Harlequin - Origins

Origins

Idries Shah has claimed that the name Harlequin is of Sufi origins Classical sufi masters were indeed known to wear a pieced robe made of a patchwork of coloured fabric as early as the 11th century AD. Shah argues that the Arabic name aghlaq - which was given to such sufi masters - with plural form "aghlaqueen" pronounced with the guttural gh- as the Spanish jota, would have given the word Harlequin.

For others the origins of the name remain uncertain. One of the origins postulated for the modern Harlequin is Hellequin, a stock character in French passion plays. Hellequin, a black-faced emissary of the devil, is said to have roamed the countryside with a group of demons chasing the damned souls of evil people to Hell. The physical appearance of Hellequin offers an explanation for the traditional colours of Harlequin's mask (red and black).

Hellequin is the leader of la Mesnée d'Hellequin, thought to be related to the Old English Herla, a character often identified with Woden.

Popular theories suggest that the character, and possibly the name, may have come from France, Africa, or Italy. Others attribute the name to Dante's Inferno, XXI, XXII and XXIII; one of the devils in Hell having the name Alichino. Although illustrations of Arlecchino have only been dated as far back as 1572, the character had existed before this date.

The Harlequin character may have been based on or influenced by the Zanni archetype who, although a slow thinker, was acrobatic and nimble. Interpreted thus, Harlequin's distinctive motley costume may be a stylized variant of Zanni's plain white garb, designed to reflect the ad-hoc patching necessary to prevent the garment's degradation.

Zan Ganassa, whose troupe is first mentioned in Mantua in the late 1560s, was one of the earliest known actors believed to have performed the part. Another early Italian exponent of the role was the Bolognese actor, Nicolò Zecca, active c. 1630 in Bologna as well as Turin and Mantua. Ganassa had performed in Paris in 1571 and 1572, and further transformations of the character occurred in France, where Arlecchino was performed at the Comédie-Italienne in Italian by Tristano Martinelli, Giovan Battista Andreini, and Angelo Costantini (c. 1654–1729). The role was played in French as Arlequin in the 1660s by Dominique Biancolelli(it), who combined the zanni types, "making his Arlecchino witty, neat, and fluent in a croaking voice, which became as traditional as the squawk of Punch." The Italians were expelled from France in 1697 for satirizing King Louis XIV's second wife, Madame de Maintenon, but returned in 1716 (after his death), when Tommaso Antonio Vicentini ("Thomassin", 1682–1739) became famous in the part.