ABSTRACT

The seldom-studied tragicomedy, The History of the Tryall of Chevalry, published in 1605 and probably first performed in 1600, explores the artistic and dramatic act and art of picturing by presenting the spectators with a series of pictures, mostly miniature portraits and funerary effigies. This chapter focuses on the original and innovative reenactment of the Italian artistic debate of the paragone that opposed painting and sculpture. By taking into account Elizabethan visual culture, this study investigates the dramatic techniques used to stage the passage from a two-dimensional portrait to a three-dimensional statue in this play, setting forth the interrelation of verbal and visual portraiture as well as the metamorphosis of the actor’s body, which takes part in the process of visualizing and giving shape to pictures on a theatrical stage.