Many will remember that Opera dei Pupi was designated by UNESCO as an “Oral and Intangible Masterpiece in the Heritage of Humanity” in 2001. It remains much less known, however, that this popular tradition also had an illustrious history in the United States, especially in New York City due largely to the passion and perseverance of the preeminent Catanese-American puppeteer Agrippino Manteo. In 2010, the Manteo family donated to the Italian American Museum of New York over thirty of their Catanese-style puppets and most of the family's extant scripts, along with Italian chivalric publications from Agrippino's library and painted backdrops used during performances. This generous gift has in a real sense made tangible an extraordinary intangible cultural heritage.

The Italian American Museum of New York is scheduled to reopen in the fall of 2023 in a completely redesigned four-story building at 151 Mulberry Street—just down the block from the family's former marionette theater, Teatro Manteo, in Little Italy. In addition to a Manteo puppet display in the Museum's permanent exhibition, future plans include a full exhibit on the history of the Manteo family's puppet theater tradition featuring the marionettes donated by Agrippino's descendants.

At the time of this writing, I have scanned all of the extant notebooks in Agrippino Manteo's handwriting donated to the Italian American Museum as well as some additional privately owned scripts. The Museum, in turn, has scanned twenty-one notebooks from the Paladins of France cycle copied by Agrippino's son Mike Manteo. These scripts will soon be made available on both the Museum's website and the eBOIARDO website. While the Manteo Sicilian Marionette exhibit will give an idea of the artistic inspiration, cultural tradition, and artisanal craftsmanship at work in the construction of the wooden actors, the online scripts will give students, scholars, and the general public a unique window into an imaginative world that transcends the categories of elite and folk, Sicilian and American, and medieval and modern.

As a puppeteer whose formation in Sicily coincided with opera dei pupi's heyday, Agrippino devoted his life to reimagining the vicissitudes of the Paladins of France and to representing them on stage for primarily Italian-speaking audiences in the Americas, from his early years in Argentina to his almost two decades of performing nightly in New York City. Even though American society changed substantially in the decades following the closing of the Teatro Manteo in 1939, the passion that Agrippino's children felt for the tradition motivated them to bring their style of Catanese puppet theater to a wide variety of audiences right up to the death of Mike Manteo in 1989.

Each successive adaptation is both an interpretation of the previous material and a recipe for living in the present. Agrippino's stated aim was to remain faithful to his source, the Storia dei paladini, and yet in the very act of transporting action from the page to the stage, he recreated the chivalric stories according to his own Weltanschauung. As exemplary as I find the eight selections that I chose to translate and analyze, they are only a fraction of Agrippino's 265 extant plays in the Paladins of France cycle. It is, therefore, my hope that anyone who has made it to the end of this study will be inclined to further investigate Agrippino's “irreplaceable scripts” and to read (or perhaps reread with fresh eyes) the chivalric masterpieces that gave rise to them.

Introduction

Following Angelica's sudden departure from France (discussed below), Astolfo of England wins the Parisian tournament initially proclaimed by the emperor thanks to his serendipitous acquisition of Argalia's lance whose magical property remains unknown to him. Yet rather than receiving recognition for his victory, Astolfo is wounded from behind “with / much treachery and false deceit” (OI 1.3.21) and then slandered by Gano and the Maganzese clan. In response to the resulting scuffle, the gullible emperor precipitously orders Astolfo's arrest rather than duly honoring him as the champion. After languishing in prison for months, the English knight is released only after Gradasso's army (having passed through Spain) wages a direct assault on Paris and overcomes Carlo's forces. With the fate of Christendom in the balance, the newly freed Astolfo courageously challenges the king of Sericana to single combat. Following his unexpected defeat of Gradasso, Astolfo also gains a moral victory over Carlo by censuring the emperor's poor judgment and departing from his realm (OI 1.7.37–71).

