SOURCE: Tylus, Jane. “Women at the Windows: Commedia dell'arte and Theatrical Practice in Early Modern Italy.” Theatre Journal 49 (1997): 323-42.

In the following essay, Tylus examines the roles women played in the commedia dell'arte, observing that the staging and stage direction for women's roles played upon expectations about women's social status.

I

In a passage from Book 3 of the Discorsi, in the midst of a discussion of the violence that can overtake principalities, Niccolò Machiavelli calls attention to a singularly bizarre episode in Italian history. The incident occurred when conspirators who were formerly citizens of Forlì

killed Count Girolamo, their Lord, and took prisoner his wife and his children, who were little ones. It seemed to them, however, that their lives would scarce be safe unless they could get hold of the citadel, which its governor declined to hand over. So Madonna Caterina [Sforza], as the countess was called...