Sicilian

is a form of prose theater that dramatizes primarily chivalric narratives using large wooden puppets with full armor, swords, and shields. The puppets weigh an average of twenty-two pounds in the Palermo tradition and sixty-five pounds in the Catanese tradition, and they are manipulated from above by means of iron rods. These characteristics distinguish the Sicilian puppet theater from other forms of

traditionally practiced in Italy, such as the

, light-weight puppets supported by strings, and the

, or hand-puppets, both of which present varied, primarily comic, stories outside the context of chivalry.

Puppet theater can be found throughout the world from Northern Europe to Indonesia and is attested to in Sicily since the fourth

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Citation: Cavallo, Jo Ann. "Sicilian puppet theater". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 16 January 2012; last revised 11 November 2018. [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=17676, accessed 23 November 2024.]

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