Commedia dell’Arte
The Italian Theatre That Created the Modern Clown
Commedia dell’arte — literally “comedy of the profession” — was the first form of professional theatre in Europe. Originating in Italy in the mid-sixteenth century, it dominated stages across Europe for over two hundred years, from the piazzas of Venice and Naples to the royal courts of France and England. Its stock characters, improvised comedy, and masked performers shaped everything from Molière’s plays to British pantomime — and ultimately gave the world the modern clown.
For Joseph Grimaldi, the greatest clown who ever lived, commedia dell’arte was not distant history. It was his inheritance. His father, Giuseppe Grimaldi, was an Italian-born commedia performer. The characters Joey brought to life at Sadler’s Wells and Drury Lane — the mischievous, acrobatic, insatiably hungry Clown — descended directly from the Zanni servants of commedia dell’arte. To understand Grimaldi is to understand commedia.
Origins & History of Commedia dell’Arte
The first recorded commedia dell’arte performances took place in Rome as early as 1551. Unlike the scripted commedia erudita (“learned comedy”) performed indoors by amateur actors, commedia dell’arte was performed outdoors by professional, costumed, and masked players on temporary trestle stages in town squares and at public fairs.
The roots of commedia reach further back still. Some scholars trace its ancestry to the Atellan Farces of the ancient Roman republic, which featured crude masked “types” — Pappus, Maccus, and Manducus — performing improvised plots with grossly exaggerated features. Others connect commedia to medieval jongleurs and morality plays, particularly the figure of Hellequin, a masked devil who led a troop of demons through the French countryside — the direct ancestor of Harlequin.
The form emerged from the Carnival traditions of Venice, where the actor Andrea Calmo had created the character Il Magnifico — the precursor to Pantalone — by 1570. A parallel tradition arose in Naples, centred on the figure of Pulcinella, who would eventually become the English puppet character Punch. These northern and southern Italian traditions merged into a theatrical form that swept the continent.
First recorded commedia dell’arte performances in Rome
Lucrezia Di Siena becomes the first Italian actress known by name
I Gelosi become a formal company — the most famous commedia troupe
Tristano Martinelli popularises Harlequin in Paris
Silvio Fiorillo introduces Pulcinella to the commedia stage
First Punch puppet show in England — Covent Garden, London
Louis XIV expels Italian players from France
Napoleon bans commedia dell’arte
Joseph Grimaldi transforms the Clown at Sadler’s Wells
By the 1560s, distinct troupes began to coalesce. The most famous, I Gelosi (“The Jealous Ones”), became a formal company by 1568. They adopted the two-faced Roman god Janus as their emblem, symbolising both their travelling nature and the duality of the actor who plays a character while remaining themselves. The Gelosi performed across northern Italy and France under royal patronage, maintaining the “usual ten” players: two vecchi (old men), four innamorati (two male and two female lovers), two Zanni (comic servants), a captain, and a servetta (serving maid).
Other notable troupes included the Compagnia dei Confidenti (active 1574–1639), the Compagnia dei Fedeli (1601–1652, featuring Giambattista Andreini), and the company of Zan Ganassa, who carried commedia to Spain in the 1570s.
Women on the Commedia Stage
One of commedia dell’arte’s most radical contributions to European theatre was the introduction of female performers. In commedia, female roles were played by women — documented as early as the 1560s, making them the first known professional actresses in Europe since antiquity.
Lucrezia Di Siena, whose name appears on an actors’ contract dated 10 October 1564, is considered the first Italian actress known by name. Vincenza Armani and Barbara Flaminia were the first well-documented primadonnas. The most celebrated was Isabella Andreini of I Gelosi, whose fame was so great that a medallion dedicated to her reads “eternal fame.” She was not only an actress but a published poet and member of a literary academy — an extraordinary achievement for any woman of the period.
English theatre critics of the 1570s were scandalised by these female performers. Italian prelates attempted to ban them. But by the end of the sixteenth century, actresses were standard on the Italian stage — a transformation that would not reach England for another hundred years.
How Commedia dell’Arte Worked
Improvisation, Lazzi & Scenari
Commedia dell’arte was not entirely improvised, nor was it entirely scripted. Performances were based on scenari — written outlines that established the plot, defined characters’ entrances and exits, and set key dramatic moments. Within this framework, actors improvised their dialogue, physical comedy, and interactions. The most famous collection of scenari was published by Flaminio Scala, a former member of I Gelosi, in the early seventeenth century.
