The marionette is the theatrical puppet very elegant and varied; the kind endures greater transformations by the Country, indeed, of the continent in which we consider it. The Oriental people have loved for a long time the elegant marionettes, magnificent dressed, with the faces well painted and have manufactured in ivory, in china, in valuable wood and in varied materials. The diggings have revealed to us that not only the dolls-toys, but also the dolls-marionettes, with the characteristic hole on the top of the head made for pass through wire, were notes to the ancient Rome. The poet from Venosa, Quinto Flacco Orazio, in the Book II of his Satire, gives to the marionette one famous and concise definition: "mobile lignum". We cannot forget the marionette described from Petronio in the "Banquet of Trimalcione": the silvered ghost with mobile limbs by means of a rope that one enslaved of the favourite of Emperor Nero carry to the banquet.

     

      In Rome the marionettes were knowed and had various names: pupae, homuncoli, sigillae, imagunculae animatae, ligneolae figurae, oscilla.

     The Classic Age has approached the marionettes to the legendary figures of Dedalo. Greece has seen philosophers like Socrate and Aristotele occupy they self to the marionettes; the marionettes have attracted the attention of writers like Cicerone and Orazio, and later emperor Marco Aurelio has dedicated some reflections to the marionettes. The marionettes are entered in the temples and in the palaces, they have fixed theatres and they have been on the public squares, places that they will always prefer. Which thing happens to the marionettes in the first times of the Christianity? The Fathers of the Church, strictest against the incontinences and the licentiousness of the real actors, tell us without blame of this "game", sure more sereneand less rich of the usual theatres shows. However the marionettes endure an ugly blow in Century VIII when Lion III triggers the iconoclastic movement.

     The affinities that connect our small unanimated actors to the statuary   world generates an ugly moment for the marionettes. We know that the marionettes survive, between the people and in the houses, like spontaneous play, to the craft of everyone, specially where there are children and, probably, in the roads and the public squares. It is not difficult to deduce that the marionettes even amuse the soldiers of the heterogeneous imperial army and their competitors in the leisure of the encampments, in the pauses of the fighting, because the recites of any kind have always had fortune near the soldiers. Therefore always it has happened in every time, from the Tersite of Omero and after ware, and it will always happen. Tanks to the great number of marionettisti born from the war, after the Napoleonic's campaigns, people who, in the improvised performances for the companions, had found the own vocation. As far as "marionettes sacrèes" which focuses on Charles Magnin, the Church tolerates them for the representations of Mysteries and particularly brutal or cruent tortures drawned from the Lifes of the Saints; chip ax their presence in particular occasion festivity or processions, does not escape again from the represent of monster or spectacular demons... but the Church continue not to have excessive sympathy for they and to supervise that abuses do not happen that could solved towards the sacred things.

     The true marionette, game for the children and the people, resource of the poor globetrotters that they turned public squares, fairs and inn, is born in Italy and takes its name from one traditional Venetian custom. In the year 944 some young spouses of Venice were kidnapped from barbaric pirates, they were happily and ready saved. This fact aroused much rejoicing in the lagoon city to give origin to a festivity anniversary in which carried in triumphant procession, at first some alive young women, than the Doge equipped with money, and, in in a second time, wooden feminine statues, much more economic and little demanding. The crowd appreciate and applauded this "Maries of wood" and the vagabond merchants, than run in Venice from every part of Italy for this strange festivity anniversary, wanting to please the foreigner yearnings having a memory of that day, took to sell little figures that reproduced in small the "Maries of wood". And these were the marionettes.

      Towards Century XIII the influence of the French Chivalrous novels bring to the creation of the epic cycle that has for hero the legendary King Arthur and its knights of the Round Table, the most expensive personages to the marionettes that, for centuries, we can tell without exaggeration, they will recall the enterprises in their "castles". Another popular personage between the wooden heads will be Robin Hood, that a lot taken advantage of from marionettisti anticipates the personage of the "good brigand", under every sky and in every time. We will find again trace in some interpretations of the figure of the bandit "Biondin" and the "Passator Cortese" in the theatres of the burattinai from Bologna. In Germany the chivalrous stories have also they fortune, that us remember it the armed marionettes of the Hortus Deliciarum of the Abbess Herrada of Landsberg. But what we could call "best-seller" ante litteram of the marionettistic literature is the history of "Genevieve of the Brabant", inspired from an ancient fable. Making a step behind we remember that the Germany has the virtue to have anticipated an other famous personage between the wood heroes, no less than Faust, for merit of Nun Hroswita. She deals for early time the argument of the man who comes to pacts with the devil. Topic that will be resumed towards the half of XII the century from the preacher Hartman and other modest commentators, before meeting Marlowe and, in XIX the century, Goethe (1749-1832), than sees it to represent from the marionettes that could not exclude from their microcosm a similar personage. If the marionettes get hold like hail vain fact for "Genevieve" who remained a classic with other legends which "The Four Sons of Ajmon ", "White woman like the snow" and "The Dame of the Roussillon".

     Italy, beyond to being the native land of the burattini and the marionettes, has in their cares another virtue: towards the end of the Middle Ages, thanks to the presence of exceptionally brilliant men, perfect these little figures and, studying the human anatomy and the physical laws that govern it, it indirectly improves the anatomy of the "heads of wood". Girolamo Cardano (1501-76) from Pavia, mathematician, astrologer, physicist, does not scorn to show all the sympathy that he tries for the marionettes mentioning they in its treaty "De Subtilitate". Cardano rebuke describes the mirable game that two Sicilians puppeteers makes with some wooden statuettes.

