(1) The 18th Century Stock Masks. il castello dei burattini - Museo Giordano Ferrari, undated www.castellodeiburattini.it/cgi- ... s/cGWj0NL887_21.pdf
(“A mask from the region of Piedmont, it first came on stage as a puppet, only later becaming [sic] more typical of the marionette theatre. It seems to derive from a character known as Gironi d’la crina (dialect; in Italian: Gerolamo della scrofa) – which had been created around 1630. At the beginning of the XIX century, the name of this puppet got his operator Giovanni Battista Sales into trouble, because, though common people strongly appreciated its humour, neither the Doge of Genoa nor the brother of Napoleon could stand the fact it had their same Christian name. Sales was expelled both from Genoa and Turin, and confined in Caglianetto d’Asti, where, probably, determined to avoid more problems, he changed the name into Gioan d’la douja (dialect; in Italian: Giovanni della duja) which was contracted into Gianduia”)
Note:
(a) Doge of Genoa
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doge_of_Genoa
("duke")
(b) Jérôme Bonaparte
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jérôme_Bonaparte
(c) Jerome (given name)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerome_%28given_name%29
(Greek: "sacred name")
(d) Donna Marie Desfor, Recipe: Gianduja. Italian for Nutella! WITF (radio & TV stations), Jan 24, 2012 www.witf.org/kitchen-chef-donna- ... ian-for-nutella.php
("The wildly popular Nutella chocolate-hazelnut spread is made routinely in homes in Italy’s Piedmont region. This hazelnut-chocolate confection, gianduja, takes its name from a popular Turin-based folk character, Gioan d'la Duja ('Giovanni of the Jug')")
Giovanni is an Italian form of "John."
(e) Italian English dictionary
* commedia (noun feminine): "comedy"
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/commedia
(2) It appears the character may very well wear a mask. See also
Thomas Thomson, Sir Daniel Keyte Sandford and Allan Cunningham, The Popular Encyclopedia or Conversations Lexicon. Blackie & Son, 1836, at 710-711.
books.google.com/books?id=tdJCoi26sewC&pg=PA711&lpg=PA711&dq=gianduja+mask&source=bl&ots=hf4Q47JHTa&sig=JUKZ0MNkCWKlQcTCHvB8u9Ql4xE&hl=en&sa=X&ei=y3TuVOWFAsG2yASZ6IDQAQ&ved=0CCIQ6AEwATgK#v=onepage&q=gianduja%20mask&f=false