A distinctive feature of commedia was the lazzo (plural: lazzi) — a rehearsed comic routine, joke, or piece of physical business that performers could deploy at will. Lazzi ranged from simple gags (tripping, pratfalls, food-stealing) to elaborate set-pieces involving acrobatics, wordplay, and audience interaction. Many lazzi were well known to audiences, who came to see how a particular performer would execute a favourite routine.
Commedia dell’Arte Masks
Masks are the defining feature of commedia dell’arte. The Italian word maschere (“masks”) became synonymous with the characters themselves — to speak of a commedia “mask” is to speak of the character, the costume, the voice, and the personality as a single indivisible whole.
Most male characters wore leather half-masks that covered the upper face, leaving the mouth free for speech and eating. Each mask was unique to its character and remained consistent across every production, every troupe, and every country where commedia was performed. An audience in Venice, Paris, or London could instantly identify a character by mask alone.
The masks were traditionally crafted from leather, moulded to fit the individual actor’s face. Each had defining features:
- Harlequin’s mask was black leather with a snub nose, small eyes, carbuncles on the forehead, and sometimes bushy eyebrows and facial hair. The red-and-black colouring derives from his demonic ancestor Hellequin.
- Pantalone’s mask featured a long, hooked nose — sometimes with spectacles — representing the shrewd Venetian merchant.
- Il Dottore’s mask covered only the forehead and nose, leaving his mouth conspicuously free for his endless pontificating.
- Il Capitano’s mask had a long nose and fierce expression, parodying military authority.
- Pulcinella’s mask was black or dark brown with a great hooked, beak-like nose — the most prominent feature, designed to resemble a bird. Deep wrinkles and furrowed eyebrows completed the look.
- The Zanni mask originally covered the full face but was eventually cut away at the bottom to allow dialogue. The length of the nose indicated the character’s stupidity — the longer the nose, the greater the fool.
Female characters did not typically wear masks. The innamorati (young lovers) wore heavy makeup but no masks, reflecting their status as idealised romantic figures rather than comic grotesques. Colombina and the servetta characters were similarly unmasked, wearing bonnets instead.
Commedia dell’Arte Stock Characters
Commedia dell’arte characters fall into four groups: the Zanni (comic servants), the Vecchi (old masters), the Innamorati (young lovers), and Il Capitano (the braggart captain). Each character had a fixed personality, costume, mask, regional dialect, and physical vocabulary that remained consistent from performance to performance and troupe to troupe.
Zanni — The Comic Servants
The Zanni are the engine of commedia dell’arte. The name derives from Gianni (a common name in the Lombard-Venetian countryside), and it became the generic term for all servant characters. The English word zany comes directly from this tradition.
Every commedia scenario required at least two Zanni: a cunning “first Zanni” (il furbo) who advanced the plot, and a foolish “second Zanni” (lo stupido) who maintained the comedy. Between the two of them, they made up “one person of less than average intelligence.”
The Zanni’s basic costume was white baggy clothing — traditionally made from flour sacks, reflecting his peasant origins. His mask featured a long nose: the longer the nose, the stupider the character. He was required to be enormously physical — walking on his hands, on stilts, dancing, skipping, somersaulting. This physicality would define the clown tradition for centuries to come.
The most famous Zanni characters were:
Arlecchino (Harlequin)
Arlecchino — Harlequin — is the best-known commedia character of all, associated with the city of Bergamo. He was a “second Zanni,” the foolish servant, although with the paradoxical quality of being both a dimwit and a trickster. His primary characteristic was extraordinary physical agility — he would never perform a simple action when a cartwheel, somersault, or backflip could replace it.
The role was traditionally believed to have been introduced by Zan Ganassa in the late sixteenth century and definitively popularised by the Italian actor Tristano Martinelli in Paris in 1584–1585. Martinelli was so successful he became a favourite of Henry IV of France.
Harlequin’s name has a dark origin. It derives from Hellequin, a masked, club-wielding devil who led troops of demons through the French countryside in medieval Passion Plays — a figure first recorded by the chronicler Orderic Vitalis in the eleventh century. This demonic ancestry explains the traditional red-and-black colours of Harlequin’s mask.
