Practica di fabricar scene, e machine ne'teatri. by SABBATTINI, Nicolo.

First complete edition of the first book exclusively devoted to stage design, stage architecture, machinery and special effects. The first part was first published the year before in 1637, the inaugural year of the Teatro di Sole in Pesaro, designed by Sabbattini. Sabbattini had been architect to Francesco Maria II della Rovere, the last Duke of Urbino, who died in 1631. Sabbattini's influential treatise on stage design covered a broad range of theatrical features and mechanisms, from lighting and acoustics to the location of the best seat in the house and the creation of appropriate space for the orchestra; illusionistic devices included waves, collapsible buildings and clouds. It gave rise to a style of theatrical effects known as scènes a l'italienne. Sabbattini was a pupil of the mathematician Guidobaldo del Monte (also from Pesaro, and mentioned in the preface to this work), from whom he learned the technicalities of perspective. This work is the principal source of information about scenic practice in the Italian Renaissance theater. The Pratica is written in the form of directions to the architect who must transform the hall of state into a theatre. The author takes the reader backstage and reveals the secrets of the elaborate effects so often found in Renaissance theatre. He deals with the general problems of theatre construction, audience arrangement, scene construction, and lighting.
This copy is of great importance as it shows the influence of Sabbattini on the important theatre and set designer Edward Gordon Craig who created the great Stanislavsky Hamlet in Moscow in 1911/12 with his famous moveable screens as well as a formidable and highly influential body of theoretical writing on theatre. He edited the theatrical journal The Mask, where he wrote about Sabbattini, and ran a theatrical design school, the Arena Goldoni in FlorenceThis is his personal working copy with his annotations. On the front pastedown is written in ink “Please return to Gordon Craig, Villa Raggio, Rapallo, Italy, he has also monogrammed a noe that this is the second edition which contains both books. He adds a very brieg=f history of the author Sabbattini and his belief that this book was ‘doubtless existing in manuscript” before being published in 1637.
As ever Gordon Craig has noted the rising cost of copies in sales - he was rather concerned by money.
The pencil notes on the rear endpapers are more illuminating and more academic. The most important note is about periaktoi and other turning scenes referring to Sabbattini’s diagrams as well as Furtenbach in 1628 and writes it is “something I want to learn which Dr Nicol & others do not explain”. He makes notes about particular page references including the rather fascinating ‘To Try p.113, 111, 159.”
Some rather typically vain notes “We have done all that and improved on it - Chorus of theatrical mice in 1920 in London and in Paris.
He adds rather interestingly about how he approaches Sabbattini’s work “we have possibly not improved on the effect - so study the book not as a historic relic but as a living thing”. There are a few brief pencil notes in the body of the work - on p.56 by a diagram of steps he notes “for the spectators” on the part where Sabbattini is describing how to create the space for the audience. There are six other small notes in the text on p. 72, 134, 156, 159, 165 and cross markings by a couple of passages.