e splendor of the pictorial elements in the festal
entertainments of courts and pontiffs.[19]

[Footnote 19: "At the end of the fifteenth century, about 1480,
are cited as famous scene painters Balthasar Reuzzi at Volterra,
Parigi at Florence, Bibiena at Rome."--"Les Origines de l'Opera et
le Ballet de la Reine," par Ludovic Celler. Paris, 1868.]

Celler,[20] in speaking of the theater of the period of Louis XIV, says:
"The simplicity of our fathers is somewhat doubtful; if they did not
have as regards the theater ideas exactly like ours, the luxury which
they displayed was most remarkable, and the anachronisms in local color
were not so extraordinary as we have often been told." The author a
little further on calls attention to the fact that the mise en scene of
the old mystery plays had combined splendor with naive poverty. But he
is careful to note that the latter condition accompanied the
representations given by strolling troupes in small villages or towns,
while the former state was found where well paid and highly trained
actors gave performances in rich municipalities. In the villages rude
stage and scenery sufficed; in the cities all the resources of theatric
art were employed.

[Footnote 20: "Les Decors, les Costumes et la Mise en Scene au
XVIIe Siecle," par Ludovic Celler. Paris, 1869.]

Without doubt one of the most serious of all problems was that of
lighting. One cannot believe that at so early a date as that of this
first secular drama of Italy, the system of lighting the stage was such
as to give satisfactory results. Yet it is probable that artificial
lighting was provided, because it would have been extremely difficult to
admit daylight in such a way as to illumine the stage without destroying
much of the desirable illusion. Celler, in the first of his two volumes
already quoted, tells how the "Ballet de la Reine" (1581) was lighted by
torches and "lamps in the shape of little boats" so that the
illumination, according to a contemporary record, was such as to shame
the finest of days. But hyperbole was common then, and from Celler's
second book we learn that even in the extravagant times of Louis XIV the
lighting problem was an obstacle. It caused theatrical enterprises to
keep chiefly to pieces which could be performed in the open air or at
any rate by daylight. "The oldest representation," he says, "given in a
closed hall, with artificial light and with scenery, appears to