The second queen of Philip the Fifth, Isabel Farnese, who had been used to the enjoyment of all kinds of scenic exhibitions in Italy, was not satisfied with this state of things. Finding an ill-arranged theatre, in which an Italian company had sometimes acted, she caused material additions to be made to it, and required regular operas to be brought out for her amusement from 1737. The change was an important one. The two old court-yards took the alarm. First one and then the other began to erect a new and more commodious structure for theatrical entertainments; and as they had been each other’s rivals for a century and a half in the awkwardness of their arrangements, no less than in their claims for public patronage, so now they became rivals in a struggle for improvement. Under such impulses, the new “Theatre of the Cross” was finished in 1743, and that of “The Prince,” in 1745. But, in most respects, there was little change. True to the traditions of their origin, the new structures were still called court-yards, and their boxes, rooms;--the _cazuela_, or “stewpan,” was still kept for the women, who sat there veiled like nuns, but acting very little as if they were such;--the Alcalde de Corte, or Judge of the Municipality, still appeared in the proscenium, with his two clerks behind him, to keep the peace or bear record to its breach;--Semiramis wore a hooped petticoat and high-heeled shoes, and Julius Cæsar was assassinated in a curled periwig and velvet court coat, with a feathered Spanish hat under his arm. The old spirit, therefore, it is plain, prevailed, however great might be the improvements made in the external arrangements and architecture of the theatres. One cause of this was the exclusive favor shown to the opera by two Italian queens, and encouraged by the new political relations of Spain with Italy. The theatre of the Buen Retiro, where Calderon had so often triumphed, was fitted up with unwonted magnificence, by Farinelli, the first singer of his time, who had been brought to the Spanish court in order to soothe the melancholy of Philip the Fifth, and who still continued there, enjoying the especial protection of Ferdinand the Sixth. Luzan translated Metastasio’s “Clemency of Titus” for the opening of the new and gorgeous saloon in 1747; and both then, and for a considerable period afterwards, all that the resources of the court could command in poetry and music, or in the show and pomp of theatrical machinery, was lavished on an exotic, which at last failed to take healthy root in the soil of the country.[368] [368] L. F. Moratin, Prólogo, _ut sup._; and Pellicer, Orígen del Teatro, 1802, Tom. I. p. 264.