The typical Italian masks are quite well known to the
authors of that period. Thus Thomas Heywood mentions all these doctors,
zanies, pantaloons, and harlequins, in which the French, and still more
the Italians, distinguished themselves. In Kyd's _Spanish Tragedy_, and
in Ben Jonson's _The Case is Altered_, mention is made of the Italian
improvised comedy, and a few of the well-known types of character in the
dramatic literature of the time bear distinct traces of having been
influenced by Italian masks, _e.g._, Ralph Roister Doister in Udall's
comedy of that name; as well as the splendid Captain Bobadill and his no
less amusing companion, Captain Tucca, in Ben Jonson's _Every Man in his
Humour_ and _The Poetaster_, all of which are reproductions of the
typical _capitano_.
However, it is not these literary testimonies that I consider the most
striking evidence of the influence of Italian professional technique on
English professional actors. It is a remarkable discovery made by the
highly esteemed Shakespearean archaeologist, Edmund Malone, about a
century ago, in Dulwich College, that mine of ancient English dramatic
research, founded by the actor Edward Alleyn.
Among the notes left by the old pawnbroker and theatrical manager,
Henslowe, and the various papers, letters, parts, accounts, etc.
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