Venice's dominance of Bergamo begins in 1428. Starting from that moment, Bergamo becomes part of the Venice province, together with many other cities of the North of Italy.
Bergamo seemed to accept quite well this dominance: Venice, in fact, granted to the city and its territories large exemptions, mercies, privileges; more than in other cases, thanks to the peculiar condition of the province.1
Venice also provided a solution to the problem of the relationship between the city and the province: Bergamo of course wanted to have the valleys under its own control, while they asked for more autonomy. Reforming the political institutions and using political wisdom, Venice succeeded to bring peace between the two sides.
The citizens of Bergamo were equated to Venice's citizens, which meant that they had "civil dignity in accordance with Veneto laws."2 Not every inhabitant of Bergamo could be a citizen: only people of the nobility and registered in the Estates could have political rights. One necessary condition for that, not to exercise mechanical activities.
At the head of the political administration of Bergamo there were two figures: the Podestà, who presided over the city, and the Capitano, who presided over the province and was in charge of the military necessities. The Capitano had at his own dependencies "a certain number of men, that in Venice are called Zaffi, and elsewhere are called Sbirri."3 These two figures were "expression of the authoritarian regime of the Republic", and they were in charge for one year.
Cultural life in Bergamo in the XVII century was certainly present, "although mostly manifested itself in academic forms, according to the 17th century habit."4
The academies, however, seem to stay in a scope always strictly related to religion, as in the case of Accademia Ema that, "more than an academy, however, it was a gymnasium of moral studies and dogmatics for theologians and seminarians"5, or the Accademia established by the Misericordia Maggiore, for the education of thirty clerics.
In 1615 opened a public college. Also in this case, we know that the majority of the professors were clergy.
We know that a chair of civil law was also instituted.
Venice, on its side, stipulated that, for university education, all the students should attend the University of Padua, avoiding foreign institutions.
The Opera production models in the XVII century
Pre-impresarial models
In the first half of the century, operas were mostly composed and performed for the courts, where the public was directly invited by the patrons who hosted and financed the performance. This implied that there were no profit-making purposes in the production of the operas, the main aim of hosting them was showing the magnificence of the courts and their richness; and, usually, the socially selected audience was able to identify the politic messages of the work. The availability of scenic resources, the reference to a particular social context, and the fact that who worked in this productions was a stable wage earner by the court, made the chance of replicas of the operas very difficult; operas that were, in fact, composed and performed especially for the absolute patron.
Around 1636 and 1637, two events marked a turning point in opera production. The first one, in Padova, integrated the representation of the Ermiona by Pio Enea Obizzi and Giovanni Felice Sances in a public celebration of the city. For the first time, the public of an opera had a larger social destination, including "citizens, students, foreign nobility, rectors and venetian nobility, gentlewomen and gentlemen". The second event was the representation of the Andromeda by Benedetto Ferrari and Francesco Manelli, when for the first time, the artists organized and performed the show on their own, assuming the risks and burdens.6 In this case, the opera was represented in a theatre, and the public could attend the performance paying for an entry ticket. This represented a substantial change for the opera production: it became a commercial product, with workers becoming more specialized in the representation specifically of operas.
During years 40' and 50' of the century, companies of artists would travel bringing their productions in different cities of Italy, constituting the "itinerant companies". Adopting the pre-existing economic model of the companies of Commedia dell'arte (who rented theatres and represented pay-per-view performances), but with substantial differences in the content of the works7, these companies allowed a quick circulation of opera theatre.
The two systems, the court opera production and the mercenary opera, will coexist and influence each other throughout the XVII century, to the point that courts began to employ these specialist companies, replacing the stable employees of the courts,
Impresarial model
The "modello impresariale" developed starting from the second half XVII century, arising from the foundations laid by the itinerant companies. The transformation of the opera in a public phenomenon and its circulation throughout Italy, permitted the foundation of local opera traditions and of stable opera theatres. But this meant a decline of the itinerant companies, in favour of the figure of the impresario.
