L'hommage de Goethe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe by Joseph Karl Stieler in 1828

Johann Wolfgang Goethe

“The people are the foundation on which everything rests.

The spectators play their part, and the crowd identifies with the spectacle.

During the day, in the squares and on the quays, in the gondolas and in the palaces, the seller and the buyer, the beggar, the sailor, the neighbor, the lawyer and his opponent live, struggle, jostle, talk, protest, shout, demand, sing, play, swear, and make noise.

And in the evening, they go to the theater, and see and hear their daily lives artistically combined, embellished, intertwined with tales, distanced from reality by masks, while being brought closer to it by customs.

They enjoy themselves like children, they shout, they applaud, and they make noise.

From morning to evening, or rather from midnight to midnight, it is always the same.”
Goethe - Italianische Reise - October 4, 1786 At the San Luca Theater

Stendhal Admiratif de Goldoni

Portrait of Stendhal

“Goldoni's comedies in Venetian dialect are like Flemish paintings, full of truth about the customs of the common people during the period of pleasure and happiness that preceded the destruction of the Republic.”
Stendhal

La Spontanéité et le Naturel du Génie

But Goldoni did not seek to be witty; he had the spontaneity and naturalness of genius. He wrote without the slightest literary pretension; he thought in terms of theater.

Theater is first and foremost a spectacle, and its text is embodied speech, not abstract thought...

Venice: The Symbiosis of Spectacle and Life

Seriousness seems like a mask. Permanent beauty is tiring.

After the splendor of these regattas on the Grand Canal, about which travelers brought back so many dazzling stories, merriment resumes its rights, the parody begins, and having sought out all sorts of old, decrepit, gray-haired, and decrepit, they are made to race wheelbarrows on the shore.

Giacomo Casanova Giacomo Casanova, who knew Goldoni:

“For fun, we play pranks on each other.

Everyone plays pranks, even older men, even important figures, who enjoy these innocent jokes that bring joy to school playgrounds.

When vacationing in the countryside, we have fun giving laxatives to young women.”
Casanova, Memoirs, II.

At the Café des Quattro Santi Marchi

The most risqué jokes were part of the entertainment of the time, as recounted by Longo in his memoirs:

“At the Café des Quattro S. Marchi, where a few people of letters, the clergy, and the upper classes frequent, we imagine disguising ourselves as henchmen and locking one of our regulars, a man of sixty, in the latrines of the Rialto, where he spends the night believing himself to be in a dungeon.”
Longo, Memorie, II.

Lalande completes the picture of Venice... Unbridled!

“Polichinelles can be found in conversations, in shows, in pleasures, in paintings, in writings, and even in churches.”
Lalande, French astronomer during his visit to Venice.

Goldoni and Casanova: A Complicated Relationship

Portrait of Giacomo Casanova by Raphael Mengs in 1760

Giacomo Casanova by Raphael Mengs Since 1762, Goldoni has been in Paris.

There is something constrained, and like a trace of bitterness, in Casanova's words to Voltaire about Goldoni:

“He is our Molière, he said, adding immediately, not without a touch of smugness: He is a good writer of comedies, and that is all.”

He adds that Goldoni is one of his friends:

“And all of Venice knows it.”

But in Paris, he is careful not to associate with him.

He, so brilliant, complacently asserts that Goldoni:

“on the other hand, does not shine in society, that he is insipid and sweet as marshmallow, without being able to understand the inexorable force of this Goldonian bonhomie, apparently so simple and insipid, imposed his own poetics on the public, the actors, and theatrical customs”.
Bartolini - Casanova's Twilight.

Goldoni and Casanova's Mother

Portrait of Giacomo Casanova by Anton Graff

Giacomo Casanova Goldoni had known Casanova's mother well when she was a member of the Imer theater company.

He appreciated her talent and wrote a play especially for her.

Carlo Goldoni in Versailles

1763-1780: Goldoni wrote a few more plays, but they were not always successful.

Canevas pour la Comédie Italienne, The Fan, The Grumpy Benefactor, The Lavish Miser.

Goldoni lived in Versailles when he was appointed Italian tutor to the princesses. He taught Italian to the sister of Louis XV, then to the sisters of Louis XVI.

He received a pension of 3,600 livres.

The Beginning of the End