Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 2008 - 65

Flat Wing with Grooves on Floor
Covering and Uncovering Devices

At some point early in the seventeenth century the sliding flat wing was
developed, probably in Ferrara. Sabbattini described the use of panels
sliding in grooves for the shutters that closed the rear of the scene (Hewitt 1958, 116-118), but he did not suggest the use of this technique for
changing the side wings. The development of the flat wing stage solved
many of the problems associated with angle wings and rotating units.
A bank of flat wings held upright by upper and lower grooves required
less stage depth than the other types of wing units, thus allowing wider
"streets" for entrances. The act of sliding one wing onstage and pulling
another wing offstage is much simpler than rotating a periaktos to the correct position. Multiple sets could be displayed by exchanging the offstage
wings. In addition, a flat wing would not require a cloth skirt to mask the
bottom of the unit. The lack of a perspective face to make the wing more
realistic would require better scene painting to create the illusion on a flat
rather than an angled surface. This did not seem to be a major problem
since the flat wing became the standard method of creating the illusionistic setting until the mid-nineteenth century.
The other major problem, coordination, was solved for the flat wing
by at least the mid-seventeenth century, if Giacomo Torelli is given credit
for the mechanized scene change, or as early as 1618, if Aleotti installed
a mechanized flat wing system at the Teatro Farnese in Parma.3 There is
abundant information about this system and its use during the latter half
of the seventeenth century in Venice.4

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This brings us back to the wings used at the Medici court. We know
several things:
1. When scenic changes began to be used in 1568/69, rotating
wing units were used (Lanci's periaktoi).
2. Rotating wing units were still being used by Parigi in 1608 (Parigi's quadrilaterals).
3. Most of the Florentine productions that give an indication of the
type of wing units mention rotating units.
4. Only one production, the 1589 La Pellegrina, suggests that
something other than a rotating device was used for a set change.
An analysis of the wing units that were likely in use during this
time shows that the flat wing was the easiest to operate. There is no
definite evidence of early use of flat wing in Florence. Both Inigo Jones
and Josef Furttenbach visited Florence in the early seventeenth century,
but the earliest that either man used the flat wing stage was Jones' use
in 1640 for the court masque Salmacida Spolia. Furttenbach's works
published as late as 1663 do not acknowledge the existence of the flat
wing. It is highly unlikely that if the flat wing had been used for the 1589
production of La Pellegrina, that Buontalenti or his pupil, Parigi,
would have gone back to the more cumbersome periaktoi for later
productions. The obvious conclusion is that the Florentine productions evolved from the use of Lanci's five periaktoi to other rotating
devices such as Buonarroti's rotating quadrilateral units or, possibly
one of Sabbattini's variations. It is unlikely that the flat wing was in
use at the Medici Court. v

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 2008