though Borromeo's virulent and persistent arguments against
Milanese spectacles certainly echoed the already familiar antitheatrical
critiques of the church fathers, he was the first significant ecclesiastical
authority to translate the antitheatrical prejudice into the early modern
era.
Although his attacks on secular and sacred performance created an awkward
climate for professional players in Milan, even Borromeo's articulate
and zealous criticism could not finally suppress theatrical activity.
The archbishop's antitheatrical statements recurred throughout his archiepiscopacy,
indicating that despite his protestations, theatre continued to find
its audience.(24) Even though his persistence could not overcome the
popular theatre's ability to endure, Borromeo's antitheatrical writing
did establish a way of seeing the theatre that would affect other religious
writers in Italy and France. Essentially, Borromeo's objections to theatre's
interaction with Christian society revolve around three general points
that derive directly from the cardinal's commitment to Tridentine values:
First, theatre disrupted social, and religious order; second, it undermined
genuine religious activity; third, it sabotaged the 'Christianization'
of society.
In Borromeo's view, theatre tore at the social fabric; hence, he advised
the civil magistrates to drive from their jurisdictions "actors,
mimes, vagrants, and all other similarly 'lost' people" unless
they agreed to establish permanent residency and resolved to "live
honestly and comport themselves, in everything, as befits a Christian."
Professional performers, because of their itinerancy, threatened society
with instability. Since a wandering society remained an [page
129] uncontrollable one,(25) Borromeo insisted that the civil
authorities, charged with the task of keeping social order, should police
and censure the inns, "all filled with wickedness," that might
give refuge to actors, mimes, and vagrants.(26)
The
spettacoli disrupted the religious order envisioned by this Tridentine
pastor by confusing, or even ignoring, the boundaries separating the
sacred from the profane. And in this regard Borromeo quickly cast his
wandering eye toward his own clergy. In a document concerning internal
governance, for example, the cardinal archbishop forbids all members
of the episcopal household to "carry arms...play cards, dice, ball,
or other indecorous games of this kind, or attend the games of others."
Neither are they permitted "to walk about masked, to participate
in hunting parties, to attend theatrical performances, comedies, or
any other impure activities of the professional actors." Since
a reprimand must obviously have an object, Borromeo's diocesan clergy
must have been every bit as involved in these profane activities as
their lay brethren. With such involvement the clergy blurred the boundaries
between the religious and secular worlds, thus sending mixed signals
to those for whom they provided pastoral guidance.(27) In Borromeo's
view theatricals, masquerades and the like spoke of a different world,
a world not contained by the embrace of faith.(28)
[page
130] Borromeo's acta reveal the archbishop's keen
sensitivity to the competition between theatre and religion. For him,
the former corrupted while the latter sanctified. Early in his career
as archbishop, Borromeo prohibited "comedies, scenic or theatrical
representations, tournaments or other spectacles of whatever kind"
during the three weeks preceding the start of Lent, a high point of
Carnevale.(29) The reason for the prohibition remained the need to give
religious spectacles a performative edge over theatrical ones:
The bishop is to see to it that in the time of
Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima (in which holy mother
Church, with the rites of the divine office, with songs and hymns
urging us to sadness and penitence, and finally with every style of
dress and other thing, instructs the people of God and prepares them...to
worthily celebrate the Passion of Christ) that the faithful entrusted
to his carefleeing from all that is contrary to the precepts
of the Church (the spectacles, the scenic representations, and all
that has the tinge of paganism) introduced especially in these corrupt
timesare more attentive to the exercise of Christian piety and
to prayer...(30)
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