Scammacca, Obtensio

SCAMMACCA, OBTENSIO. - Jesuit, playwright, b. at Lentini in 1562, d. at Palermo on 16 February 1648.

After studying jurisprudence at Catania and Messina, he entered the Society of Jesus in 1582, where he had been preceded by his brother Giuseppe, and he spent his whole life in teaching, especially of letters.

He is one of the major representatives of the theater of the Jesuits with his 46 tragedies (2 of which are still unpublished) distributed in 14 vols.: Tragedie sacre e morali del p. Hortensio S., collected by Abbot don Martino La Farina (Palermo 1632-48). The subjects are quite varied, drawn, for the sacred tragedies, from the lives and legends of the saints and from the history of the Old and New Testament (Il parto della Vergine, Il Cristo morto, Il Cristo risuscitato, L'Eupolio Tommaso Moro, Giustino, Agata, etc.); in these he shows himself more original, is less influenced by the theories on classical drama and comes closer to the sacre rappresentazioni. For the moral tragedies, he depends too clearly especially on the Greek tragedies, with a prevalence of Euripides (Amirò, Goffredo, Orlando Furioso, Crisanto, Boemondo, Demetria in Trebisonda, etc.). If his purpose, as indeed that of the whole theater of the Jesuit colleges, was to edify and admonish the spectators, nevertheless in S.'s tragedy there is no lack of touches and scenes of a comic realism, which willingly indulges in details of lived life, and of truly plastic and fine passages of singular effectiveness.