But in speaking of theatrical performances, no person should leave Milan without going to see the Teatro Girolamo, which is one of the “curiosities” of the place, peculiar to Milan, and more frequented, perhaps, than any other.  This is a puppet theatre, but puppets so well contrived and so well worked as to make the spectacle well worth the attention of the traveller.  It is the Nec plus ultra of Marionettism, in which Signer Girolamo, the proprietor, has made a revolution, which will form an epoch in the annals of puppetry; having driven from the stage entirely the graziosissima maschera d’Arlecchino, who used to be the hero of all the pieces represented by the puppets and substituted himself, or rather a puppet bearing his name, in the place of Harlequin, as the principal farceur of the performance.  He has contrived to make the puppet Girolamo a little like himself, but so much caricatured and so monstrously ugly a likeness that the bare sight of it raises immediate laughter.  The theatre itself is small, being something under the size of our old Haymarket little theatre, but is very neatly and tastefully fitted up.  The puppets are about half of the natural size of man, and Girolamo, aided by one or two others, works them and gives them gesture, by means of strings, which are, however, so well contrived as to be scarcely visible; and Girolamo himself speaks for all, as, besides being a ventriloquist, he has a most astonishing faculty of varying his voice, and adapting it to the role of each puppet, so that the illusion is complete.  The scenery and decorations are excellent.  Sometimes he gives operas as well as dramas, and there is always a ballo, with transformation of one figure into another, which forms part of the performance.  These transformations are really very curious and extremely well executed.  Almost all the pieces acted on the theatre are of Girolamo’s own composition, and he sometimes chooses a classical or mythological subject, in which the puppet Girolamo is sure to be introduced and charged with all the wit of the piece.  He speaks invariably with the accent and patois of the country, and his jokes never fail to keep the audience in a roar of laughter; his mode of speech and slang phrases form an absurd contrast to the other figures, who speak in pure Italian and pompous versi sciolti.  For instance, the piece I saw represented was the story of Alcestis and was entitled La scesa d’Ercole nell Inferno, to redeem the wife of Admetus.  Hercules, before he commences this undertaking, wishes to hire a valet for the journey, has an interview with Girolamo, and engages him.  Hercules speaks in blank verse and in a phrase, full of sesquipedalia verba, demands his country and lineage.  Girolamo replies in the Piedmontese dialect and with a strong nasal accent:  “De mi pais, de Piemong.”  Girolamo, however, though he professes to be as brave as Mars himself has a great repugnance to accompanying his master to the shades below, or to the “casa del diavolo,” as he calls it; and while Hercules fights with Cerberus, he shakes and trembles all over, as he does likewise when he meets Madonna Morte.