The volume is an intriguing investigation and a useful guide to get to know in depth (and in a way that is anything but folkloristic) the famous stock comic character of Harlequin.
The "Mondologo di Arlecchino" investigates in a new and original way that "mosaic" of writings and fragments that surrounds the perhaps most complex and variegated stock comic character of the Commedia dell'Arte. The cues traceable in the "scattered life" of the character of Harlequin in the Italian and European theatre of the past centuries from the XVIth to the XIXth , are first accurately dealt with in an essay (rich of philological and bibliographic indications) able to recall the big issues of the World of Harlequin, then they are reintepreted, revised and reinvented in a real script in which Harlequin speaks in the first person (and with the colourful puzzle of his multi-dialect language) of his extraordinary and upside down outlook on the World.
A"full relief" Harlequin appears in it, who has gone through centuries and places, gathering on his ancient archetype the experiences of the various epochs but also able to meet our contemporary issues and to invent new jokes for us. A Wandering Harlequin, alive and still able to "make theatre" and thus to hand down his "theatrical journey" also to the future.

The text is accompanied by a series of 33 photos taken from the homonymous performance that the author has been staging for over a decade as renowned interpreter of Harlequin in Italy and abroad.

The volume also includes:

• An introduction by Alessandro Gentili that contextualizes the "Mondologo di Arlecchino" within the contemporary researches on the actor's work.
  
• An afterword by Ferruccio Merisi which, by recalling the "Director's memoirs" of the performance "il Mondologo di Arlecchino" opens intriguing reflections on the most contemporary requirements in terms of spatial staging, actor-audience relationship, definition of the simultaneous scores of body-voice-look for the actor… in the Commedia dell'Arte and not only.

• INTRODUCTION by Alessandro Gentili
  
• PREAMBLE AND "CANOVACCIO" by Claudia Contin
• The main tale
• Arguments
  
• Harlequin Servant of the Devil
  
• Harlequin Wild Jester
  
• Harlequin, the Marionette, the Stick
  
• The Hunger issue
  
• The Love issue
  
• Harlequin's misogyny
• The Charlatan, the Wizard, the Bagatto (a sort of charlatan vendor), the Healer
• An Harlequin dedicated to the Menocchio Miller
• The Carnival and the revolution of the "World upside down"
• Notes
• IL MONDOLOGO DI ARLECCHINO by Claudia Contin
• First Scene
  
• Second Scene
  
• Third Scene
  
• Fourth Scene
  
• Fifth Scene
  
• Final Scene
• APPENDIX TO IL MONDOLOGO DI ARLECCHINO by Claudia Contin
• About Harlequin's horns
• About Harlequin's conception of the world
• About Harlequin's recipes against love
• About Harlequin Bagatto defending himself in public
• About Harlequin's philosophy of laughing
• About Harlequin's dislike for latin and women
• About loving Harlequin's studies
• About Harlequin's declarations of love
• Notes
• MEMOIRS OF A DIRECTOR by Ferruccio Merisi