“Wearing so many commas, it was natural for Atala to die of cholera.” In 1884 Filippo Guglielmi’s Atala (libretto by G. Cappuccini) premiered in Milan to mixed reviews, apparently too Wagnerian for Lombard critics. Based on Chateaubriand’s 1801 novella Atala, Guglielmi’s opera presumably featured a Frenchman named René who joined an American Indian tribe, though I haven’t seen the libretto. Chateaubriand was arguing against “noble savage” narratives, and–bypassing a more complex story of intermarriage–for present purposes it is mainly relevant that René eventually meets a violent end. The image must be an inside joke about the costumes, at a time when cholera was resurgent in Naples. We have previously encountered the comma bacillus as proxy for cholera.
(Cosmorama pittorico, Milan, 1884)
Sic Transit Pestilentia 