His costume evolved over centuries. Originally it consisted of a linen outfit covered in irregular coloured patches — green, yellow, red, and brown — representing the rags of a poor servant. In the seventeenth century, these patches became symmetrical triangles. By the eighteenth century, they had become the iconic diamond-shaped lozenges that define the Harlequin look today.
Harlequin carried a wooden sword — the batacchio or slapstick — which served as weapon, fan, and magic wand. His mask was black leather with a snub nose, small eyes, and carbuncles on the forehead. He wore a soft cap with a rabbit or fox tail.
In England, Harlequin became the central figure of the Harlequinade, developed by John Rich at Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre in the early eighteenth century. Rich, performing under the name “Lun,” transformed Harlequin into a mischievous magician who used his slapstick to change scenery and evade his pursuers.
It was in the Harlequinade that Harlequin was first paired with the character Clown — and it was Joseph Grimaldi who, around 1800, transformed this relationship forever. Grimaldi’s mischievous, brutish Clown became the star of the show, replacing Harlequin as the audience favourite. Harlequin retreated into a romantic, graceful role, while Grimaldi’s Clown inherited all the chaos, appetite, and anarchic energy that had originally belonged to the Zanni tradition.
Pulcinella
Pulcinella is the great character of the Neapolitan commedia tradition, introduced to the stage by Silvio Fiorillo in 1620. His origins reach back to two stock characters of the ancient Roman Atellan Farce: Maccus (witty, sarcastic, rude) and Bucco (a nervous, silly thief). This duality defines everything about Pulcinella — he can be master or servant, cunning or foolish, bully or coward, sometimes all at once.
Physically, Pulcinella is top-heavy and bird-like. From Maccus he inherited his humpback, long crooked nose, and gangly legs. From Bucco came his potbelly, large cheeks, and enormous mouth. His name likely derives from pulcino (chick), on account of his beaklike nose. He always wears white — a loose-fitting blouse, wide-legged trousers, and a white conical hat. His mask is black or dark brown leather, dominated by that great hooked nose.
Pulcinella’s most enduring legacy is his transformation into the English puppet character Punch. The first recorded Punch show in England was performed in Covent Garden in May 1662 by the Bologna-born puppeteer Pietro Gimonde. The marionette was named Punchinello, later shortened to Punch. The British Punch is more childlike and violent than his Italian ancestor — always seen with cudgel in hand — but the lineage is unmistakable.
The path from Pulcinella to Punch to the live-action Clown of English pantomime forms one of the direct lines of descent that leads to Grimaldi’s Joey.
Brighella
The “first Zanni” — the cunning, scheming counterpart to Harlequin’s foolishness. Smart, vindictive, and cynically sharp, Brighella wore a white smock trimmed with green (indicating his devious nature) and a half-mask with a hooked nose. He was often depicted carrying a guitar. His job was to advance the plot through manipulation and trickery.
Pedrolino (Pierrot)
The sad servant and ancestor of the French Pierrot — the white-faced, melancholic figure who became one of the most recognisable images in Western art. Unlike most Zanni, Pedrolino did not wear a mask but had a heavily whitened face. His all-white, loose-fitting costume with large buttons established the tradition of the white-faced clown that persists to this day. Grimaldi’s own white-face makeup descends from this commedia lineage.
Colombina (Columbine)
The perky, clever maidservant — often the smartest person on stage. She was Harlequin’s love interest and the confidante of the innamorata. Unlike the male servants, she did not wear a mask. Her costume could be colourful (matching Harlequin’s patches) or simple black and white. In the English Harlequinade, as Columbine, she became the object of Harlequin’s romantic pursuit.
Pantalone — The Miserly Old Man
The archetypal Venetian merchant — wealthy, miserly, and lustful despite his advanced years. He wore a tight-fitting red jacket, dark cape (zimarra), and a distinctive mask with a long hooked nose. He was the primary obstacle to the young lovers’ happiness. Shakespeare’s Polonius in Hamlet draws directly from the Pantalone archetype.
Il Dottore — The Pompous Doctor
A Bolognese academic — a pompous know-it-all who spoke in long-winded, pseudo-learned monologues full of malapropisms and mangled Latin. His costume was a long black academic gown, and his mask covered only the forehead and nose, leaving his mouth free for interminable speeches.
Il Capitano — The Braggart Captain
A swaggering military officer full of false bravado, whose courage evaporated the moment he faced real danger. His costume satirised contemporary military dress and he carried an absurdly oversized sword. The character evolved into Scaramouche (Scaramuccia), another cowardly braggart.