Most of the action in sera 159 concerns the vicissitudes taking place in Paris: from Gradasso's conquest of the city in the absence of Orlando and Rinaldo to its liberation at the hands of Astolfo (Figure 4.1). In addition, however, Agrippino also weaves in the romance adventures undertaken by both Orlando and Rinaldo far beyond Europe while Paris is under siege. The play's interlaced episodes not only thereby take place in three very disparate regions of the globe, but they also contrast the actions and mindset of the three paladins: (1) Astolfo, after single-handedly saving France, remonstrates with Carlo for having acted against justice; (2) Orlando, having deserted the emperor (and his own wife Alda) out of love for Angelica, falls under the spell of a fairy in the Caucasus region and thereby loses his identity; and (3) Rinaldo, having been whisked away against his will on the morning of a scheduled duel against Gradasso in Spain, arrives on an island in the Indian Ocean where he resists the allure of an enchanted site constructed by none other than Angelica.

Agrippino's Early Years in the Province of Catania

Agrippino Manteo was born to Michele Manteo and Agata Tornello in the town of Grammichele, in the province of Catania, on April 1, 1884. The dramatic and distant events of his childhood and early youth invite legendizing. He was orphaned at a very early age (possibly at four years old or even younger). According to Agrippino's daughter Ida, “a stray bullet” killed her grandfather and a month later her grandmother died of “a broken heart” (Mandell). Agrippino and his older sister Teresa were subsequently relocated to their maternal grandmother's farm and put to work under very difficult conditions. Treated more like a child laborer than a grandchild, Agrippino often ran away due to his grandmother's harsh measures and the incessant farm chores.

Agrippino's passion for puppet theater, dating back to his early youth, is remembered by family members as an instance of love at first sight. When the puppeteer Giuseppe (Peppino, Peppe) Crimi (1854–1937) performed in Grammichele, the young Agrippino was so enthralled that he went backstage afterward. Finding out that the boy's last name was Manteo and that his father's first name had been Michele, Crimi informed him that his father had also been a puppeteer. Agrippino immediately asked Crimi to teach him the art as well. Since at the time traveling puppeteers remained for prolonged periods in the towns they visited in order to play out the cycle of the Paladins of France, Crimi took the boy under his wing and gave him a pair of puppets to practice on his own. According to another version of the story, Agrippino set out for Catania at the age of seventeen “to find his father's partners” and to learn the art of puppetry (Mandell, citing Ida Manteo). Regardless of how the encounter came about, Agrippino's foundational experience with Giuseppe Crimi set the stage for a life devoted to Sicilian puppet theater across three continents.

Agrippino's Apprenticeship in Catanese Puppet Theater and Dramatic Theater

The province of Catania was at the cutting edge of puppet theater during this period thanks primarily to Giuseppe Crimi's own father, Gaetano Crimi (1808–1873). The elder Crimi, in fact, is considered to be the primary founder and foremost early practitioner of puppet theater in eastern Sicily.

1. Pagan captain in the army of Balaheim

2. Balaheim, mighty pagan giant, ruthless against all Christians

3. Christian captain with the army of Charlemane

4. Mamalock, pagan giant in the court of King Solatiello

5. Pagan captain with the army of Mamalock

6. Pagan captain with the army of Mamalock

7. Agolaccio, half brother of Orlando

8. Rinaldo (white armor) Second knight to Orlando, in the court of Charlemane. He was very strong and powerful. The white armor was used for festivities. He was also cousin to Orlando.