      Spain chip ax the improvements brought to the marionettes from the cremonese Giannello Torriani were be in the monastery of S. Just with Charles V and creates small automatic wonders that like more to the mechanic puppet that the true and own marionettes. Torriani dont brings therefore the marionettes in Spain, but he perfects the art; and make it in mirabile way therefore that Charles V sees its little soldiers to jump on a horse, play the bugle and fight. Miguel Cervantes, in its "Don Quixote", gives us precise particulars on the marionettistic performances. Its Master Pedro, the puppeteer, is accompanied from a young person that he begins recites it making "declarator", that is explaining the weft. Cervantes writes the history of the hidalgo in posterior age to that we are examinee, but, for how much is the custom and repertory of the Italian marionettisti or not that they operate in the Iberian Peninsula the tradition is not changed, and not changed for various time still.

      The 1700 is a century of big upsettings for the theatre of the marionettes. At the start of the century born in Venice Carlo Goldoni (1707-1793). He, since his childhood, is attract from the theatre and write some little pieces that he perform with the marionettes and burattini. Goldoni don't invent the personages of the Commedia dell'Arte, but he make this personages recognizable for the public. Towards 1773 the marionettes are in order to mark a great point to they favour: a musician of the bore of F. J. Haydn (1732-1809) composes for they 5 small works and the "Burlesque Simphony". In order to amuse the Viennese court the composer C. W. Gluck (1714-1787) wrote works for marionettes too. Also Mozart (1756-1792) dedicated itself to the marionettes and seems that the most famous opera of the Austrian composer," The Magic Flute", had been composed in order to be represented with the marionettes. In France, with Lesage, Fuzelier and D'Orneval the marionettes acquire three authors whom they do not force to them to the usuals jokes, becomes stales, neither to the imitations of the Italian comedies, they create purposely French witnesses, written for the marionettes, where the nail of the lion is felt, and the Gaullism wit, under a apparently light shape. How many parodies, through the marionettes. The marionettes put in prank all the authors in vogue, and they do not have respect not even for Francois-Marie Arouet de Voltaire (1694-1778), wich he has much sympathy for they.

      The time passes and the marionettes install theyself in theatres and social life of 1800. In Italy was founded stable theatres for the marionettes, in Turin the Lupi founded the "Teatro Gianduja" and in Milan the "Company Carlo Colla e Figli" works into the Teatro Fiando, called Gerolamo in honour of the main mask of the company, while in Genoa, in a little theatre in the quarter of the Murette, acts Nicola Tanlongo, nicknamed "Feugo" (fire, for his ill-tempered).

      From the 1870 the english puppeteer Holden replaces to the marionettes governed by rigid batons the marionettes with wires and he declare that they make to complete squanderers of the electricity, with the maximum natural appearance, to his mechanical artists and animals. Lamercier de Neuville observed that they spoke to the eyes than to the spirit more. If the marionettes of Holden have begun the great age of the tournée of prestigious marionettisti through all Europe, there is soon who thinks to conquer the America quite. The marionettes cross the ocean guided by Madame Jewel and the Schitchtl Company imitates it. The United States loves the kind vaudeville and the woodenheads please the Americans spectators. The marionettes are not limited to the stable theatres, the companies that do not possess a theatre cover the Italian peninsula far and wide. They represent their own shows in the public squares, in threshingfloor, in stables and also in small villages dispersed on the mountains, contributing therefore to the dissemination of the culture. The shows were of various kinds, dramatic like "The Baker from Venice" or historicals like "Joan D'Arc" or drowned from the newspapers like "The Battle of Dogali".

      Unfortunately for our small actors, towards the half of 1900 born the television and the public, practically with the amusement in they houses, stops to flow to the shows of the marionettes. Many companies close, others continue in their job replacing the old scripts with fables dedicated to the children.

      But the marionettes finds a large help allying in a personage borned at Cividale del Friuli, Vittorio Podrecca (1883-1959) and with he the Italian marionettes, accustomed from centuries to the eventful travels for the roads of Europe, know the tournée in large and crossing the Atlantic Ocean. During its innumerable travels Podrecca he had touched also Czechoslovakia with its "Teatro dei Piccoli" and various artists of the place agree in recognizing that he had not negligible influence in urging to the resumption of the marionettistic tradition. After 1840 there were in Italy approximately 400 companies of marionettisti, between the other: Aimino, Altieri, Barbieri, Bascucci, Bellio, Bottini, Braga, Burzio, Cagnoli, Carbone, Cevasco, Colla, Concordia, Conti, Croce, Degola, Dell'Acqua, Diletto, Fiando, Figini, Gambarutti, Garda, Gorno, Lupi, Mainetto, Marengo, Novelli, Pallavicini, Picchi, Piccinini, Ponti, Prandi, Rame, Reccardini, Sale-Bellone, Salici, Salvi, Santoro, Tanlongo, Zane, etc. etc.: Aimino, Altieri, Barbieri, Bascucci, Bellio, Bottini, Braga, Burzio, Cagnoli, Carbone, Cevasco, Colla, Concordia, Conti, Croce, Degola, Dell'Acqua, Diletto, Fiando, Figini, Gambarutti, Garda, Gorno, Lupi, Mainetto, Marengo, Novelli, Pallavicini, Picchi, Piccinini, Ponti, Prandi, Rame, Reccardini, Sale-Bellone, Salici, Salvi, Santoro, Tanlongo, Zane, etc. etc.

      Nowadays, the puppet theater in Italy has little consideration by the institutions, perhaps because, wrongly, is considered a form of "theater minor", mainly dedicated to children. Unfortunately, the replacement of old texts with the representation of fairy tales for children, made by those who wanted to continue their activities, has proved a double edged sword, relegating this type of theater to an audience of children. In other Countries, on the contrary, the puppet theater is considered on a par with any show of prose.