ERMETE

NOVELLI (1851- )  , Italian actor and playwright, was born in Lucca on the 5th of March 1851, the son of a prompter . He made his first appearance in 1866, and played character and leading comedy parts in the best companies between 1871 and 1884 . By 1885 he had his own company, and made a great success in Paris in 1898 and 1902 . He established in Rome in 1900 a new theatre, the Casa di Goldoni, on the lines of the Comedie Francaise . He dramatized Gaboriau's Monsieur Lecoq, and alone or in collaboration wrote several comedies and many monologues .