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The Este court of Renaissance Ferrara
has often been portrayed as the model stage of courtly recreation,
musical, theatrical and physical. As we can see elsewhere on this Tennis History
Website, Ferrara may be seen as the cradle of the game of tennis, where the
elevation of the game evolved. The spectacles Duke Alfonso II’s tennis
professionals (his racchettieri) staged within the intimate
atmosphere of the tennis court were projected as private court entertainment for
the Duke’s honorary guests, exhibiting the ultimate form of high culture.
The Este court was devoted to chivalric virtues, as is illustrated by the
literary works of Boiardo, Ariosto and Tasso. The epic cavalaresca
notions of these supreme Ferrarese poets provided a major source of inspiration
for court festivals, ballets and operas for centuries to come.
The Este’s First Tennis Court
Theatre
As there were no purpose-built theatres
in Italy before the end of the 16th century, Andrea Palladio’s
Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza (1585) being the first, theatrical entertainment
was staged in a variety of performance halls, courtyards, hired rooms, stables,
granaries or on makeshift platforms in the streets. The Estes appear to have
been the first 16th century dynasty to have a tennis court converted into a
provisional playhouse. Alfonso II’s uncle, cardinal Ippolito II d’Este,
during the carnival celebrations of 1547 had the giuoco della palla of
Ferrara’s ducal palace converted for the performance of a tragedy by Giraldi
Cinthio. We are not certain if this was a purpose-built tennis court as the hall
was also known as the Sala dei Paladini (the Paladines were the knights
who fought with Charlemagne and this hall may well have featured frescoes
hailing their exploits). During Alfonso II’s rule a tennis court called the
Giuoco della Racchetta in 1583 provided a convenient setting for the
Este’s epic theatre productions when the famous Gelosi group of actors
staged a performance there. The natural arrangement of this Racchetta
court, its rectangular shape as well as its acoustic qualities, proved an
appropriate venue for a variety of courtly spectacles. The tennis court as an
architectural model for courtly entertainment was to contribute substantially to
17th and 18th century European playhouse design.
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Bird’s eye view of five tennis courts in Paris’
Rue de Veaugirard, two open and three covered. At least one was later used as a
theatre (1615, Quesnel, archives nationales) |
Although we
still have to contend with an apparent drought of verifiable sources on the
subject, recent research has brought a wide array of references to tennis court
playhouses to light. A preliminary inventory, based on a survey of
records that crop up in theatrical and musical reference books of 17th
and 18th century aristocratic and civic culture, brings up a
surprising number of at least 150 aristocratic tennis courts that were
temporarily used as theatres in Italy, France, Germany and the Low Countries.
Over 150 tennis courts in Western Europe, mostly linked to palaces, were
converted into theatres on a more or less permanent basis between roughly
1630-1850. For Italy the number is at least 25, for Germany 25 as well, for
the Low Countries 10 and finally for France (where jeu de paume was
virtually the most popular national pastime) the number is 80, at least 15 of
which were to be found in Paris (for an overview of the Jeu de Paume theatres:
http://cesar.org.uk , click on Places)
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The 16th century Ballhaus in the
gardens of Prague Castle, where concerts are still given |
For the
survey Tennis Courts in Seventeenth Paris and more computer
models of French tennis court theatres, go to the website of
the University of Warwick’s School of Theatre Studies.
Based on hypothetical computer models by Christa Williford, and research by
David Thomas and Jan Clarke.
Italy
Whereas in France the name Theatre du Jeu de Paume has survived (in
Aix-en-Provence and Albert, for example), none of the present-day Italian
theatres can bear witness to the role the tennis court played as secondary
playhouse accommodation. This may partly be attributed to the fact that in
France the Jeu de Paume theatres were mainly public tennis courts, whereas
in Italy the game of tennis was predominantly the preserve of the high
aristocracy. Nevertheless the term Teatro della Pallacorda or Teatro della
Racchetta crops up in a variety of historical literary sources, particularly
of the 18th century. Florence could pride itself of Teatro della Palla a
Corda (located next to the Opera del Duomo), which was inaugurated in 1779
(at present the building serves as a garage). There were earlier examples of
Pallacorda or Racchetta theatres in the Borgia Palace in Lucca (1642), Duke
Ranuccio II Farnese had a Teatro della Racchetta in his Palazzo Sanvitale
and the Palazzo Borromeo at the tiny Isola Bella island possessed a Teatro
della Pallacorda.
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Computer
model of Tennis Court Theatre (by Christa
Williford) |
The Savoy dominion, with its strong French and Spanish
links, referred to the tennis court type of theatre as a trincotto (derived
from Spanish trinquete). There were Trincotto playhouses in Casale, Mondovi
and Cuneo, as recent research by Laura Palmucci has established. Both the
Palazzo Reale in Naples and in Caserta had tennis courts that were converted
into teatrino di corte rooms for the performance of theatrical
entertainment. These were all court theatres. There is one very early
reference to a public theatre that used to be a salone della racchetta
(1593), the Teatro delle Saline in Piacenza. In Italy the courtly Teatro
della Pallacorda remained pre-eminent until the end of the 18th century.
Rome most probably had the last Italian theatre bearing the name Teatro
della Pallacorda (in the Piazza Firenze): here in 1796 Spontini’s opera Le
puntigli delle donne was performed.
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Tiepolo's acrobats |
A fresco by Giandomenico Tiepolo strikingly demonstrates
the new function many tennis courts served when interest in the game began
to dwindle in the course of the 18th century. In one of the Pulcinella
frescoes (from 1796), now in Venice’s Ca ’Rezzonico Museum, a group of
dancing and jumping acrobats are performing their skills on the tiled floor
of a tennis court, while the smartly-dressed spectators are watching from
the boarded up galleries. The sloping roof above the onlookers leaves no
doubt as to the building’s origin. Across this penthouse the tennis players
used to serve their balls to the receiving side.
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