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Though at that time there were several playhouses in Venice, and going to the theatre was then, as it is now, the favorite way of spending the evening, no theatre was so well patronized and so crowded as that of San Samuele, where Venetian nobles and high-born women dazzled the eye of the people with their splendor, while an unbounded admiration welcomed some new play from the well-known, the genial and much-loved Count Carlo Gozzi.
The Memorie inutile in which Gozzi has depicted himself with such lifelike realism are sincere and vivacious, and rival Diderot and Rousseau for directness, luminousness and interest. Gozzi's nature is as free from conceit as it is from that reserve which is sometimes mistaken for the enviable result of hereditary culture, when it often is but the makeshift of vanity to cover mental penury.
Through the writings of Hoffman, my attention had been turned to the masked comedies of Gozzi: I read Il Corvo, and finding that it was an excellent subject, I wrote, in a few weeks, my opera-text of the Raven.
The next day Doctor Olivo found her very feverish, and told her brother that she would most likely be excited and delirious, but that it would be the effect of the fever and not the work of the devil. And truly, Bettina was raving all day, but Dr. Gozzi, placing implicit confidence in the physician, would not listen to his mother, and did not send for the Jacobin friar.
The next day Doctor Olivo found her very feverish, and told her brother that she would most likely be excited and delirious, but that it would be the effect of the fever and not the work of the devil. And truly, Bettina was raving all day, but Dr. Gozzi, placing implicit confidence in the physician, would not listen to his mother, and did not send for the Jacobin friar.
Gozzi came very near losing the dignity of his mental quietude and that in spite of his mature age, for he was then nearly fifty in a Don Quixotism well worthy of a man who had so deeply immersed his fancy in the fount of the Spanish drama, and whose head was filled with romantic adventures. A strange, an almost unaccountable, devotion bound him during five years to the erratic destiny of Ricci.
Petersburg, where the Empress Anne Iwanowa had not approved of the Italian comedy. The whole of the troop had already returned to Italy, and my mother had travelled with Carlin Bertinazzi, the harlequin, who died in Paris in the year 1783. As soon as she had reached Padua, she informed Doctor Gozzi of her arrival, and he lost no time in accompanying me to the inn where she had put up.
Having made up my mind to shew her every kindness in my power, I took an opportunity, as we were undressing for the night, of telling Doctor Gozzi that, for conscientious motives, I could not confess to Father Mancia, and yet that I did not wish to be an exception in that matter. He kindly answered that he understood my reasons, and that he would take us all to the church of Saint-Antoine.
One hundred years ago one of the most famous comedies of Gozzi was given to the Venetian public. What was, then, the cause of all this stirring-up of passions and of prejudices? And how could it happen that an inoffensive dramatic representation of character should have proved the spark which suddenly set on fire a perfect powder-house of human interests?
The excessive admiration of Goldoni, and the injury sustained thereby by the masked comedy, for which the company of Sacchi in Venice possessed the highest talents, gave rise to the dramas of Gozzi.