9. Morgante, he is an original, made in 1923. Morgante was a very strong pagan giant who was baptized a Christian.

10. Uggier il Danese, 4th knight in the court of Charlemane

11. Soriano, Christian king

12. Astolfo, cousin of Orlando, knight in the court of Charlemane

13. Pagan captain in the army of Balaheim

14. Rinaldo, in brass armor, used in battles.

15. Pagan captain in the army of Balaheim

16. Pagan captain in the army of Balaheim

17. Agrippo, knight in the court of Charlemane. Agrippo is one of the newest marionettes made by Papa in 1984

18. Alessandro, knight in Charlemane's court.

19. Zervino, knight in Charlemane's court.

20. Arismondo, pagan king of Trebisonda

21. Bradamante, sister of Rinaldo. Also a knight in the court of Charlemane. She was called “The Tiger of Montalbano.”

22. Gabby, beggar. Was used in the earlier stories of Orlando when he was young.

23. Febbu, pagan giant, brother of Mamalock

24. Pagan captain in the army of Mamalock

25. Brandmarto, great warrior

26. Pagan captain in the army of Mamalock

27. Henchman

28. Malagigi, sorcerer. Cousin of Orlando and Rinaldo. He helped the Christians.

29. Bramadoro, pagan king of Persia

30. Guerino, detto meschino

31. Agramante, Pagan king of Besertta

32. Pagan captain

33. King Charlemane in armor

34. Christian captain

35. Pagan captain

36. Oliviero, 3rd knight in the court of Charlemane

37. Pagan captain

38. Count Gano, cousin of Charlemane. He was cunning and ruthless. He was the cause of many betrayals involving Orlando and Rinaldo with Charlemane.

Introduction

Right from the grand council in which Boiardo's Agramante announced his plan to invade France, the North African king exemplified an overreaching ruler destined to lose his kingdom in a reckless attempt to acquire something beyond his reach. Boiardo had foretold, moreover, that the invasion of France would not only end in failure but would lead to the destruction of Biserta as well (OI 2.1.19). As Ariosto fulfills this prophecy in the final cantos of the Furioso, Agramante's original aviditas dominationis gives way to warfare based on religious difference.

In an episode that evokes the fall of Jerusalem in First Crusade chronicles, Biserta is destroyed above all thanks to the leadership of Orlando and Astolfo, the military support of Senapo's Ethiopians, and the direct intervention of the Christian God. Indeed, God not only orchestrates the recovery of Orlando's wits and Senapo's eyesight (in the latter case securing an important ally for the Christians), as we have seen in the previous chapter, but enacts three additional miracles to help the Ethiopian army reach Biserta: the capture of the disruptive African winds inside a wineskin bag, the metamorphosis of stones to horses, and the transformation of leaves into ships (OF 38.29–30, 38.33–35, 39.26–29).

Although with the sack of Biserta Agramante has essentially lost both the war and his kingdom, the final outcome will be determined by a battle of Orlando, Oliviero, and Brandimarte against Agramante, Gradasso, and Sobrino on Lipadusa (the island of Lampedusa that lies between Sicily and Africa). This climactic three-on-three combat is the core of sera 208. The play opens with Gradasso swept by a storm at sea to the shores of Lampedusa, where he is soon thereafter joined by Agramante and Sobrino (Act 1, scene 4). Preliminaries continue intermittently throughout Act 2, while the battle and its aftermath take up all of Act 3.

While this final epic confrontation constitutes much of the play's action, there are two additional narrative threads that are carefully interwoven through the customary technique of entrelacement. The first, concerning Rinaldo, is present in all three Acts and spans from Act 1, scene 2, to the final moments of Act 3. The second, involving Ruggiero, begins in Act 1, scene 8, and is continued in Act 2, scenes 1 and 3.

Although puppetry arts have existed since ancient times and can be found throughout the world from Southeast Asia to Northern Europe, Sicilian opera dei pupi has very distinct characteristics that set it apart from other forms of puppet theater. Large wooden puppets with full metal armor, swords, and shields bring to life primarily epic narratives based on masterpieces of medieval and Renaissance Italian literature. This tradition of prose theater was the predominant form of nightly entertainment among working-class Sicilians from the early 1800s until the proliferation of television in the late 1950s. Opera dei pupi also developed outside Italy among diasporic communities, especially in North and South America as well as North Africa, bringing Italian immigrants across the globe together each evening to witness dramatizations of the same epic stories they knew and loved.

