First published in 1997. Considered one of the first prose works in Italian and a precursor of the Decameron,this is the first complete translation of the Novellino into English, based on the 1525 editio princeps. While manuscripts vary as to wording and the number of tales, the 1525 first edition follows seven of the eight known manuscripts closely. The text includes a transcription of the 1525 edition, taken from the copy in the Parma Biblioteca Palatina. This transcription has been altered as little as possible, diacriticals are added and capitalization is systematized, but no attempt has been made to modernize the language. Vocabulary notes are provided, as are ample notes to explain the historical and cultural significance of figures and events in the tales. There is one bibliography for the Novellino and another for the explanatory notes.
This book provides a much-needed new version of an unjustly neglected 15th century Italian collection of prose tales hugely important to the history and development of short story writing. It is the first complete translation into English of Masuccio's Novellino since that of W. G. Waters in 1895. The Novellino (50 tales over five decades) is fiercely anti-clerical, and its bitter satire and political prejudices ensured that it was put on the Index of Prohibited Books. The original manuscript was, in fact, burnt and the first edition was published posthumously. The tales can be grim and gothic, tragic or comic, erotic, or simply hilarious. The author is always at pains to present an agreeable mixture: he knows exactly how to cheer the reader with a morally uplifting tale to offset stories of murder, incest and skulduggery, and an endless series of ingeniously contrived adulteries. This new translation makes use of the editions, scholarship and dictionaries unavailable to the first translator, and it has had the advice and assistance of leading scholars of the genre today.
This book provides a much-needed new version of an unjustly neglected 15th century Italian collection of prose tales hugely important to the history and development of short story writing. It is the first complete translation into English of Masuccio's Novellino since that of W. G. Waters in 1895. The Novellino (50 tales over five decades) is fiercely anti-clerical, and its bitter satire and political prejudices ensured that it was put on the Index of Prohibited Books. The original manuscript was, in fact, burnt and the first edition was published posthumously. The tales can be grim and gothic, tragic or comic, erotic, or simply hilarious. The author is always at pains to present an agreeable mixture: he knows exactly how to cheer the reader with a morally uplifting tale to offset stories of murder, incest and skulduggery, and an endless series of ingeniously contrived adulteries. This new translation makes use of the editions, scholarship and dictionaries unavailable to the first translator, and it has had the advice and assistance of leading scholars of the genre today.
Italy possesses one of the richest and most influential literatures of Europe, stretching back to the thirteenth century. This substantial history of Italian literature provides a comprehensive survey of Italian writing since its earliest origins. Leading scholars describe and assess the work of writers who have contributed to the Italian literary tradition, including Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio, the Renaissance humanists, Machiavelli, Ariosto and Tasso, pioneers and practitioners of commedia dell'arte and opera, and the contemporary novelists Calvino and Eco. The Cambridge History of Italian Literature sets out to be accessible to the general reader as well as to students and scholars: translations are provided, along with a map, chronological chart and substantial bibliographies.
The book offers a renewed study of the life and works of one of the most famous popular preachers and sermon authors of Renaissance Italy, providing a reference work on the figure of Roberto Caracciolo and a reading of his times.
Wide-ranging stories offer a glimpse into witchcraft, magic, Crusaders, astrology, alchemy, pacts with the Devil, chivalry, trial by torture, church councils, mercantile life, other elements of Middle Ages.
This book provides the first comprehensive study of the performance of medieval narrative, using examples from England and the Continent and a variety of genres to examine the crucial question of whether - and how - medieval narratives were indeed intended for performance. Moving beyond the familiar dichotomy between oral and written literature, the various contributions emphasize the range and power of medieval performance traditions, and demonstrate that knowledge of the modes and means of performance is crucial for appreciating medieval narratives. The book is divided into four main parts, with each essay engaging with a specific issue or work, relating it to larger questions about performance. It first focuses on representations of the art of medieval performers of narrative. It then examines relationships between narrative performances and the material books that inspired, recorded, or represented them. The next section studies performance features inscribed in texts and the significance of considering performability. The volume concludes with contributions by present-day professional performers who bring medieval narratives to life for contemporary audiences. Topics covered include orality, performance, storytelling, music, drama, the material book, public reading, and court life.
The focus of the volume, in addition to standard features such as the bibliographical update on 15th-c. theater, is on late-medieval authors as literary critics. Founded in 1977 as the publication organ for the Fifteenth-Century Symposium, Fifteenth-Century Studies has appeared annually since then. It publishes essays on all aspects of life in the fifteenth century, including literature, drama, history, philosophy, art, music, religion, science, and ritual and custom. The editors strive to do justice to the most contested medieval century, a period that has long been the stepchild of research. The fifteenthcentury defies consensus on fundamental issues: some scholars dispute, in fact, whether it belonged to the middle ages at all, arguing that it was a period of transition, a passage to modern times. At issue, therefore, is the verytenor of an age that stood under the influence of Gutenberg, Columbus, the Devotio Moderna, and Humanism. Along with the standard updating of bibliography on 15th-c. theater, this volume is devoted to research on late-medieval authors as literary critics. Thus, for the historian as well as the writer of fiction, the tenuous limits between truth and fantasy (and the role of doubt) are investigated. If there are several eyewitness accounts of an event, which one can be trusted? Medieval memorialists sometimes became advisors to princes and used a rhetoric of careful persuasion. Values such as chivalry, courtly love, and kingly self-representation come up for discussion here.Several essays ponder the structure of poetic forms and popular genres, and others consider more factual topics such as incunabula on medications, religious literature in the vernacular for everyday use, a student's notebook on magic, and late medieval merchants, money, and trade. Contributors: Edelgard DuBruck, Karen Casebier, Emma J. Cayley, Albrecht Classen, Michael G. Cornelius, Jean Dufornet, Catherine Emerson, Leonardas V. Gerulaitis, Kenneth Hodges, Sharon M. Loewald, Luca Pierdominici, Michel J. Raby, Elizabeth I. Wade. Edelgard E. DuBruck is professor emerita in the Modern Languages Department at Marygrove College in Detroit; Barbara I. Gusick is professor emerita of English at Troy University-Dothan, Dothan, Alabama.
In this history of Florence, distinguished historian John Najemy discusses all the major developments in Florentine history from 1200 to 1575. Captures Florence's transformation from a medieval commune into an aristocratic republic, territorial state, and monarchy Weaves together intellectual, cultural, social, economic, religious, and political developments Academically rigorous yet accessible and appealing to the general reader Likely to become the standard work on Renaissance Florence for years to come