"The impresarial model was above all the expression of a professional activity devoted to financial gain"8. We can describe the impresarial model as based on three levels: the owners of the theatres, usually the richest patrician families of the cities; the impresario, to whom an entire season of the opera (or more season) was assigned; and the artists: singers, composers, dancers, set designers, costume designers. The librettists had their own status, earning from the sales of the librettos.9 Therefore, the roles of the impresario included organizing, contracting, managing and directing the performances. The iter to product an opera started from renting a theatre. Once a place was chosen, the next step was to immediately procure the best singers available, dealing with compensations and expenses like accommodation and travelling. Then, the chosen librettist would write the drama, and the composer would write the score, both according to the cast, and keeping in mind the vocal characteristics of the singers. It was also necessary to provide timbers, lighting, fabrics for the costumes and the scenes.10
All the investment was in charge of the impresario, and the profits only came from the sales of the entry tickets and from renting the loges to the aristocrats. This meant that the profits only came at the end of the production, causing a significant risk for the impresario, who tried to rent the loges in advance to have more liquids, but often struggled with defaulting renters. This economic insecurity led to the stereotype of the impresario that we often find in the sources, of someone always in complicated economic situations, persecuted by creditors, and often declaring bankrupt.
Impresarios, like almost everyone involved in the production of an opera, were doing this profession as a side activity, and this allowed them to finance, at list partially, the production. Impresarios could come from the urban middle class, like lawyers and notaries, or to be part of the performing scene (set designers, singers, composers, etc.). Even aristocrats sometimes devoted themselves to opera production, for pleasure, as a form of investment or to gain social prestige.
The impresarial model made possible even more the widespread diffusion of the opera around Italy, in a context of a "mass" urban culture, "led from above". The particular need of the society for spectacularity and theatricality, plus the content of the operas, normally vehicle for politically non-destabilizing ideas, which made them a government and consent tool, allowed to a precarious system, such as the one described, to survive.
Bergamo consists in a city and in its territories (in red), located in the North of Italy, in the region of Lombardy (in pink).
As one can see in the map, not so far away, towards the West, the province borders with the city and the territories of Milan, while Venice and the region of Veneto remain less close to it, in the eastern part of northern Italy.
The city of Bergamo is relatively small and consists of two main parts. The upper part (Città Alta), the most antique, is surrounded by the Venetian Walls built in the XVII century, and there, one can walk on cobblestone streets, surrounded by medieval buildings. The lower town (Città Bassa) is the more modern part, but it can also count on a lot of historical architecture.
The territories of Bergamo are divided into two parts: the valleys, located in the north, in the Orobic Alps, and the flatlands in the south.
Bergamo's territories (the province) were divided into 14 "quadre" (squares), plus four valleys further to the north. Six of the "quadre" were of the flatlands and eight of the valleys.
Each one of these districts was governed by a vicar, appointed by the major council of Bergamo. This figure served as a civil judge and held the charge for one year. Each quadra also had its own general council of paterfamilias, which elected a consul and other charges, as mayors.
There was also a council of the valleys, for more general issues.
Venice, as said, in many cases, granted especially to the valleys privileges for the territory and some forms of decentralization. There was, in fact, a large demand to depend directly politically on the central power, instead than from the city. Venice, on its side, was grateful to the valleys, giving them strong credit in the incorporation of Bergamo in the Republic.
Resource optimisation and theatrical circuits
The unstable economic situation of the opera production made necessary the optimisation and the reuse of the materials employed, according to the principle of “maximum efficiency (in terms of spectacularity) and minimum (economic) effort".
On the other side, the success and the large diffusion of the genre made possible the creation of "theatrical circuits". In many provincial cities the operas arrived thanks to the reutilization of operas composed for the capitals, or the nearest production centres. As a result, the activity of many opera theatres of Venice's province depended on the venetian scene, with a regularity on the re-employment of operas as if it was an institutionalized habit.11 The advantages of this system went both to the theatre producing the opera, that could increase some entries of the income, and to the theatre that received and reused the opera, that could avoid some of the expenses in the production. Bergamo and the Teatro Secco Suardo, especially with the impresario Antonio Scappi, were one of these examples.
About the theatres
It was common, in Venice and sometimes around its province or also in the rest of Italy, for rich people to open this kind of theatres12:“[…]theatres born for local initiatives, often because of the will of an eminent family of the local nobility that, using the example of the noble houses of Venice, converted with theatrical purpose palaces of property with the explicit aim of building a commercial enterprise”13.
