improvisatori

I know something of those whom we in Italy call improvisatori; and I could speak in this oriental style for eight hours together without the least effort, for it requires none to be bombastic in negligent verse, overloaded with epithets almost continually repeated, to heap combat upon combat, and to describe chimeras.”

A Philosophical Dictionary 2007

There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine.

Selections from Poe J. Montgomery Gambrill

Bisaccio, where he remained all October and November, spending his days, with great advantage to his health, in hunting, and his nights in music and dancing, taking special delight in the marvellous performances of the improvisatori.

Roman Mosaics Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood Hugh Macmillan

-- The Arabs, who have among them most imaginative and finished _improvisatori_, compare the elegant movements of a beautiful bride to those of a young camel.

The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 of Literature, Science and Art. Various

-- There are, however, artists who have too much self-confidence, that is ill-founded confidence, founded rather upon a certain dexterity than upon a habit of thought; they are like the improvisatori in poetry; and most commonly, as Metastasio acknowledged of himself, had much to unlearn, to acquire a habit of thinking with selection.

Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 53, No. 328, February, 1843 Various

While he was yet a lad and living in Florence, they used in certain places of the city to meet together during the nights of summer on the public streets; and he, ranking among the best of the improvisatori, sang there.

The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini Cellini, Benvenuto, 1500-1571 1910

While he was yet a lad and living in Florence, they used in certain places of the city to meet together during the nights of summer on the public streets; and he, ranking among the best of the improvisatori, sang there.

XXXII 1909

Italy is the land to which we must look for great men; that it is not merely the country of singers, fiddlers, _improvisatori_, and linguists, but of men, of beings who may emphatically be called men.

A Bibliography of the writings in Prose and Verse of George Henry Borrow Thomas James Wise 1898

They were vocal soloists and often improvisatori, clearly differentiated from the cantori a libro, who were "singers by book and note" and who sang the polyphonic art music of the time.

Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 1896

There were still improvisatori who would turn you topical verses on any subject, and who, on the very evening of Derby-day, could rhyme the winner when unexpectedly asked by the audience to do so.

Without Prejudice Israel Zangwill 1895