Launcelot Gobbo, Old Gobbo and Les Gobbi, Part 2

After discovering that Jacques Callot had illustrated a series of sketches of a troupe of dwarf actors and musicians known as Les Gobbi I naturally wondered "what connection might exist between this troupe and the characters of Old Gobbo and Launcelot Gobbo from The Merchant of Venice?" Though the possible connection certainly supports directors and dramaturgs to making some unconventional casting decisions, I confess that my speculation was not vigorously supported by the evidence, as Callot clearly made the illustrations long after the publication of The Merchant of Venice and I had no evidence as to how long the troupe had existed or if an earlier version of the troupe could have been known in England.

However, the Victoria and Albert Museum has in its collection a set of porcelain figures based on Callot's illustrations of Les Gobbi, and their website stated that these "grotesque dwarf entertainers" performed at the Medici court.

I checked the index of Pierre Louis Duchartre's classic work on the history of the commedia dell'arte, The Italian Comedy and found no reference to Les Gobbi, though other troupes of the era are mentioned. Of course Duchartre has some bizarre discomfort with the more vulgar elements of the commedia dell'arte, and might have been tempted to disregard a troupe who could be described as "grotesque" no matter how popular, even if, as the illustrations indicate, at least some of them were masked actors.

John Russell Brown, in his introduction to the Arden edition of The Merchant of Venice also notes that:

John Florio's Italian dictionary, A World of Words (1598), gave "Gobbo, crook-backt. Also a kind of faulkon."

Though A World of Words was likely published after Shakespeare had composed and produced The Merchant of Venice there is some indication that even in England of the 1590s that "gobbo" was used as a term of derision for those with hunched or crooked backs, at least amongst those who had some passing familiarity with Italian. I know Shakespeare well enough to know that he did not shy away from vulgarity, or anything that our 21st century liberal ears would find too cruel to utter in polite society-- and certainly some of Callot's Gobbi are "crook-backt." Of course, there is also some possibility that Shakespeare and Florio were acquaintances and shared a fondness for insults.

Brown also offers the countering hypothesis that since the first quarto often renders "Gobbo" as "Iobbe" (spelling was not standardized back in 1600) that perhaps Shakespeare intended to provide an Italianized form of the Biblical Job. To me, this is doubtful, as the strongest Biblical allusion related to the Gobbi is that of Isaac and Jacob both in terms of Launcelot's tricking his blind father, as Jacob tricked his blind father, and Launcelot's prolific nature which is a somewhat comic parallel to Jacob's own fathering of the Twelve Tribes of Israel (and let us not forget the pun in the younger Gobbo's name: "Lance-a-lot.") If anything, the rendering as "Iobbe" should be taken less as a literary allusion than a hint for how the name should be pronounced on stage.

Knowing Shakespeare, and knowing that The Merchant of Venice was seen by his company and his audiences as a comedy, I'm more inclined to buy the idea that Shakespeare meant Launcelot Gobbo to be understood as "promiscuous crook-backed fellow" and not as some non-existent allusion to Job, the most tragic book in Jewish scripture.

Still, I have no evidence supporting the Callot connection, but given the utter silliness of Brown's Job hypothesis I am amazed I've not come across anyone else making a connection between Les Gobbi of Shakespeare and Callot.

Launcelot Gobbo, Old Gobbo and Les Gobbi

In a recent conversation with my friend Cherie Konyha Greene about her trip through Italy to research a historical novel, we found ourselves asking "where did Shakespeare get the name for Launcelot Gobbo?" Cherie had found references to "Il Gobbo di Rialto" a statue of a hunched figure in front of the Church of San Giacomo di Rialto: The statue served as a podium for official proclamations and also had a role in the punishment of misdemeanours in that the guilty party would run naked through a gauntlet in the Rialto until kissing the statue. The wikipedia article makes some note that the statue may have inspired Launcelot Gobbo and Old Gobbo from the Merchant of Venice but does not suggest a rationale for drawing the connection, beyond the name "Gobbo" and the city of Venice.

When I did my own looking about I discovered that "Gobbo" is both a surname as well as a vernacular term for "hunchback." This was more promising as there is a long association with physical deformities and comedy. The Gobbi are, after all, the clown characters in the play.

Then came my most promising discovery: Jacques Callot (c. 1592–1635) was a print-maker from Nancy, who worked in the Medici court in Florence. He is of special interest to commedia dell'arte artists, scholars, and enthusiasts, because he created a dynamic series of prints of commedia actors that continue to be used as reference points for the masks, costumes, and physicality of the characters. He also created a series of prints entitled Les Gobbi:

This first character, by all appearances, has the physical proportions we now associate with dwarfism. Some might attribute these proportions to some sort of grotesque caricature, but if one looks closely at the face, it is apparent that this violin playing Gobbo is wearing a mask: there are eye holes and the edge of the mask is clearly demarcated.


This one, playing a flute, does appear to be hunchbacked, but is also wearing a mask, (note again the eye-holes and the edge.)

Here we have another with a hunchback, but he is flamboyantly dressed and carries a sword. Probably not a soldier, but quite likely an actor.

Again, flamboyant dress and a sword. Which again makes me think that this Gobbo is an actor.

This one is certainly a comedian. Note the mask, the comic stance, the clothes barely holding together, a sword longer than the wielder is tall, a comically visible erection and "package," and a phallic nose, and we have either Il Capitano, or a zanni recently conscripted into an army.

Obviously, this is just preliminary research. Was Callot drawing inspiration from an actual troupe of dwarf actors and musicians known as Les Gobbi? Or are these simply figures from his imagination? Callot was a child when Shakespeare composed The Merchant of Venice (believed to have been written sometime between 1596 and 1598; first quarto published in 1600), could the Gobbi that Callot illustrated have been the second generation of a troupe from which Shakespeare took the name "Gobbo"? After all, the commedia troupes were often family businesses, and some of them did travel to England.

Not only does this tie in to my not-very-controversial intuition that links Shakespeare's Gobbi with the zanni of the Italian comedy (in particular, Arlecchino) but if any of the answers to the above questions are "yes" then there's a strong argument to specifically cast dwarf actors in the roles of Launcelot and Old Gobbo.

N.B.: I've posted an imaginatively titled follow-up: Launcelot Gobbo, Old Gobbo and Les Gobbi, Part 2.