Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xiii
Illustrations xv
Introduction 1
The Buffoons, A Ridiculous Comedy 73
Dedication 75
To the Readers 77
Cast of Characters 79
Argument 81
Canzonetta 83
Prologue 85
Act One 97
Act Two 201
Act Three 273
Canzonette 325
Notes to the Italian Edition 330
Notes to the English Translation 331
Bibliography 347
Index 363

About the Author

Sara E. Diaz is Assistant Professor of the Practice of Italian at Fairfield University. Her research focuses on gender and comic discourses in medieval and early modern Italian literature.
Jessica Goethals is Assistant Professor of Italian at the University of Alabama. She has published on early modern Italian literature and culture.
Sara E. Diaz is Assistant Professor of the Practice of Italian at Fairfield University. Her research focuses on gender and comic discourses in medieval and early modern Italian literature.
Jessica Goethals is Assistant Professor of Italian at the University of Alabama. She has published on early modern Italian literature and culture.

Reviews

Margherita Costa’s Li Buffoni, depreciated, misattributed or just simply forgotten through the centuries, has finally found some love. In the sensitive hands of Sara Díaz and Jessica Goethals, who cheerfully whip the complicated language of this commedia ridicolosa into shape while remaining attentive to the irreverent, rambunctious vocabulary of the text, we find another valuable voice to add to the ever-growing roster of early modern women writers from Italy. A poet, dramatist, historian, singer, librettist, “widow and poor virtuosa with two daughters,” Costa produced fourteen works in which she managed to say something important through laughter about what court life was like for underlings of either sex,and what kind of Baroque poetics allow women to find their voice.

--Valeria Finucci, Professor of Romance Studies, Duke University

"Margherita Costa’s Li Buffoni, depreciated, misattributed or just simply forgotten through the centuries, has finally found some love. In the sensitive hands of Sara Díaz and Jessica Goethals, who cheerfully whip the complicated language of this commedia ridicolosa into shape while remaining attentive to the irreverent, rambunctious vocabulary of the text, we find another valuable voice to add to the ever-growing roster of early modern women writers from Italy. A poet, dramatist, historian, singer, librettist, 'widow and poor virtuosa with two daughters,' Costa produced fourteen works in which she managed to say something important through laughter about what court life was like for underlings of either sex, and what kind of Baroque poetics allow women to find their voice."
 
*Valeria Finucci, Duke University*