 Mask of stock character named 'Bucco' or 'Buccus' |
Fabula Atellana, (Latin: "Atellan play"), the earliest native Italian farce.
It was an early Rustic improvisational comedy which featured masked stock characters. The town "Atella" in Campania, is from where the farces derived their name. These plays seemed to have developed among Italian speaking people of the Oscan dialect. They arose to become popular entertainment in the ancient republican and imperial Rome. They were performed in Latin but included Oscan words and placenames. Originally based on scenerios handed down by tradition, by the first century B.C. they became a literary genre but today, very few fragments survive.
Works by Lucian Pomponius of Bononia, Novius, and other writers are some of the known works. Stock characters included Maccus, the clown; Bucco "Fat Cheeks" the Simpleton; Pappus the old fool; Dossennus, whose name has been translated to mean "hunchback"; and Manducus, which possibly means "The Glutton". No farces beyond the first century A.D. are known to exist, though certain stock character of the 16th century Italian commedia dell'arte are reflective of the influence by the ancient atellian plays.
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