Radiating from Rome under the auspices of ladies like Isabella d’Este or connoisseurs like Ludovico Gonzaga, bishop of Mantua, the dramatic art reigned nobly in the courts and castles of Italy, without losing anything of its elegant and artistic cachet. It adapted itself to all circumstances with marvellous flexibility, ranging from the opera-ballet played in the open air[248] to genuine comedy and tragedy. But, like the Novels and Romances, it assumed a licentious and even cynical character, which everybody regarded as natural. Thus at Turin, in the early days of Lent in the year 1537, a comedy of the most daring kind was performed: “How warmly the ladies here received it!” exclaims an eye-witness. At Foligno, the pontifical prefect, a certain Orfino, superintended in person the staging of _Marescalco_, an extremely light production of Aretino; and soon after the performance this worthy pillar of pontifical “tyranny” wrote to the author, begging another piece of the same stamp. The _Ruffiana_ of Salviano and many other pieces of a salacious turn won tempestuous applause. Some people took alarm and declared the theatre to be a hotbed of immorality. The Senate of Venice, by decree of December 29, 1509, forbade any performance, even the recitation of an eclogue in a private drawing-room, under penalty of a year’s imprisonment and exile, “irremissible,” in the wording of the decree. (However, in a secret addendum, the Senate reserved the right of pronouncing the penalty, and by a large majority.) In spite of this, the _Calandra_ was performed at Venice in 1524 without any difficulty arising. The Italian drama, lacking the support of the ladies, had little success in France.[249] They lived there on the old Mysteries. The performance of these was usually got up in a convent, or by a city; and, unlike the Italian drama, it retained a character of patriotic and moral instruction rather than of a work of art.[250] Thus we find Louis XII. bestowing a pardon on an _impresario_ guilty of some criminal peccadillo, on account of his excellence in his profession.