Commedia dell'arte the "amorosi". The servants or the clowns are referred to as the "zanni" and include characters such as Arlecchino (also known as Harlequin), Brighella, Scapino and Pedrolino. Some of the better known "commedia dell'arte" characters are Pierrot and Pierrette, Pantalone, Il Dottore, Brighella, Il Capitano, Colombina, the "innamorati", Pedrolino, Pulcinella, Sandrone, Scaramuccia (also known as Scaramouche), La Signora, and Tartaglia. In the 17th century as "commedia" became popular in France, the characters of Pierrot, Columbine and Harlequin were refined and became essentially Parisian, according to Green. Each character in Commedia dell'arte has a distinct costume that helps the audience understand
Pierrot important factor that probably hastened his degeneration was the multiplicity of his fairground interpreters. Not only actors but also acrobats and dancers were quick to seize on his role, inadvertently reducing Pierrot to a generic type. The extent of that degeneration may be gauged by the fact that Pierrot came to be confused, apparently because of his manner and costume, with that much coarser character Gilles, as a famous portrait by Antoine Watteau attests (note title of image at right). But in the 1720s, Pierrot at last came into his own. Antoine Galland's final volume of The "Thousand and One