Aridosio by Lorenzino de Medici

 Aridosio by Lorenzino de Medici

The life of the author, who was also a…assassin, sounds much more interesting than the story that did not really appeal to me

To clear the air from the start, I did not like this play.

It is a subjective assessment and flawed, if we consider that Aridosio is labeled as one of the best plays of its time.

There is an irresistible temptation to be cheeky and say something like:

-          If Lorenzino was so good, how come I had never heard about him before this morning?

-          Only it comes back in the form of: you are no erudite, that’s why…

There is probably more in me from the Jack Nicholson character in Prizzi’s Honor, charley Partanna than from a scholar.

When Charley Partanna, a hit man for the mob is confronted by his wife, who works oddly in the exact same line of business he says:

-          Marxie Heller so fuckin' smart, how come he's so fuckin' dead?

Which applied to Lorenzino would mean that, even taking into account that I have no right to judge, the author is still no Shakespeare or Moliere.

The start was promising.

The audience is promised a story of love, the public being familiar with that, even as early as the fourteenth century.

And in the introductory speech, the author is jocular:

-          Do not encourage the writer with applause

-          He will not stop writing if you do that

After that, I found a mix of personages that reminded me of Harpagon and other characters from better known comedies.

In the plot, there are tricks played on this early Miser who is told there are ghosts in his house and they need to be exorcised.

In the process, two thousand ducats are missing.

There is a nun, who is loved by the prodigal son, a pregnancy, a girl is sold for 50 ducats and there is much more.

Alas, none of these endeavors got my interest, but it could be the heat of July and more likely, the stream of excellent plays that I listened to lately, which have raised the bar too high for this Aridosio to be on a par with the likes of the Secret Agent or three Men in a Boat

To end with, there is a quote from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, regarding the life of Lorenzino de Medici, who was a writer and a…assassin:

 “Lorenzino de’ Medici, also called Lorenzaccio (“Bad Lorenzo”) (born March 23, 1514, Florence [Italy]—died February 26, 1548, Venice) assassin of Alessandro, grand duke of Tuscany. Lorenzino was one of the more-noted writers of the Medici family; he was the son of one Pierfrancesco of a younger, cadet branch of the Medici.

Lorenzino was a writer of considerable elegance, the author of several plays, one of which, the Aridosio, was held to be among the best of his age, and he was a worshipper of Greco-Roman antiquity. Notwithstanding these tastes, when in Rome he knocked off the heads of some of the finest statues of the age of Adrian, an act by which Pope Clement VII was so incensed that he threatened to have him hanged. Thereupon Lorenzino fled to Florence, where he became the friend of Alessandro and his partner in the most licentious excesses. They went together to brothels and violated private dwellings and convents. They often showed themselves in public mounted on the same horse.

On the evening of January 5, 1537, Lorenzino led the duke to his own lodging and left him there, promising shortly to return with the wife of Leonardo Ginori. Alessandro, worn out by the exertions of the day, fell asleep on the couch while awaiting Lorenzino’s return. Before long the latter came, accompanied by one Scoronconcolo, who aided him in falling on the sleeper. The duke fought for his life and was only killed after a violent struggle. Disappointed at the Florentines’ failure to rise against tyrannical government, Lorenzino fled first to Bologna, to await the result of the exiles’ attack on Florence. When this was defeated, he went to Turkey, to France, and finally to Venice, where he was murdered in 1548.”