›Orbecche‹

Giraldi, in his trend-setting tragedy, Orbecche, first produced in 1541, sought to create a stage-worthy play while honouring the conventions of Seneca and well as the principles of Aristotle and Horace. Yet he found himself defending his choices in his Discorso through novel interpretations of these authorities to accommodate the needs of “modern” audiences. He modified the medieval inclination to concentrate solely upon the moralizing fall of tyrants through Fortuna's dark forces by introducing a victimized heroine seeking her own domestic tranquillity in a secret marriage, thereby drawing the wrath of a tyrant to express his rage upon his own daughter. Hence, the play becomes a domestic tragedy that exchanges political horrors for household violence. In the process, Giraldi considers his options concerning the character of his heroine and the ambiguity of her choices, while preferring a more intimate employment of the chorus, and a less ornamented rhetorical style. Even so, his play falls short of the increased action on stage promised in his Discorso, still relying on language in the place of visible action, the legacy of the Senecan style.  Nevertheless, the play becomes a model for all such stage worthy revenge tragedy in the Renaissance, as well as a workshop for dispute among academicians. The Introduction exposes in brief these many historical impingements upon Giraldi from Seneca’s practices, Aristotle's descriptive “prescriptions,” and Horace’s sense of moral utility to the needs of the court audiences in Ferrara for which the play was written.

Meanwhile, as a theatrical experience, despite these tick-box conventions, Giraldi builds characters we come to care about, encourages suspense through their moral dilemmas and, in the end, reveals a generic contest between a chieftain father ready to barter his daughter in a marriage of political convenience, and a daughter determined to exercise her right to choose for love—a combat arguably embedded in the genes and as “archetypal” as any theme can be. 

M. Ciavolella, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA; D. A. Beecher, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada.