SABBATTINI Nicola Pratica di fabricar Scene, e machine ne’Teatri.

Kat. Berlin, 2786; Cicognara, 780; Riccardi, I, 405; Vagnetti, EIIIb26 (“opera classica di tecnica theatrale”). 

First collected edition of this extremely rare treatise on theatrical geometry and stage design, the second part of which is in the first edition. 

Nicola Sabbattini (1548-1632) was an architect and a pupil of the mathematician Guidobaldo del Monte, who taught him the techniques of perspective. He entered the service of Duke Francesco Maria and then of Cardinal Grimaldi. He modified the Teatro del Sol in Pesaro, his birthplace, and equipped it with the stage machinery described in the second part of this book. He is also credited with the construction of the theatre in Modena. 

Sabbattini’s idea was to imagine a theatre in the shape of a lyre ending in a stage where everything is arranged for the triumph of visual illusion. Here he enumerates the simplest and most elaborate means of creating these illusory phenomena necessary for the dramatic art. Sabbattini’s treatise also addresses a recent problem posed by the evolution of the theatre: where to place the orchestra in a theatre when it becomes an opera? Until now, the orchestra was located on the stage. It often consisted only of the actors playing an instrument themselves. With the creation of the first operas, mainly those of Monteverdi, the stage could no longer contain entire orchestras at the risk of upsetting the balance between music and acting. Sabbattini came up with an ingenious solution: to place the orchestra under the proscenium, as to obtain perfect acoustics (Book I, chapter 36, Como si debbano accomodare i musici). This new arrangement immediately prevailed. 

Each of his projects is developed in a long commentary accompanied by an explanatory diagram engraved on wood, with figures representing the scenes and scenery. In addition, the work is decorated with a beautiful series of initials with a floral background. Louis Jouvet wrote in the preface to the French edition published in 1942 that thanks to Sabbattini he had “discovered a treatise on machinery, a psychology of the stagehand (…) a manual for the set designer and the painter (…) a strategy for the show (…) a practical code of illusion”. 

Provenance: Libreria Sarti (stamp, with cancellation) – 19th century Italian note on endpaper – Thomas Vroom (book plate). 

Some foxing ; endpapers partially renewed.