In Venice, where the tradition of private theatres had its origin and development, the major families who invested in theatrical buildings were Tron, Giustinian, Capello, Grimani, etc.
In Venice's province, the most active cities from this point of view were Padova (with the Teatro Obizzi and the Teatro Nuovo della Nobiltà), Verona (with the Teatro dei Temperati and, later, the Teatro Filarmonico) and Vicenza (with its Teatro delle Garzerie and Teatro Tornieri).
In Bergamo, unlike the other cities of the Venetian province, the circulation of professional acting companies and the spread of mercenary opera did not lead to the stabilization of an architecturally recognized urban theatre system. “For theatres is not Bergamo site,” stated in 1720 Abbot Giovan Battista Angelini, adding, “instead, here people attend churches".14 Apart from the only example of the Teatro Secco Suardo, Bergamo made use, during the two theatre seasons (one at Carnival and the other one in summer), of temporary wooden buildings, a type of construction that could be easily find in other cities at the time, used both for operas and for Commedia dell'arte.
About the prejudices on theatres
We have several evidence of the prejudice on theatres, both in Bergamo and all-around Italy. As previously observed, Bergamo was a city with a strong ecclesiastical power. Additionally, although the city was politically subjected to Venice, Bergamo's diocese depended on Milan archdiocese, which, with the figure of Cardinal Borromeo, had a crucial role in the Counter-Reformation history.15
Bergamo, more than other cities of Venice's province, had a hard conflict between secular theatre and ecclesiastical culture. We can see it in the difficulties that the Teatro Secco Suardo had to deal with, as well as in other occasions. As mentioned before, the abbot and historian Giovanni Battista Angelini was not in favour of the theatrical activity in Bergamo. In 1720 he wrote that "the comedy foments the sin"16, and, reporting the demolition of the Teatro Secco Suardo and the failed attempts to create another theatre, it's impossible not to notice a certain satisfaction.
Bergamo remained without an architecturally stable and socially recognized theatre building for most of the XVIII century, a long time, considering what was going on in Venice and in the rest of Italy in that moment.
But Angelini’s writing were not only ones where we can observe this major prejudice about theatres. In particular, we can mention two personalities who contributed to the opposition to the theatrical scene. The first is the already mentioned Cardinal Carlo Borromeo (Archbishop of Milan from 1564 to 1584). In his writings we can evidence in particular the aversion for the social consequences of the theatre, for the frequency of the plays and, most of all, the attendance of ecclesiastical members in performances. The spectacle is seen here as contrary to the ideal of dignity and greatness that accompanied the religious conception of Borromeo and, in general, the Counter-Reformation period. “Besides being a possible disruptive element of order and morality, it also appears as an ideal contrary to the form of society proper to the Catholic Reformation, which is, indeed, reform of customs and restoration of doctrine."17
The second character illustrative of this thought is the Jesuit Giovan Domenico Ottonelli (1584-1670). In the five volumes of his treatise "Della Christiana Moderatione del Teatro" he reports a severe judgment on the moral conduct of theatre companies, often corrupt and, in turn, corrupting. He brings many cases of "gentlemen" of the rich palaces taking advantage of comedians' wives and other lewd conduct of the actors. Ottonelli, at the same time, seems to worry about the problems of the comedians, but denying, finally, the possibility of practicing the acting profession without being morally corrupt. He doesn't, in fact, recognize the value of this form of art: “whether it is an acrobat's monologue or a college play, an impromptu comedy or an Opera in music, theatre remains, for Ottonelli, a pastime that never becomes art, an activity that may be permitted but does not deserve an examination that takes into account certain of its intrinsic values.”18
The city was divided into urban neighbourhoods, suburban neighbourhoods and "corpi santi", 36 fractions in total, each one with its own administration, consisting of a council with all the paterfamilias, mayors and consuls. They were under the governance of the municipality for the general issues.
Other city public offices were: a chamberlain, who presided over the city's fiscal office; a chaplain; the chancellors and secretaries of the rectors; two city's councils, the major and the minor, devoted to the general administration and to the representation of the municipality of Bergamo; various special magistracies, appointed by the major council; councils of doctors and notaries; consuls of justice; consuls of merchants; a nuncio of the city working at Venice's government; guilds of arts and crafts.
