Luigi Riccoboni was the author of several important primary sources on the so-called "Italian comedy" and the prevailing acting methods in the first third of the Eighteenth Century:

Luigi (c. 1676-1753) was the son of Antonio Riccoboni, the famous Modena Pantalone. Luigi had acted at Modena in when he was about sixteen. Then, believing he heard a call to religious orders, he decided to become a monk. But the Duke dissuaded him and he remained a player, albeit a reluctant one. Even as a young man, he could see some of the weaknesses of extempore performances. Much later he was to write:

Thus, he believed that actors and audiences deserved plays with literary merits instead of the hastily contrived, overworked, and pointless comic scenarios. He, therefore, undertook to reform the situation attempting comedies, the written works of the poets, such as the Sofonisba of Trissino, and tragedies including the Oedipus of Sophokles, among others. This experiment in the literary drama met with success in Modena, but when he took his reforms to Venice in 1713, and despite one tremendous success with the tragedy Merope by Scipione de Maffei (1675-1755), he found the audiences there largely unresponsive. Disappointed and discouraged, he had to abandon his reforms.

In 1715, after the death of Louis XIV and a period of official mourning, Louis' brother, the pleasure loving Philippe II, duc d'Orleans, regent for the six-year old Louis XV, asked the Duke of Parma to find a company of Italian comedians who would bring their improvised comedies to Paris where they would play in a newly renovated Hôtel de Bourgogne. The Duke of Parma assigned the task of forming a new one to Luigi Riccoboni.

Because the renovations at the Hôtel de Bourgogne were not completed on May 18, the new troupe opened at the Palais-Royal in an old piece called L'Inganno Fortunato (The Lucky Cheat) with forty-year-old Luigi as the lover Lelio. The novelty proved an immediate success. Even though Riccoboni's players performed in Italian, "their pantomime was eloquent enough to tell a story or illustrate a character"

In June the troupe moved into the Hôtel where the act curtain was emblazoned with a phoenix arising from the flames and the hopeful motto, "Je renais." But hopes soon faded as Parisian audiences, accustomed to the polished plays of Moliere, wearied of the undisciplined novelty of the Italians. Some were offended by the blatant vulgarity of the improvisations. The company at first tried reviving some of the (partly improvised) French plays they had performed before they were expelled. Audiences continued to desert them. Riccoboni responded by accomodating Parisian tastes with complete scripts. He augmented his Italians with four French actors and commissioned his friend Jacques Autreau to write a play in French using the "traditional Italian" characters his troupe had mastered already. Autreau gave him Le Port a L'Anglais; the troupe memorized it; Riccoboni directed it and after its premiere April 25, 1718, the audiences returned.

In 1720 Riccoboni presented the first of a number of scripts written for his troupe by Pierre-Carlet Marivaux (1688-1763), Arlequin poli par l'amour (Harlequin Refined by Love). Nothing could be further from the rowdy improvised slapstick the troupe had brought to Paris than this sparkling, some would say hyper-refined and sentimental dialogue which explored the subtlest psychological details of the delicate (critics might say precious) characters. The following year, they performed two plays by Delisle, Arlequin sauvage and Timon la misanthrope. In 1722, they acted Marivaux's La Surprise de l'amour (The Surprise of Love) in which Lelio and a countess, having renounced love, gradually realize they are in love with each other. In 1723 the troupe acted La Double inconstance (The Double Inconstancy) which tells the story of Harlequin and Sylvia who are betrothed to each other until the Prince chooses Sylvia for his bride and Harlequin realizes that he really loves Flavinia.

In 1723, Riccoboni and his Comédie Italienne were granted a subsidy of 15,000 livres and given the official designation Comediens Ordinaire du Roi (Comedians Ordinary to the King.)