An Italian Artist in Paris: The career and designs of Ignazio Degotti (1758–1824)

Abstract

This thesis aims to explore the ways in which, through a community of Franco-Italian artists, a tradition of innovative stage design took root in France in the late eighteenth century, transforming the scenic ambitions of official theatre. By reconstructing the career of the Italian designer Ignazio Degotti, and his little-known vicissitudes, my thesis investigates how stage design found new ambition and purpose both in the theatre and in the culture of French ‘Revolution’ and ‘Empire.’ Degotti completed his apprenticeships in the later eighteenth century in the court and civic theatres of metropolitan centres in Italy such as Turin, Rome, and Naples. He started working for the Théâtre de Monsieur in Paris just after the outbreak of the Revolution and his fame peaked during the politically-driven and privileged space of the Théâtre de l’Opéra under the Empire. It was, however, the transformation of his practice and ambition throughout the Revolutionary years that established him as an innovator. No study has specifically focused on Degotti and his impact on stage design. Like many of the figures who transformed theatre aesthetics during the turn of the nineteenth century, he is as yet little researched. Of crucial importance to my project are the connections that brought Degotti into proximity with the painter Jacques-Louis David and with a wider circle of Italian and French visual artists and musicians. This set of relationships has never been fully explored in accounts of stage design or indeed historical texts in art, but is vital to understanding the aesthetic ambitions and the broader concept of scenography in France between Revolution and Empire.