The founder of Italian comedy, born at Venice; in his youth he studied medicine and subsequently law, but in 1732 appeared as a dramatist with his tragedy "Belisario"; moving from place to place as a strolling-player, he in 1736 returned to Venice, and finding his true vocation in comedy-writing, turned out a rapid succession of sparkling character plays after the manner of Molière; in 1761 he went to Paris as a playwright to the Italian theatre; became Italian master to Louis XV.'s daughters, and subsequently was pensioned; his comedies displaced the burlesques and farces till then in vogue on the stage in Italy (1707-1793).