INTRODUCTION

Giambattista Della Porta’s comedy La Trappolaria (an adaption of Plautus’ Pseudolus) was first printed at Bergamo in 1596, with subsequent editions issued at Vinegia (1597), Naples (1613) Ferrara (1615), and Venice (1626 and 1628). It is included in Gennaro Muzio’s Della commedie di Giovanbattista de la Porta Napolitano (Naples, 1726), but not in Vincenzo Spampanato’s incomplete edition of the comedies, Giambattista Della Porta. Lei commedie (Bari, 1910 - 11). In connection with a hypertext critical edition of the 1615 Cambridge comedy Ignoramus by George Ruggle, adapted from La Trappolaria, it is necessary to make readily available the text of the Italian original. I therefore take this opportunity to present a transcription of La Trappolaria as printed in Muzio’s 1726 edition.
The reader interested in Della Porta and his comedies is referred to Louise George Clubb, Giambattista Della Porta, Dramatist (Princeton, 1965). La Trappolaria is discussed on pp. 185 - 194.