Abstract

In 1665 the palace of the Duke of Girifalco hosts a selected group of aristocratic people for a rich performance inspired to Calderón’s Con quien vengo vengo, in order to show the magnificence of the house as well as its loyalty to the Spanish king. This event testifies both to the myth of Calderón in Naples in the 17th century and to the performing strategies in private houses. The text was staged using typical resources of Neapolitan theatres, such as prologues, musical insertions, dances between the acts and multiple language scenes, and was entrusted to a troupe formed by talented amateurs and skilled practitioners. Technical solutions and other «messages» constitute a propagandistic «liturgy» aimed at emphasizing the tribute of the Duke (and of his entourage) to the Spanish power. The glamour and the myth of the «catholic» nation is based also upon such events, where different «languages» and bold experiments are combined. At that time Naples is gaining (and bringing to perfection) an artistic role, which will soon turn into an absolute primacy in Europe.

Abstract

The move of the court of the king Alfonso V of Aragon from Valencia (1416-1430) to Italy (1432) and their settlement in Naples (1443-1458) implied the emigration of a numerous human group, which was perceived as a duality by the Neapolitans (catalani et hispani: Catalan speaking people and Spanish speaking people), and also a royal administration where Catalan was the preferred language by the government and state, even though the king used to speak in Spanish. The numerous court, who was almost bilingual in most cases, was involved —in greater or lesser proportion— in a plurality of linguistic expressions, both orally and written: there were bureaucrats and knights mainly from Valencia; Castilian song poets; humanists who used to write in perfect Latin; native barons who spoke in a napoletano misto, influenced by the literary Tuscan; scriveners from the chancery who wrote in Sicilian dialect, merchants from Florence, etc. Altogether, this makes the court in Naples of Alfonso the Magnanimous a very interesting object of study for the field of the history of the language (leaving aside now the idiomatic adaptation of the literary expressions, being also an aspect that deserves to be studied).