Virtually all Sicilian puppeteers from the 1860s to the present have based their chivalric repertory on the prose compilation Storia dei paladini di Francia, first adapted from twenty Renaissance chivalric poems by Giusto Lodico in 1858–1860 and subsequently expanded by Giuseppe Leggio in an 1895–1896 edition. This monumental work provided puppeteers with the narrative material for a Paladins of France cycle consisting of well over 300 consecutive plays. The expanded fictional cycle stretched from before the birth of Charlemagne (740s) to the aftermath of the battle of Roncevaux (778). In addition, many puppeteers extended their chronological range even further by staging stories going back to the time of the emperor Constantine (reigned 306–337) and forward to the First Crusade (1096–1099) and beyond. These stories, especially those concerning the Frankish paladins, were experienced as part of a shared history. After all, as emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Charlemagne had presided over an extensive Christian realm to which the various Italian states had belonged. Some of the cycle's action, moreover, took place in Italy, such as Orlando's birth and childhood in Sutri, outside Rome, the invasion of Calabria by the North African king Agolante, and the epic battle of three-against-three on the island of Lampedusa that brought to a conclusion King Agramante of Biserta's invasion of France.

Agolante—North African king who invaded Calabria in the Aspramonte, grandfather of both Agramante (via his son Troiano) and Rugiero/ Ruggiero (via his daughter Galaciella/Galaziella)

Agramante—King of Biserta (Tunisia); commands rulers of other African states

Agricane—khan of Tartary (Mongol Empire); father of Mandricardo

Alceste—hapless suitor of Lidia, princess of Lydia (western Asia Minor)

Alcina—enchantress; Boiardo locates her north of the Caspian Sea, Ariosto on an East Asian island

Alda—Orlando's wife

Almonte—North African warrior; Agolante's son and Galaziella's brother

Amone—Frankish paladin; father of Ranaldo/Rinaldo, Bradamante, and Ricciardetto

Angelica—daughter of Galafrone, king of Cathay; sister of Argalia

Anselmo di Altaripa—Pinabello's father

Aquilante—son of Oliviero, twin brother of Grifone, raised in Constantinople

Argalia—son of Galafrone, king of Cathay; brother of Angelica

Astolfo—son of Ottone, king of England; cousin of Orlando and Ranaldo/ Rinaldo

Atalante/Atlante—North African wizard and guardian of Rugiero/Ruggiero

Baiardo—horse belonging to Ranaldo/Rinaldo, coveted by Gradasso

Balugante/Bolugante—brother of Marsilio, king of Spain, and of Galerana, empress of the Franks

Beltramo—treacherous brother of Rugiero/Ruggiero II (di Risa, i.e., Reggio Calabria)

Bradamante—Frankish paladin; beloved of Rugiero/Ruggiero and sister of Ranaldo/Rinaldo

Brandimarte—beloved of Fiordelisa/Fiordiligi; born in the Far Away Islands (northern Russia); kidnapped and raised at Castle Wild, near Samarkand, Uzbekistan

Branzardo di Bugia—African king

Brunello—North African thief; originally serves the king of Fez, becomes the king of Tingitana

Carlo/Carlomagno—emperor of the Franks; married to Galerana

Clarice—wife of Ranaldo/Rinaldo

Doralice—princess of Granada, beloved of Rodamonte/Rodomonte; becomes Mandricardo's lover

Dragontina/Drogantina—enchantress from Media (northern Iran)

Falerina—enchantress in charge of the enchanted Garden of Orgagna (possibly in Turkmenistan)

Falsirone—brother of Marsilio, Balugante/Bolugante, and Galerana

Feraguto/Ferraù—nephew of Saracen King Marsilio of Spain

Fiordelisa/Fiordeligi—beloved of Brandimarte; from the Syrian city of Laodicea (Latakia); kidnapped and raised at Castle Wild, near Samarkand, Uzbekistan

