ed celebrity by his contributions to the operatic drama at Naples,
Venice and Vienna (where he held office as _poeta cesareo_, whose
function was to arrange the court entertainments). But his _libretti_
have a poetic value of their own;[20] and Voltaire pronounced much of
him worthy of Corneille and of Racine, when at their best. The influence
of Voltaire had now come to predominate over the Italian drama; and, in
accordance with the spirit of the times, greater freedom prevailed in
the choice of tragic themes. Thus the greatest of Italian tragic poets.
Count V. Alfieri (1749-1803), found his path prepared for him. Alfieri's
grand and impassioned treatment of his subjects caused his faultiness of
form, which he never altogether overcame, to be forgotten. His themes
were partly classical;[21] but the spirit of a love of freedom which his
creations[22] breathe was the herald of the national ideas of the
future. Spurning the usages of French tragedy, his plays, which abound
in soliloquies, owe part of their effect to an impassioned force of
declamation, part to those "points" by which Italian acting seems
pre-eminently capable of thrilling an audience. He has much besides the
subjects of two of his dramas[23] in common with Schiller, but his
amazon-muse (as Schlegel called her) was not schooled into serenity,
like the muse of the German poet. Among his numerous plays (21),
_Merope_ and _Saul_, and perhaps _Mirra_, are accounted his
masterpieces.

Tragedians since Alfieri.

The political colouring given by Alfieri to Italian tragedy reappears in
the plays of U. Foscolo and A. Manzoni, both of whom are under the
influence of the romantic school of modern literature; and to these
names must be added those of S. Pellico and G. B. Niccolini (1785-1861),
Paolo Giacometti (b. 1816) and others, whose dramas[24] treat largely
national themes familiar to all students of modern history and
literature. In their hands Italian tragedy upon the whole adhered to its
love of strong situations and passionate declamation. Since the
successful efforts of G. Modena (1804-1861) renovated the tragic stage
in Italy, the art of tragic acting long stood at a higher level in this
than in almost any other European country; in Adelaide Ristori (Marchesa
del Grillo) the tragic stage lost one of the greatest of modern
actresses; and Ernesto Rossi (1827-1896) and Tommaso Salvini long
remained rivals in the noblest forms of tragedy.

Italian co