Question: When did the performance of Commedia dell'arte start?
About the article "Italy", section "Literature and theatre".

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Although commedia dell'arte flourished in Italy during the Mannerist period, there has been a long-standing tradition of trying to establish historical antecedents in antiquity.
While we can detect formal similarities between the commedia dell'arte and earlier theatrical traditions, there is no way to establish certainty of origin.
Some date the origins to the period of the Roman Republic (Plautine types) or the Empire (Atellan Farces).
The Atellan Farces of the Roman Empire featured crude "types" wearing masks with grossly exaggerated features.
More recent accounts establish links to the medieval jongleurs, and prototypes from medieval moralities, such as Hellequin (as the source of Harlequin, for example).
The first recorded commedia dell'arte performances come from Rome as early as 1551.
Commedia dell'arte was performed outdoors in temporary venues by professional actors who were costumed and masked, as opposed to , which were written comedies, presented indoors by untrained and unmasked actors.
This view may be somewhat romanticized since records describe the Gelosi performing Tasso's "Aminta", for example, and much was done at court rather than in the street.
By the mid-16th century, specific troupes of commedia performers began to coalesce, and by 1568 the Gelosi became a distinct company.
In keeping with the tradition of the Italian Academies, I Gelosi adapted as their impress (or coat of arms) the two headed roman god Janus.
Janus symbolized both the comings and goings of this traveling troupe, and the dual nature of the actor who impersonates the "other."
The Gelosi performed in Northern Italy and France where they received protection and patronage from the King of France.
Despite fluctuations the Gelosi maintained stability for performances with the "usual ten": "two "vecchi" (old men), four "innamorati" (two male and two female lovers), two "zanni", a captain and a "servetta" (serving maid)".
It should be noted that commedia often performed inside in court theatres or halls, and also as some fixed theatres such as Teatro Baldrucca in Florence.
Flaminio Scala, who had been a minor performer in the Gelosi published the scenarios of the commedia dell'arte around the start of the 17th century, really in an effort to legitimize the form—and ensure its legacy.
These scenari are highly structured and built around the symmetry of the various types in duet: two , , and , etc.
"Commedia dell'arte" is notable in that female roles were played by women, documented as early as the 1560s, In the 1570s, English theatre critics generally denigrated the troupes with their female actors (some decades later, Ben Jonson referred to one female performer of the commedia as a "tumbling whore").
By the end of the 1570s, Italian prelates attempted to ban female performers; however, by the end of the 16th century, actresses were standard on the Italian stage.
The Italian scholar Ferdinando Taviani has collated a number of church documents opposing the advent of the actress as a kind of courtesan, whose scanty attire and promiscuous lifestyle corrupted young men, or at least infused them with carnal desires.
Taviani's term "negativa poetica" describes this and other practices offensive to the church, while giving us an idea of the phenomenon of the commedia dell'arte performance.
By the early 17th century, the "zanni" comedies were moving from pure improvisational street performances to specified and clearly delineated acts and characters.
Three books written during the 17th century — Cecchini's "Fruti della moderne commedia" (1628), Niccolò Barbieri's "La supplica" (1634) and Perrucci's "Dell'arte rapresentativa" (1699) — "made firm recommendations concerning performing practice."
Katritzky argues, that as a result, commedia was reduced to formulaic and stylized acting; as far as possible from the purity of the improvisational genesis a century earlier.
In France, during the reign of Louis XIV, the Comédie-Italienne created a repertoire and delineated new masks and characters, while deleting some of the Italian precursors, such as Pantalone.
French playwrights, particularly Molière, gleaned from the plots and masks in creating an indigenous treatment.
Indeed, Molière shared the stage with the Comédie-Italienne at Petit-Bourbon, and some of his forms, e.g.
the tirade, are derivative from the commedia ("tirata").
Commedia dell'arte moved outside the city limits to the , or fair theatres, in the early 17th century as it evolved toward a more pantomimed style.
With the dispatch of the Italian comedians from France in 1697, the form transmogrified in the 18th century as genres such as "comédie larmoyante" gained in attraction in France, particularly through the plays of Marivaux.
