Originally published in 1622, Love in the Mirror tells the unforgettable and path-breaking story of a passionate love affair between two women in early modern Florence. Despite the risk of social sanctions, Florinda and Lidia freely consent to love each other “breast to breast and mouth to mouth,” with some surprising consequences for the institution of marriage.
This bilingual edition of the play introduces the English-speaking reader to one of the most remarkable creative artists of the Baroque age, Giovan Battista Andreini (1576–1654). Actor, playwright, and son of the first great diva of the European stage, Isabella Andreini, Giovan Battista was renowned in his lifetime as an avant-garde theatrical innovator. While drawing on the Italian commedia dell’arte, his comedies go far beyond its limits in order— like Calderón, Corneille and Shakespeare—to subvert traditional views of the relationship between art and life, representation and reality.
Love in the Mirror, which was lost from view for centuries, is here translated for the first time into a highly accessible and fully annotated English version. The volume includes a wideranging introduction to this experimental comic masterpiece, as well as to the life and works of G.B. Andreini.
