The Commedie dell'Arte shone on market squares of Italian cities from XIV century. It grew from the Antique Greek and Roman theatres.It executed by wandering troupes of the actors, and each actor played constantly same character. Street performers began donning masks with exaggerated comical features to draw attention to themselves and to complement their acrobatic skills. The characters they created became affectionately known as Zanni, and Harlequin was the most famous of them. There were the traditions of fair performances in Russia too, on which the actors sewed bright patches on their costumes and coloured their faces for engaging attention of audience, entertaining it by various jokes and acrobatic tricks. Certainly, it is not possible to conduct direct parallels between the Commedie dell'Arte and Russian Scomorokh's, but nevertheless Russian Petrushka very reminds Italian Zanni.
     The actors teams were accessible to all social classes and the subject matter was always contemporary. With the mask concealing their identity, the performers could ridicule any aspect of society and its' institutions.
Each character of the Commedie dell'Arte personified a certain human trait (and, at the same time, a representative of society, to which it was most peculiar), and lead it up to the point of irrationality. The costume of each character of the Commedie had characteristic indicative features, on which the audience could recognise it very easy. The mask, closed entire face of the actor, apart from comical effect, bore characteristic features of the given character as well. The personality of the actor, thus, completely left in shadow and he appeared as a live doll, figuratively speaking. Making the collection, I had acted "to the point by the contrary" - I had created the doll actors. Surprisingly for me, all dolls, which I made as characters of Italian Commedie dell'Arte appeared a little bit Russian looked.