Playbill for anti-Semitic theatrical performance, in Italian, manuscript on paper [Italy, seventeenth century]

Playbill for anti-Semitic theatrical performance, in Italian, manuscript on paper [Italy, seventeenth century]

Single loose sheet, with 8 lines of large script, one interlinear correction of an additional r, the name Martino added in smaller script by same hand before Cornaro in last line, more modern 2 in upper lefthand corner, no watermark, red marks from old mount on reverse, small spots and stains, tear to one side, but overall in good condition, 190 by 250mm.

This playbill was produced by hand to advertise a opera ridicula about the impure relations between a girl named Brodeghina and a jew named Guardamano, and the resulting jealousy of Moses Lante[r]naro. The play was to be performed in the public theatre of Cornelio Tacito in the corrada de 100 Ussi a un Ora di notte. The work is ascribed to Martino Cornaro, who must be the Venetian playwright of the same name. Such written ephemera were meant to serve a single purpose, and then to be discarded, and thus the survival of this one is remarkable. What is perhaps even more startling is that a defective playbill, evidently for the same performance, is recorded in Il Ponte Casa dAste auction, 26-8 May 2017, lot 2359 (catalogued very briefly there, but compare partial reproduction in accompanying photograph).