Carlo Ludovico Bompiani

Carlo Ludovico Bompiani (Rome 1902 – 1972) began his artistic studies under the guidance of his father Augusto Bompiani, owner of the Accademia Raffaello Sanzio, and later attended the Accademia del Nudo di Francia e Inghilterrra.

Right from the beginning of his academic studies, he carried out an intense artistic activity at his studio in Rome and participated in various exhibitions, obtaining awards and notices of merit.

His extensive artistic training and his eclectic personality lead him to operate in many fields during his long professional life: from oil painting and later in acrylic, to mosaics, stained glass, sculpture, set designs, to posters and the restoration of frescoes and paintings. He taught for 12 years at the Accademia Libera del Nudo.

In 1965, during the celebrations for the seventh centenary of the birth of Dante Alighieri, Bompiani created various paintings inspired by the places mentioned in the Divine Comedy, often portraying them with gloomy, highly expressive atmospheres that evoke the relevant passages of Dante’s verses with effectiveness and suggestiveness.

In the last years of his life, a long stay in Mogadishu, Somalia, inspired the artist to produce many pictures abounding in new contents and techniques.

In 1946, Bompiani brought to life the puppet company “La Baracca delle Fate”, together with his wife Adriana Muratori (Rome 1908 - 2002) and the writer, caricaturist and journalist, Guglielmo Guastaveglia (Rome 1889 - 1984) known as “Guasta”.

Guasta was not new to such experiences, since in 1927 he had opened another puppet theatre called “Baracca delle Favole”, whose performances took place in the studio of the poet and associate Trilussa;

Guastaveglia and Bompiani had already collaborated in 1944 when, together with Federico Fellini, they had founded the “Funny Face Shop” in Rome, a laboratory of caricature portraits.

The Baracca delle Fate was initially based in Bompiani’s Roman studio, where the performances were aimed at a circle of friends, but later it was hosted by the Associazione Artistica Internazionale in Via Margutta 54, in Rome, gaining resounding success among the public and critics alike.

The shows included both fairy tales such as Aladino e la lampada meravigliosa or La porchetta bianca (from a poem by Trilussa), as well as political satire sketches, using puppets which were caricatures of Nenni, De Gasperi and other famous personalities of the time, like an Arturo Toscanini who played himself in a frenzied orchestral direction.

After this experience, Carlo Ludovico Bompiani and his wife continued giving puppet shows, by setting up the “Teatro Piccolo” in Rome at the end of the 1940s. These shows were aimed at elementary and middle school children and also had educational purposes geared to the development of the critical, artistic and imagination sense.

The salient features of this new theatre were the very large stage and the introduction of entire revolving scenes to give the effect of a cinematic roundup, with visible changes, spectacular lighting effects, scenic creations with projections in the sky and on the seabed.

To ease the work of the puppeteers, Bompiani used papier-mâché, lighter than wood, to create the puppets’ heads. Each head was made by shaping it in clay, then casting it in plaster, splitting the cast in two and spreading inside the two halves, in layers, sheets of a particular cardboard and isinglass to obtain two half heads in papier-mâché which, once dry, were glued together.

To manoeuvre the puppets, Bompiani introduced the use of thumb, index and little finger to which rubber extensions were applied (which he called “thimbles”), which improved the proportions of the length of the arms and neck compared to traditional hand puppets, while also allowing the puppets to “have shoulders”.

In addition, the Bompianis selected and instructed the puppeteers so that they had the right temperament to creatively interpret the characters of the fairy tale.
To ensure good acting and perfect synchronization between the performance, the gestures, the noises and the music, a recorded base was introduced, whose dialogues were spoken by selected prose actors.

The Piccolo Teatro held its performances in Rome, in the 1950-51 and 1951-52 seasons in a room at the Foro Italico, and in the 1953-54 season in the Sala Bellarmino in Via Panama.
In the first season, a large number of replicas of the fairy tale L’acqua che canta were performed, while in the 1951-52 season they gave La Perla dei mari (by Adriana Muratori and Marcello Ciorciolini, with music by Grieg and original songs by Ste) and La notte santa by Guido Gozzano accompanied by the music of Bach.

In the 1953-54 season, there were performances of Il giardino proibito by Francesco Milizia, which was inspired by Oscar Wilde's The Selfish Giant, accompanied by the music of Wagner, and Buon Natale, a modern fairy tale by Marcello Ciorciolini.

In 1951 and 1953 the Piccolo Teatro was chosen by Thetis Films to make short films shot at the Cinecittà studios. According to the journalist Bartolomeo Rossetti: “There were many technical problems to be solved… Among the most significant being the difficulty created by the very nature of the puppet, which has no feet and so does not allow the presence of a floor. At the theatre, this feature is not disturbing, but in the cinema it was necessary to give the audience the satisfaction of seeing the puppet standing on the floor full length… “.

To make sure that the scenes in American-shot did not appear to be a technical necessity, but only a means common to any film “... in many scenes, with careful preparation, the floor was shown in the background, in some, groups of puppets were seen represented standing on the floor itself, or visibly flaunting feet… “.

Also at the Piccolo Teatro some puppets were used to interpret more than one character, possibly by changing their outfit. The puppet in the foreground (right) who in the film Il compagno Pulcinella plays the role of the shoe factory owner, according to the notes of the Bompiani couple became an innkeeper in L’acqua che canta and Signor Strapponi in Buon Natale.

Among the short films made, a special mention as an example of propaganda cinema must go to Il compagno Pulcinella, requested by the Christian Democrats to satirize Soviet communism.
In 1954, despite its success, the Piccolo Teatro closed.