Marivaux softened the commedia considerably by bringing in true emotion to the stage.
Harlequin achieved more prominence during this period.
It is possible that this kind of improvised acting was passed down the Italian generations until the 17th century, when it was revived as a professional theatrical technique.
However, as currently used the term "commedia dell'arte" was coined in the mid-18th century.
Curiously, commedia dell'arte was equally if not more popular in France, where it continued its popularity throughout the 17th century (until 1697), and it was in France that commedia developed its established repertoire.
Commedia evolved into various configurations across Europe, and each country accultrated the form to its liking.
For example, pantomime, which flourished in the 18th century, owes its genesis to the character types of the commedia, particularly Harlequin.
The Punch and Judy puppet shows, popular to this day in England, owe their basis to the Pulcinella mask that emerged in Neapolitan versions of the form.
In Italy, commedia masks and plots found their way into the "opera buffa", and the plots of Rossini, Verdi, and Puccini.
During the Napoleonic occupation of Italy, instigators of reform and critics of French Imperial rule (such as Giacomo Casanova) used the masks of the carnival to hide their identities whilst fueling political agendas, challenging social rule and hurling blatant insults and criticisms against the regime.
In 1797, in order to destroy the impromptu style of carnival as a partisan platform, the commedia dell'arte was outlawed by Napoleon himself.
Venice would not see a rebirth of the Commedia until 1979.  
Commedia may refer to:  The Divine Comedy, an epic poem written by Dante Alighieri, sometimes referred to simply as the "Commedia"  Commedia dell'arte, a professional form of theatre that began in Italy in the mid-16th century  "Deceit", a 1999 Italian mystery film whose working title was "Commedia"  La Commedia, an early theatre in Naples  
Synopsis and roles.
Part I.
"La morte delle maschere".
RolesApart from the impresario and Orfeo, the roles are those of the standard commedia dell'arte characters, all of whom traditionally performed in masks.
The Italian word "maschera" (mask) is also used to denote a commedia dell'arte player.
Impresario (narrator, spoken role) Arlecchino (tenor), Brighella (baritone), Dottor Balanzon (baritone) Capitan Spaventa di Valle Inferna (bass) Pantalone (baritone) Tartaglia (tenor) Pulcinella (tenor) Orfeo (tenor) SynopsisAn impresario presents a performance of his commedia dell'arte troupe.
The performance is interrupted when a man dressed in red, wearing a frightening mask and brandishing a whip, bursts in and scatters the players.
The impresario flees as the masked stranger locks all seven players in a large cupboard.
To the sounds of protest emanating from the cupboard, the masked man declares the death of the masks and their irrelevance to real life.
He removes his own mask and costume and reveals himself to be Orpheus, exchanging the whip for his traditional lyre.
Orpheus then introduces seven new characters who will be better representatives of the human condition (and who will become the main characters of Part II, "Sette canzoni").
They file silently onto and off the stage as the commedia dell'arte players protest from the cupboard that they will starve to death.
Arlecchino manages to escape from the cupboard exclaiming, "It will never be true that Arlecchino will die of hunger" ("Non sarà mai vero che Arlecchino muoia di fame").
The curtain falls as Arlecchino scampers off-stage. 
Sandrone (Sandróun in Modenese dialect) is the traditional mask and character of the Commedia dell'arte representing the city of Modena. 
His understanding of vocal performance is based on stories and themes.
Flasher deconstructs the elements and meanings of the theme and assembles them into a greater vocal super-structure that is projected into the music-ambiance-public during the event.
His techno style is described as "atmospheric flashing of mind" and the vocalizing is producing a "sound picture", which ultimately affects the receiver's state of mind.
Some of his performance works have also included elements of street theatre, Neoism, teachings of Antonin Artaud and Michael Chekhov and adhering to the official ideology of Ambasada Gavioli: Commedia dell'Arte since Ambasada Gavioli has originally been designated to host an ongoing "Commedia dell'Arte of the 21st Century".