Fiordespina/Fiordispina—Spanish Saracen princess, King Marsilio's daughter

Gabrina—an evil elderly woman who guards Isabella and then betrays Zerbino

Galaciella/Galiziella—daughter of an Amazon warrior and the African king Agolante; wife of Ruggiero II; mother of Rugiero/Ruggiero and Marfisa

Introduction

By this point in the Orlando Innamorato, the North African invasion of Carlo's realm is well under way. Although Rugiero's wizard guardian Atalante had been sheltering him in the Atlas Mountains in the Maghreb to protect him from his destined early death by betrayal, the youth was lured out by a ruse and he subsequently joined Agramante's expedition as it followed Rodamonte to France. In the meantime, Gradasso has undertaken another journey from the Far East to France to attain Durlindana and Baiardo. Along the way, he teams up with Mandricardo, who has set out from Tartaria to avenge the death of Agricane by killing Orlando. As the two new companions head westward, the narrator remarks that “such a valiant pair / was not then found in pagan lands” (OI 3.2.39). The two warrior kings will eventually join the allied Saracen forces closing in on the Christian Franks. Nonetheless, as we find out in sera 182, they do not hesitate to fight each other over the right to possess Orlando's sword.

In the midst of the invasion of France, a battlefield love story arises between the Saracen Rugiero and the Christian Bradamante that goes against the “us” versus “them” mentality characteristic of war. Although the two are technically enemy combatants when they meet, they treat each other first and foremost as individuals deserving of respect. Their encounter is not a minor diversion from the martial exploits but rather the most crucial moment of the Innamorato given that Boiardo imagines the North African Rugiero and the Frankish Bradamante to be the progenitors of the Estense dynasty of Ferrara, currently headed by the poem's dedicatee, Duke Ercole I d’Este.

The core of sera 182 dramatizes the fateful encounter of Bradamante (Figure 7.1) and Ruggiero (Figure 7.2) leading to their enamorment. The growing bond between the two courteous knights provides a contrast to the animosity surrounding them on both a grand scale (the pan-African invasion of France serving as frame in Acts 1 and 3) and at an individual level (Rodomonte's discourtesy in Act 1, scene 5; the ambush in Act 2, scenes 2 and 3; and the dispute between Mandricardo and Gradasso over Orlando's sword in Act 3, scene 4).

Agrippino Manteo (April 1, 1884–August 1, 1947) and his wife, Caterina Golino ( June 14, 1884–May 17, 1963), had five children:

Ida, also called Agata, Adelaida, Agatina, Aida (1905–1994)

Mike, also called Miguel, Michele, Michael (1910–1989)

Dominic, also called Domingo, Domenic, Dom, Leo (1911–1985)

Ritz, also called Agrippino II and Pino (1916–1956)

Johnny, also called Giovanni (1921–1939)

Of Agrippino and Caterina's numerous descendants, those mentioned in the context of the family's theatrical activities (Chapter 1) are as follows:

Susie Bruno (b. 1939), daughter of Ida Manteo and Angelo Grillo, wife of Joe Bruno

Joanne Lauria (b. 1942), daughter of Ida Manteo and Angelo Grillo, wife of Vincent Lauria

Pino (Agrippino) Manteo (1932–2018), son of Mike and Mary Manteo

Dolores Amoriello (1935–2019), daughter of Dominic Manteo and Frances Vidal, wife of Rick Amoriello

The notebooks followed by an asterisk are privately owned, while all others listed below were donated to the Italian American Museum of New York.

