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and life in Venice, where people went about masked on the street for a
significant part of the year and the Commedia dell’arte uniquely remained
a human rather than a puppet theater, where vacation time was whiled
away in amateur theatrical productions, and where people of all social
classes went to the theater, made the application of behavioral models
proposed in theaters all the more tempting.43 Moreover, as the republic’s
far-flung empire and commerce declined, it increasingly recognized the
importance of its local non-patrician population and the advantages to
consolidating its loyalty with the governing patrician class.
Goldoni’s Early Theatrical Career
goldoni’s first works with fully written parts were Momolo cortesan
[Momolo the Courtier] and Momolo sulla Brenta [Momolo on the Brenta;
1738], based on the new character type that he created of the young
Venetian man enjoying a last moment of fun before assuming business
and marital responsibilities. the first work to completely embody his
reform was the prophetic Donna di garbo [The Well-mannered Woman;
1743], whose published form he would dedicate to a Venetian woman
patrician. its young laundress rosaura utilizes both the learning she has
gleaned from her work in a collegio and her beauty to avenge herself on a
faithless student suitor and men in general by conquering them completely
through besting them at the legal profession and captivating their hearts.
Donna already manifests the well structured and swiftly moving action,
the protagonism of female and working-class characters, and the balanced
portrayal of good and bad in all characters that will mark goldoni’s best
plays. the conclusion barely affirms traditional values through rosaura’s
choice of the family patriarch, rather than the student, as her marriage
partner.
away from Venice from 1743 to 1748, goldoni returned to take over
the sant’angelo theater with girolamo Medebach after its failure under
gasparo gozzi and his wife, the arcadian poetess Luisa bergalli. shortly
after his arrival, goldoni faced his first serious rival, the abbot Pietro
Chiari, who, following on the success of goldoni’s La vedova scaltra [The
Sly Widow; 1748], created La scuola delle vedove [The School for Widows;
1749]. both plays centered upon the freedom enjoyed by Venetian widows,
who, unlike widows in some other italian states, assumed control of their
43 Pullini, “il teatro fra polemica e costume,” pp. 279–81.