Identifier: oldpicturebooksw00pollrich (find matches)
Title: Pantomima o dumbshow Old picture books; with other essays on bookish subjects
Year: 1902 (1900s)
Authors: Pollard, Alfred W. (Alfred William), 1859-1944 Pollard, Alice
Subjects: Bibliography Illustrated books
Publisher: London : Methuen and co.
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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Pantomime or dumbshow
eligiousdrama in other countries. It is true that in England theplays which have come dovrn to us belong almost ex-clusively to the great cycles which unrolled the history ofman from the creation till the crack of doom, but we havemention of several plays on the lives of the Saints—e.g.one on S. George and the Dragon, and another (whichsurvives) on S. Mary Magdalene, and the popularityat one time of these Miracle Plays, properly so called,is witnessed by the fact that it is their name underwhich the cycles of Scriptural dramas generally passed.At Florence these longer dramas were not whollyunknown, but they seem to have been acted only in FLORENTINE RAPPRESENTAZIONI 21 pantomime or dumb-show, in the great pageants on S.Johns Day, the shorter plays developing from the Laude just as, at an earlier period, the liturgical dramashad developed in France and England out of the dramaticrecital of the gospel of the day. It is worth noting, bythe way, that the Laude themselves were not super-
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FROM LAUUE DEVOTE UI DIVERSI AUTORI, S.A. seded, but continued to be written and sung when the Rappresentazioni were already becoming popular. Twoof the writers of them during this period have a specialinterest for us—Maffeo Belcari, as the author also of theearliest printed •■ Rappresentazione, and Girolamo Beni-vieni, as the friend and disciple of Savonarola, whosedoctrine and prophecies he defended in 1496 in a tract,printed, this also, by Buonaccorsi. 22 OLD PICTURE BOOKS In an edition of a collection of Laude by variouswriters, there is an interesting cut representing the * Laudesi, standing before a Madonna, singing her praise.In course of time dramatic divisions had been admittedinto the Laude, and under the name of Divozioni theywere recited with appropriate action in dialogue form.The actors were for the most part boys, who were formedinto confraternities, while the expenses of the plays weredoubtless defrayed by their parents. As the dramaticelement in the performances

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