Another attempt at mingling the pastoral with the mythological drama, and one which likewise exhibits a tendency to borrow from the rustic compositions, is the Florentine ‘commedia pastorale’ first printed in 1545 under the title of Silvia.[398] The author calls himself Fileno Addiacciato, from which it would appear that he was a member of the pastoral academy of the Addiaccio, founded at Prato in 1539 by Agnolo Firenzuola.  The prologue relates how the first archimandrita of the academy, the title assumed by the president, here called Silvano, was driven out by his followers because of certain innovations he made, ‘Alzando i Rozzi e deprimendo i buoni.’  This would seem to imply that the head of the Addiacciati was expelled for evincing too particular an interest in the Sienese society, a piece of literary gossip fairly borne out by the little we know of the events which led up to Firenzuola’s departure from Prato.  The prologue, indeed, speaks of Silvano as already dead, which would appear to necessitate the placing of Firenzuola’s death earlier by three years than the accepted date.  The inference, however, is not necessary, since the expelled president might in his pastoral character be represented as dead though still alive in the flesh.  The play itself, which is in five acts, and contains characters alike Olympian, Arcadian, and rustic, besides a hermit and a slave, is composed in a variety of metres—­terza rima, octaves both sdrucciole and piane, and in the style alike of Poliziano and Lorenzo, hendecasyllables both blank and with rimalmezzo, and lyrical stanzas.  The plot itself is of the simplest, and resembles that of the Amaranta.  Through the sovereign will of Venus and Cupid, Silvia and Panfilo love.  A temporary estrangement, brought about by the mischievous rustic Murrone and his burlesque courting of Silvia, is set right by an opportune appearance of Cupid just as the girl has determined on suicide, and the lovers are united according to the Christian rite by the hermit, in the presence of Cupid and Venus.  What could be more complete?

The following year, 1546, saw the appearance in type of two eclogues, Erbusto and Filena, by a certain Giovanni Agostino Cazza or Caccia, the founder of a pastoral academy at Novara, for whose diversion the pieces were presumably composed.[399] The first of these, Erbusto, is in three acts, and terza rima.  The elderly Erbusto is the rival of Ameto in the love of a shepherdess named Flora.  The girl’s affections are set on the younger suitor, and after some complications she is discovered to be Erbusto’s own daughter, stolen as a baby during the war in Piedmont.  Similar recognitions, imitated from the Roman comedy, are of frequent occurrence in the regular Italian drama, and are not uncommonly connected, as here, with some actual event in contemporary history.  The second piece, Filena, runs to four acts, and has lyrical songs introduced into the terza rima.  It appears to be a sufficiently shameless and somewhat formless farce, which, being quite alien from the spirit of the regular pastoral, need not be examined in detail.