Actor’s training according to the treatise Della declamazione by Francesco Saverio Salfi

Examines Francesco Saverio Salfi’s treatise Della declamazione [Concerning declamation], published posthumously in 1878 but finished at the height of the Restoration. It reopens the 18th-c. debate on the moral function of the theater and also presents a plan for the training of an actor: a long apprenticeship, study that increases gradually in difficulty but is rigorous throughout, and professionalism. The discourse concerns itself mainly with the tragic actor.