Sometimes puppets received invitations to visit great knights and ladies in their castles. They were eager for such invitations because they enjoyed the experiences of traveling. As always happens in travel, they saw new things to interest them and met new people, many of whom were quite different from their earlier and more serious-minded friends. They enjoyed the life of the castle, the songs of the wandering minstrels, and the heroic stories that the traveling bards told in the evenings about the fire in the great halls. They liked the noble lords and ladies, their speech and manners and dress. These marionettes became what you might call aristocrats. The marionettes that were religious found a home in the quiet of the monasteries. They were the marionettes that were scholarly and were interested in Latin plays as well as in the Mysteries and Sacred Dramas. The greater number of marionettes preferred to live in the towns with the common people and to know what was going on. These puppets were full of health and good humor. It was this sort of marionette who changed his name and his character almost everywhere he went. If he were in Naples, he was Scaramuccia; in Venice, he was Messer Pantaleone; in Bergamo, he was Arlequino; in France, he was Guignol or Polichinello; in Germany, he was Hans Wurst and Kaspare; in Holland, he was Jean Pickel Herring; and in England, he was Mr. Punch. ITALY In Italy at about this time every kind of marionette was very popular. Especially popular were the Burattini. These little figures consisted of a head and two hands held together by a large cloak within which was hidden the hand of the manipulator, who made the puppet act by the movements of his fingers and wrist. The curious word, Burattini, possibly came from a kind of coarse, durable cloth of bright colors known as Burato, which was used for clothing this type of puppet. One of these Burattini was called Arleechino. He was a great baby and played the part of a servant. His dress was made from triangles of red, blue, yellow, and violet pieces of Burato cloth. He wore a small hat that scarcely covered his head. His little shoes had no soles. Michael Angelo, it is said, did not like his head and face. He remodeled them to suit the Burattini’s character, which was an odd mixture of ignorance, ingenuity, stupidity, and grace. Listen to his speech: “Kind sir, I know that you are in want of a servant, after having made 327 changes in a year, and I hope to make up the round number. I am a man who knows how to do everything—eating, drinking, sleeping, and making love to the maids. The only fault I have is that I do not like work. I shall be as punctual as an idler, as faithful as a domestic thief, as secret as an earthquake, and as watchful as a cat. As to my honesty, surely no man can call me a thief, but rather a clever mathematician who finds things before their masters lose them.”