About the work
Verse tragedy by Gian Giorgio Trissino, written in 1514–15 and first published in 1524. It did not reach the stage until 1556, six years after Trissino's death, at the French royal court in Blois — in a translation dashed off within days by Mellin de Saint-Gelais and performed by young princesses on the orders of Catherine de' Medici. Only in 1562, during carnival season in Vicenza, was the play first staged in its original Italian, in a theatre specially designed by Andrea Palladio.
Plot
After her husband, the Numidian king Syphax, is defeated by the forces of Massinissa, allied with Rome, Sofonisba is taken captive. Massinissa, who had once courted her himself, marries her to shield her from being handed over to Rome — but the Roman general Scipio forbids the union. To escape captivity in Rome, Sofonisba takes her own life with poison.
Cultural significance
Trissino modelled the play closely on ancient Greek tragedy — using a chorus, unity of time and place, and unrhymed hendecasyllables instead of rhyme — and is generally credited with writing the first 'regular' tragedy of modern European literature. The work shaped Renaissance tragedy in Italy and France; the 1562 Vicenza production is also seen as a forerunner of Palladio's later Teatro Olimpico.