Antonio Petito (22 June 1822, in

Naples Naples ( ; ; ) is the Regions of Italy, regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its Metropolitan City of N ...

– 24 March 1876) was an

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

stage actor An actor (masculine/gender-neutral), or actress (feminine), is a person who portrays a character in a production. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. ...

and

playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes play (theatre), plays, which are a form of drama that primarily consists of dialogue between Character (arts), characters and is intended for Theatre, theatrical performance rather than just Readin ...

. He was a notable

Pulcinella Pulcinella (; ) is a classical character that originated in commedia dell'arte of the 17th century and became a stock character in Neapolitan puppetry. Pulcinella's versatility in status and attitude has captivated audiences worldwide and kept ...

performer, and an important figure of Neapolitan theater in the 19th century. Petito was the son of another Pulcinella, Petito Salvatore and Donna Peppa. It was his father who initiated him with wearing a mask during a theatrical performance at the Teatro San Carlino in Naples. Petito first performed at the

Teatro San Ferdinando Teatro San Ferdinando is a theatre in Naples, Italy. It is named after King Ferdinand I of Naples. Located near Ponte Nuovo, it is to the southeast of the Teatro Totò in the western part of the neighborhood of Arenaccia. Built in the late eighte ...

in 1831. Petito was not only known for his acting facial expressions, but also for his work as a playwright despite being illiterate. Unable to write well, he used assistants, mostly commonly Giacomo Marulli. After his death, the San Carlino theater remained open for only a short time, having lost its most well known performer. ''

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'' is a

1954 Events January * January 3 – The Italian broadcaster RAI officially begins transmitting. * January 7 – Georgetown–IBM experiment: The first public demonstration of a machine translation system is held in New York, at the head ...

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about Antonio "Pulcinella" Petito. In 1982, the

RAI (), commercially styled as since 2000 and known until 1954 as (RAI), is the national public broadcasting company of Italy, owned by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. RAI operates many terrestrial and subscription television channels a ...

dedicated a seven-part television drama, ''Petito story'', to him. He was the great-grandfather of

Enzo Petito Enzo Petito (24 July 1897 – 17 July 1967) was an Italian film and stage character actor. A theatre actor under Eduardo De Filippo in the 1950s in the Teatro San Ferdinando of Naples, with whom he was professionally closely associated, Petito als ...

, a character actor in

Sergio Leone Sergio Leone ( ; ; 3 January 1929 – 30 April 1989) was an Italian filmmaker, credited as the pioneer of the spaghetti Western genre. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest directors in the history of cinema. Leone's film-making style ...

classic 1966

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film ''

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly ''The Good, the Bad and the Ugly'' (, literally "''The good, the ugly, the bad''") is a 1966 Italian epic spaghetti Western film directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood as "the Good", Lee Van Cleef as "the Bad", and Eli Wallach a ...

''.

References

* Petito, Antonio. ''Memorie artistiche; presentate e trascritte da Giuseppe A. Pastore'', Lecce, Edizioni del Grifo, 2006. * Frascani, Federico. ''Le burle atroci di Antonio Petito; autobiografia del leggendario Pulcinella'', Napoli, Arte tipografica, 1998. * Piscopo, Ugo. ''Maschere per l'Europa: il teatro popolare napoletano da Petito a Eduardo'', Napoli, Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1994. {{DEFAULTSORT:Petito, Antonio 1822 births 1876 deaths Kingdom of the Two Sicilies people 19th-century Neapolitan people 19th-century Italian male actors Italian male stage actors 19th-century Italian dramatists and playwrights 19th-century Italian male writers