SHETLAND PONIES, DOGS, AND MONKEYS – ‘BIZARRE BEYOND WORDS’
[CIRCUS.] SCHREYER, Heinrich.
Teatro del Corso.
Straordinario spettacolo di quadrupedi ammaestrati … Bologna, Tipi belle arti, [1846].
Letterpress broadside, folio (c. 420 x 580 mm); text within typographic border; printed on coarse grey paper; margins frayed and folded, signs of folding, nevertheless a very good copy; contemporary note to verso ‘Avvento 1846. Teatro del Corso – Quadrupedi’, with some ink corrosion.
Seemingly unrecorded Bologna-printed broadside advertising a travelling show of ‘small Scottish horses’, monkeys, and dogs at the Teatro del Corso in Bologna on 30 November 1846, led by circus trainer Heinrich Schreyer, noted for his theatre of monkeys in Vienna.
The show included a ‘wandering soldier playing the violin’; a dog in costume dancing amongst flowers; Magot the monkey riding Cêsar the pony; the mandrill Bellino performing various exercises while standing on a horse; a mandrill walking the tightrope; more acrobatics by Magot; gymnastic exercises performed by various dogs; Pavian the monkey performing with four Shetland ponies; and a grand finale with an army of dogs re-enacting the assault, capture and destruction of the fortress of ‘Cocomorum’.
The show was advertised and reviewed by Alessandro Stocchi in the Diario del Teatro ducale di Parma in 1846, when it was the supporting act and interval entertainment for various theatrical plays between 1 and 7 November. The reviews of the performances are generally good, but the last act, the capture of Cocomorum, is described as ‘bizarre and strange beyond words’ (trans.), with a continuous back-and-forth of a multitude of barking dogs and the audience screaming in either fear or excitement, resulting in a completely unbearable experience.
