Masks and Comic Stereotypes between Performance and Image in Late 16th -Century Bavaria

This article focuses on the late 16th-century frescoes decorating the Narrentreppe of the Bavarian castle of Trausnitz, which are one of the first important examples of the figurative myth of commedia dell’arte, a myth capable of projecting itself far beyond its own already lengthy historical parabola. The reinterpretation of the frescoes, considered in a broader cultural context, distances itself from traditional historiography, which has tended to consider these images as a possible record of performances by companies of professional Italian actors in the German area in the second half of the 16th century. Rather, these figurations are indicative of the very early diffusion in the iconography of the themes and motifs of the commedia dell’arte, which almost immediately becomes a true aesthetic phenomenon in all of Europe.