CHIARI, PIETRO. - Priest, playwright, novelist, b. in Brescia in 1711, d. there in 1785. He was first a Jesuit and teacher of eloquence at Modena for two years (1736-38), then left the Order as a secular priest. In Venice he lived by writing verses, novels, dialogues, comedies, translations in far too many volumes. He was a decorated adventurer of the pen, a facile popularizer of Enlightenment thought, often an improviser and imitator. Even his theater has the value of improvisation and translation, although C. wished to be the second reformer of comedy in competition with Goldoni (1753).
The dispute between the "chiaristi" and the "goldoniani" dragged on for many years, during which C. had been engaged by the Medebac company at the Teatro S. Angelo. The supposed reform sought to reconcile improvised comedy and the masks with premeditated or written comedy. His comedies nevertheless met with favor in Venice, and Goldoni himself felt his influence in his later manner, which indulged in oratorical and melodramatic forms.
C. has the reputation of having revived the novel, attempting to compete with the French. But his novels, rich in adventures and morbidly steeped in the new philosophy (Montesquieu, Rousseau), with some lively folkloric depiction, are always cumbersome and prolix (v. L'uomo di un altro mondo and La donna che non si trova). Even the best, such as La giocatrice del lotto, La ballerina onorata, La Francese in Italia, La bella Pellegrina, do not have the characteristics of the later novel. C. directed the Gazzetta veneta, treating local news with wit.
Bibliography2 works
Eighteenth century, Bergamo 1903 (v. index); A. Neri, Passatemi goldoniani, in Ateneo veneto, 30 (1907, 1); R. Simoni, Editori alla ribalta, in I libri del giorno, 1 (1918), p. 6; A. Zardo, Un pralogo del C. e la Gazzetta veneta, in Rivista d'Italia, 25 (1922), p. 8 ff.; C. Musatti, La Veneziana o Parigi, in Il Marzocco, 31 (1926), p. 44 ff.; M. Apollonio, L'opera di C. Goldoni, Milan 1932 (v. index); D. Lucchesi, Kulturgeschichtl. Betrachtung von P. C. Commedia, Munich 1938.
Emilio Santini