The Venetian Origins of the Commedia dell'Arte is a striking new enquiry into the late-Renaissance stirrings of professional secular comedy in Venice, and their connection to the development of what came to be known as the Commedia dell?Arte. The book contends that through a symbiotic collaboration between patrician amateurs and plebeian professionals, innovative forms of comedy developed in the Venice region, fusing ?high? and ?low? culture in a provocative mix that had a truly mass appeal.

Rich with anecdotes, diary entries and literary ? often ribald ? comic passages, Peter Jordan's central argument has important implications for the study of Venetian art, popular theatre and European cultural history.