Improvisatori,

Improvisatori, an Italian term, designating poets who without previous preparation compose on a given theme, and who sometimes sing and accompany their voice with a musical instrument. The talent of improvisation is found in races in which the imagination is more than usually alert, as among the ancient Greeks, the Arabs, and in many tribes of negroes. In modern Europe it has been almost entirely confined to Italy, where Petrarch, in the 12th century, introduced the practice of singing improvised verses to the lute; and down to the present day the performances of improvisatori constitute one of the favourite entertainments of the Italians. Far inferior to these are such improvisations as those of Theodore Hook, wonderful as they were. Women have frequently exhibited this talent in a high degree. Improvisation is by no means limited to brief poems of a few verses and of very simple structure, but is often carried on with great art, and in the form and to the length of a tragedy or almost of an epic poem. But such productions when printed have never been found to rise above mere mediocrity. It is worthy of notice that the greater number of the celebrated improvisatori of Italy have been born in Tuscany or the Venetian territory. Siena and Verona have been especially productive of them. Some of the principal are Serafino d'Aquila (1466-1500), Perfetti (1680-1747), Metastasio (q.v.), who soon abandoned the art, Zucco (died 1764), Serio and Rossi (both beheaded at Naples in 1799), Gianni (pensioned by Bonaparte), and Tommaso Sgricci (1798-1836). The best-known improvisatrices are Maddalena Morelli Fernandez, also called Corilla Olimpica, the original of Madame de Staël's Corinne (died 1800), Teresa Bandettini (1763-1837), Rosa Taddei, Signora Mazzei (probably the first in point of talent), and more lately the Sicilian Giovannina Milli.