Jay Cross [Sep 22 2002]

Duchartre describes the 16th century Brighella as a very mean, quick-witted, but lazy and self-serving adventurer. Brighella become a subjugated but sneaky Coviello-like servant in the seventeenth century. Based on Duchartre's fairly lengthy description, I'd say the character in popular culture we could best compare him to would be Bluto from the early Popeye cartoons, that is, if you could imagine a more slender charming Bluto, wearing an olive-colored hook-nose mask, with a handle-bar mustache, and able to play the guitar. As to how women react to him Duchartre says: Women rarely like this strange scoundrel, but they fear and respect him. They tolerate his insolence because they are afraid of his claws and mischievous ways, and they yield only too often to his cajoling and his ingenious and persuasive eloqunence.