Carlo Gozzi was an eighteenth-century Venetian playwright, poet, and essayist. A fierce and skillful defender of the traditional Italian commedia dell’arte form, his dramatic works were popular in Italy and throughout Europe, particularly in Germany. His play, TURANDOT, was used as the basis for Giacomo Puccini’s opera of the same name. He died in Venice in 1806 at the age of 85.