IMPROVISATO'RI, an Italian term, designating poets who utter verses without pre \vitals preparation on a given theme, and who sometimes sing and accompany their voice with a musical instrument. The talent of improvisation is found in races in which the imagination is more than usually lively, as in the Arabs, and in many tribes of negroes. Amongst the ancients, Greece was the land of improvisation. In modern Europe, it has been almost entirely confined to Italy, where Petrarch, in the 12th c., introduced the practice of singing improvised verses to the lute; and down to the present day, the performances of improvisatori constitute one of the favorite entertainments of the Italians. Females (improvisatrices) have frequently exhibited this talent in a high degree. Improvisation is by no means limited to brief poems of a few verses and of very simple structure, but is often carried on with great art, and in the form and to the length of a tragedy or almost of an epic poem. But when the productions of the most admired
improvisatori have been given to the world through the press, they have never been found to rise above mere mediocrity. It is worthy of notice that the greater number of the celebrated improvisatori of Italy have been born in Tuscany or the Venetian terri tories. Siena and Verona have been especially productive of them. Seine of the prin cipal are Serafino d'Aquila (died 1500), Metastasio (q.v.), who soon abandoned the art, Zucco (died 1764), Serio and Rossi (beheaded at Naples, 1799), Gianni (pensioned by Bona parte), and Tommaso Sgricci (died 1836). The best-known impranisatrices are Magdalena MoraIli Fernandez (died 1800), Teresa Bandettini (born 1756), Rosa Taddei (born 1801), Signora Mazzei (probably the first in point of talent), and more lately Giovannina Milli.