Leaves from the Autobiography of Tommaso Salvini

Tommaso Salvini was a great Italian actor of the so-called "school of experience". Salvini is the author of memoirs and theoretical articles, in which he defended the need to experience the feelings of the depicted character. However, he condemned the stage naturalism prevailing at that time. This book is his autobiography, which was published in 1893 after he left the stage in 1890. The art of Tommaso Salvini is considered the highest achievement of the Italian and, moreover, the entire Western European theater of the 19th century. Salvini combined romantic elation, passion and heroic pathos characteristic of the school of Gustavo Modena with deep psychologism, in fact, his art was rather realism. Some insight into his career can be gleaned from this autobiography.