The Innamorati — The Young Lovers
The innamorati were the only characters who did not wear masks and were not comic. They were beautiful, well-dressed, and hopelessly in love. They existed to drive the plot — their desire to marry, blocked by the vecchi, set the Zanni schemes in motion. They were expected to sing madrigals, speak eloquently, and look magnificent.
Commedia dell’Arte in France
Commedia dell’arte was arguably more popular in France than anywhere outside Italy. Italian troupes performed regularly in Paris from the late sixteenth century, and the Gelosi received direct patronage from the French crown. During the reign of Louis XIV, the Comédie-Italienne established a permanent theatre in Paris, creating new characters and adapting old ones for French audiences.
The great French playwright Molière shared the stage at the Théâtre du Petit-Bourbon with the Italian players, and his debt to commedia is profound. His comic forms — the scheming servants, the pompous doctors, the miserly fathers — are commedia types transplanted into French-language comedy. Les Fourberies de Scapin is openly drawn from commedia scenarios. Even his dramatic techniques, such as the tirade, derive from the commedia tirata.
When Louis XIV expelled the Italian players from France in 1697 (for satirising his wife, Madame de Maintenon), the form did not die — it migrated to the fair theatres outside Paris and evolved toward more pantomimed performance. The characters of Pierrot, Columbine, and Harlequin became essentially Parisian, refined and sentimentalised by French taste. When the Italians returned after Louis’s death in 1716, the playwright Marivaux softened commedia further, bringing genuine emotion to the stage.
Commedia dell’Arte & the English Stage
The commedia tradition reached England in the early seventeenth century, but its greatest impact came through the Harlequinade — the genre of theatrical entertainment that dominated the English stage throughout the Georgian and Regency eras.
John Rich developed the Harlequinade at Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre from the 1720s, casting himself as Harlequin under the stage name “Lun.” In Rich’s version, Harlequin became a mischievous magician whose slapstick could transform scenes and transport the action to fantastical locations. The English Harlequinade established Harlequin as the star, with Pantaloon (a domesticated Pantalone), Columbine, and the Clown as supporting characters.
In Charles Dibdin’s 1800 pantomime Peter Wilkins: or Harlequin in the Flying World at Sadler’s Wells, Grimaldi introduced a new, garishly colourful Clown costume — “patterned with large diamonds and circles, and fringed with tassels and ruffs” — replacing the tatty servant’s outfit that had been used for a century. The production was a hit, and the new costume was copied across London.
Later that same year, at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, the relationship between Harlequin and Clown was permanently altered. Harlequin became “romantic and mercurial, instead of mischievous,” while Grimaldi’s Clown became the star. The Zanni tradition had come full circle.
The Legacy of Commedia dell’Arte
Commedia dell’arte’s influence extends far beyond the characters it created. It established the principle that professional actors could make a living from their craft. It put women on the European stage for the first time since antiquity. It created the template for improvised comedy that runs from the lazzi of sixteenth-century Italy to modern improvisational theatre. And it gave the world its most enduring comic archetypes.
Shakespeare drew on commedia — The Tempest borrows from the Scala scenarios, Polonius is Pantalone, and his clowns bear clear homage to the Zanni. Mozart’s comic servants, from Leporello to Figaro, have commedia precedents. Rossini, Verdi, Puccini, and Donizetti all drew on commedia masks and plots. Stravinsky composed two ballets — Petrushka (1911) and Pulcinella (1920) — directly inspired by commedia characters. Picasso designed costumes for Pulcinella and painted commedia figures throughout his career.
Napoleon banned commedia dell’arte in 1797, using the suppression of Carnival masks to silence political dissent. The form would not return to Venice until 1979. But by then, its characters had been absorbed into every corner of European culture — into puppet shows and pantomimes, opera and ballet, painting and literature.
The line from the commedia stage to the modern clown runs unbroken: from the Zanni of the Italian piazzas, through Harlequin and Pulcinella, through the English Harlequinade, to the moment in 1800 when Joseph Grimaldi stepped onto the stage at Sadler’s Wells and created something new. Everything that came before lived in him. Everything that came after — every circus clown, every white-faced performer, every comedian who ever took a pratfall — carries the ghost of commedia dell’arte.
The Heir to Commedia
Joseph Grimaldi (1778–1837) was the greatest clown in history and the direct heir to the commedia dell’arte tradition.