Abstract

The article analyzes the use of masks in Gozzi’s work La malia della voce, illustrating how, never completely departing from the tradition of the “Commedia dell’Arteµ, the author skillfully uses these characters throughout the plot with a triple purpose: as representatives, in many occasions, of his own ideas; to direct, through the use of metatheatrical devices, the understanding and interpretation of facts by the audience; consequently, to avoid a mimetic assimilation, so as to prevent a didactic reading of the work, bringing it back within the confines of his own, immovable, ideological view.