"Riccardo III: «superbo prodotto di bottega»?"

[Machine translation] While claiming the hybrid status of artiginality for Shakespearean production, which intends to overcome the binary distinction between artist and craftsman, Gary Taylor emphasized that Shakespeare, as a good craftsman attentive to the market, essentially worked “modifying existing artifacts”. In this perspective, the case of Richard III is rather unique because of the multiplicity of material supports on which the artifacts at Shakespeare's disposal traveled: texts, paintings, representations — an undoubtedly heterogeneous whole, but united by a common interest in Richard's body. It is not surprising that this body so strongly characterized in its departure from the norm - asymmetric, deformed, even monstrous, depending on the point of view - has also been at the center of critical attention, who have discussed it variously in relation to its origins, to discourses on history, sexuality, the unconscious, up to the most recent reflections on disability. In the light of this creative and critical focus, the rearrangements of the “Richard III” artifact in the culture of early modernity are reconstructed here, following its results in the Shakespearean drama of the same name.