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Programme of a show of acrobats and strongmen at the Teatro del Cocomero. [Incipit:] I. e R. Teatro del Cocomero per la sera di Lunedì 1 Luglio 1833. Nel suddetto I. e R. Teatro verrà eseguito dai Primi Alcidi Francesi Sigg. Desiderio Manché e Desiderio Darras i seguenti esercizzi divisi come apprezzo …’

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Seemingly unrecorded advertisement and programme of a show of the two French strongmen, acrobats, and gymnasts Desiderio Manché and Desiderio Darras, together with one Vettorina Darras, likely the wife of the latter, arranged by the Accademia degli infuocati at Florence’s most famous theatre.

Desiderio (i.e. Désiré or Didier?) Manché and Darras, described as a pair of French strongmen of Heraclean strength, here perform some twenty-five acts, divided into three parts, with the local military band playing during the intervals. The first and final parts consist largely of strength exhibitions and exercises, some with rather curious names, including arm wrestling; ‘the Fight of the Two Boxers’; ‘the Vanquished Moor’; ‘the Strength of Hercules’; ‘the Dangerous Distance’; ‘Mercury throwing himself towards Olympus’; ‘the 250-Pound Somersault’; ‘the Roman Chair’; ‘the Iron Knee, called Neptune’; ‘the Swimmer’, ‘the Two-Hat Experiment’; and a grand finale. The second part includes juggling; knife throwing; ‘the Game of the Copper Balls’; ‘the Crusade of the Biblioquet’; ‘the Chinese Rings’; ‘the Golden Rain’; and the ‘Indian Game’, the last of these performed by Vettorina Darras.

The Accademia drammatica degli infuocati – whose emblem was a bomb – had been established by Don Lorenzo de’ Medici (1599–1648), and managed Florence’s famous Teatro del Cocomero (renamed Teatro Niccolini in 1860), where the present show was staged.

We find no copies in OCLC, OPAC SBN, or Library Hub.

A similar exhibition by the same athletes was advertised in Diario balear (April 1834), p. 4.