The Poetics and Dramaturgy of Light in the Italian Renaissance and Baroque Theater

This essay illustrates the development of stage lighting in early modern theater from a theoretical and practical point of view. It questions a prejudice typical of some earlier studies, which allege that the technical possibilities prior to the invention of electric light were too rudimentary to allow operators to realize a mature and effective poetics of light. Through the analysis of certain theatrical performances, as well as of the scenery and lighting equipment used in each, it emphasizes that, between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, stage lighting made it possible to express many of the different dramaturgical functions of light. First, it defines these functions (naturalistic, descriptive, dramatic, pictorial, symbolic, and emotional), then considers how the techniques gradually responded to different theories expressed in contemporary treatises and how the passage from fixed scenery (scena fissa) to changeable sets necessarily brought with it varied changes of lighting. It also shows how the techniques did not remain static over time, but evolved to adapt to new styles and poetic needs, as well as to the changing tastes of the audience. It clarifies which objects and equipment were used to achieve the different effects, such as bowls, basins, candlesticks, lanterns and special reflectors (frugnoli), oil lamps, etc., and analyzes in which area of the stage each different lighting device had to be positioned (above or in front of the stage; close to the orchestra; between the rotating or sliding wings; behind the “skies split into strips” (cieli spezzati);1 behind the backdrop; on rotating pivots (bilichi); on the objects entering the stage, etc. Finally, this essay analyzes the relationship between stage lighting and the rest of the set design (which, being painted, required particular chiaroscuro techniques)