The taste for French literature in Italy carried over into the
nineteenth century, and so did the censors' work. This little
volume of a French play in translation, The Lion in
Love, by Francois Ronsard, was published just eight
years after the Unification of Italy. It was a working
playbook perhaps owned by the director of a traveling
theatrical company. On the pages open to display, one can see
the seals and signatures of censors from Palermo, Venice, and
Livorno (Leghorn), cities where the play was staged. The
script is heavily marked, particularly where there are
references to French nobility and the French
Revolution. Notice the word "Francesi" in the last line of the
play; the transformed line then reads "To unify the Latins
under one device," perhaps a reference to the recent Italian
unification.
A project of The Digital Scriptorium, Special
Collections Library, Duke University. December
1996
http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/mazzoni/exhibit/
