ABSTRACT
By the end of the sixteenth century it was unusual to find a company still touring under the name of its principal Mask, but such was Giovanni Pellesini’s fame as Pedrolino that he continued to do so. He himself often played solo at banquets and the like. His company are first heard of touring Tuscany in July 1576. They spent the winter in Florence before going to Pisa, then to Lucca, whence they would have gone back to Pisa in July had not a letter from commissario Capponi informed the Grand Duke ‘that the notable scandals of the love affairs of the actresses made it advisable to forbid their return’.37 In April 1580 Pedrolino’s performances met with success, both in the private rooms of the Duchess of Ferrara and below in banchi, i.e. on the trestle stages in the street. Pellesini and his Pantalone also played the Fool. A table was set at a banquet with:
. . . a hole in the middle big enough for a man to get through; it was covered by a large, empty pie which had a hole in the bottom to correspond with the hole in the table. A cover was set on the pie, but this could be raised. Pedrolino the actor was concealed under the table. No-one knew he was there except Her Highness, the Duchess. When they had all taken their seats . . . Pantalone came into the hall, indicating that he was looking for Pedrolino, since he was a greedy fellow, in the dining-hall, and called out for him. Pedrolino then raised only his head out of the pie, so that none of his body was seen, and replied that by misfortune his greed had driven him into the kitchen, where the cooks had made him into a pie.38
