I segni in scena ovvero la posterità di Charles-Michel de L’Épée nel teatro italiano dell’Ottocento

This paper examines the nineteenth-century Italian reception of ‘L’Abbé de l’Épée’ (1799), a historical comedy by Jean-Nicolas Bouilly about Charles-Michel de l’Épée, the first well-known educator of deaf people. Presenting the principle Italian translations and the published and unpublished sequels of the play, this study takes into account its almost uninterrupted presence on stage and in the editorial context of the period. By analyzing the paratexts, the essay discusses the modalities and functions of Bouilly’s choice of adopting a sort of proto-sign language as a distinctive codex in the representation of deafness.