The “Copioni” set

Copione 3 (originally Libro 1): Serate 1–14*1

Copione 4 (originally Libro 2): Serate 16–27*

Copione 5 (originally Paladini 2): Serate 25–45*

Copione 6 (originally Paladini 3): Serate 46–68

Copione 7 (originally Paladini 4): Serate 69–93*

Copione 8: Serate 92–107

Copione 9: Serate 108–128

Copione 10: Serate 129–146

Copione 11: Serate 147–164

Copione 12: Serate 165–180

Copione 13: Serate 181–195*

Copione 14 (originally Paladini 9): Serate 198–209

Copione 18 (originally Paladini 13): Serate 245–253

Copione 19 (originally Paladini 14): Serate 254–265

Copione 21: Serate 281–292

Copione 22: Serate 293–304

Copione 23: Serate 319–330

Notebooks and plays missing from this set: 15–17 (serate 210–244); 20 (serate 266–280), and serate 305–318 between Copioni 22 and 23.

The “Libri” set

Libro 1: Serate 1–15*

Libro 1: Serate 1–14 (repurposed as Copione 3)*

Libro 2: Serate 16–27 (repurposed as Copione 4)*

Libro 5: Serate 49–63*

Libro 6: Serate 64–79*

Libro 7: Serate 80–91

The rest of the set is missing.

The “Paladini” set

Paladini 1: Serate 1–24*4

Paladini 2 (repurposed as Copione 5): Serate 25–45*

Paladini 3 (repurposed as Copione 6): Serate 46–68

Paladini 4 (repurposed as Copione 7): Serate 69–93*

Paladini 6: Serate 120–142*

Paladini 7: Serate 143–172*

Paladini 8: Serate 173–195*

Paladini 9 (repurposed as Copione 14): Serate 198–209

Paladini 13 (repurposed as Copione 18): Serate 245–253

Paladini 14 (repurposed as Copione 19): Serate 254–265

The rest of the set is missing.

Additional Notebooks Containing Select Episodes from the Paladins of France Cycle

La morte dei Paladini nella Roncisvalle: Serate 326–328

Untitled notebook (missing a cover) with ten plays based on the Storia dei paladini's adaptation of the Orlando Furioso: Serate 1–10*

Introduction

Although Ariosto relays Orlando's loss of sanity in painstaking psychological detail, he later reveals that the paladin's affliction is nothing less than divine retribution. After Orlando has spent three months wandering aimlessly and wreaking havoc wherever he goes, the period of punishment is over and God enlists Astolfo to restore his cousin's sanity. The English knight had already been a world traveler in the Innamorato, departing from Paris (discussed in Chapter 4) and reaching Cathay on horseback, then continuing on a circuitous route to the most disparate corners of the globe. In the Furioso, he travels not only by land and sea, but also by air, first upon a hippogriff that takes him to Africa, the entrance of hell, and the terrestrial paradise, and subsequently in a divine chariot that transports him to the moon where he will retrieve Orlando's wits.

Astolfo's aerial adventures constitute the core of sera 203. He appears in Act 1 descending from the sky on the hippogriff as he arrives in Nubia (Ethiopia), and he finds himself on the lunar surface by the final scene of Act 3. His divinely orchestrated mission to retrieve Orlando's wits, however, is not the exclusive focus of the play. His adventures are interwoven with additional narrative threads that revolve around the theme of the quest: (1) Bradamante finally decides to leave her family home in Montalbano to seek out Ruggiero; (2) the knights Sansonetto and Oliviero are intent on searching for Orlando; and (3) Rinaldo, although not mentioned in the summary, appears in one scene aiming to recover his horse Baiardo from Gradasso. Whereas Astolfo, following God's design, will succeed in restoring Orlando's sanity without having knowingly set out to do so, his peers are not as fortunate: Bradamante's reunion with Ruggiero will be obstructed and delayed until much later; Orlando's two friends Sansonetto and Oliviero are challenged, defeated, and imprisoned by Rodomonte; and Rinaldo simply wanders in vain. The juxtaposition of these various storylines in the play creates a contrast between the utter efficacy of divine intervention and the inherent difficulties of human undertakings.