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'Thus she was decapitated, and this was the end to which she was brought by her unbridled lusts.'
For over two centuries after Boccaccio's groundbreaking Decameron, the Italian novella exercised a crucial influence over European prose fiction. With thirty-nine stories by nineteen authors, many translated for the first time, this anthology presents tales from the whole genre and period. Here we meet a rich cast of humble peasants and shrewd craftsmen, frustrated wives, libidinous friars, ill-fated lovers, and vengeful nobles. These works had a considerable impact in English, and the selection includes tales that have provided sources for Chaucer, Shakespeare, Webster, Marston, Dryden, Byron and Keats.
The typical novella is situated in a precise time and place and features people who either existed historically or are presumed to have done so. The subject-matter, whether ribald or sentimental, comic or tragic, often reflects the social and economic conditions of its age and thus the novella has been seen as a crucial stage in the development of fictional realism and the emergence of the novel
List of contents
- Introduction
- A Note on the Text and Acknowledgements
- Select Bibliography
- Giovanni Boccaccio
- Proem
- The Conversion of Abraham
- Alibech and Rustico
- Tancredi and Ghismonda
- The Pot of Basil
- Madonna Filippa's Defence
- Peronella and the Jar
- Patient Griselda
- Ser Giovanni Fiorentino
- Giannetto and the Lady of Belmont
- Franco Sacchetti
- Piero Brandani's Son
- A Sermon on Usury
- Giovanni Gherardi da Prato
- The Tale of Catellina
- Gentile Sermini
- Anselmo Salimbeni and Angelica Montanini
- Antonio Manetti
- The Fat Woodworker
- Masuccio Salernitano
- Saint Griffin's Drawers
- The Castilian Student
- Sabbadino degli Arienti
- The Priest and the Friar
- Niccolò Machiavelli
- A Fable
- Giovan Francesco Straparola
- Fortunio
- Margherita Spolatina
- Luigi da Porto
- The Story of Two Noble Lovers
- Giovanni Brevio
- Madonna Lisabetta
- Matteo Bandello
- The Countess of Challant
- Giulia of Gazzuolo
- Timbreo and Fenicia
- The Duchess of Amalfi
- Niccolò d'Este
- Anton Francesco Grazzini
- Introduction
- Fazio the Goldsmith
- Lazzero and Gabriello
- Pietro Fortini
- Antonio Angelini
- Cristoforo Armeno
- The Metamorphoses of an Emperor
- Giovambattista Giraldi Cinzio
- The Moorish Captain
- Nigella and the Doctor
- Iuriste and Epitia
- Giambattista Basile
- Cinderella
- Sun, Moon, and Talia
- Francesco Pona
- Armilla
- Lindori
- Explanatory Notes
- Notes on the Authors
About the author
Anthony Mortimer is Emeritus Professor at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, and also taught for many years at the University of Geneva. In addition to his scholarly work on English Renaissance Poetry, he has produced a series of verse translations: Dante (the Vita Nuova), Cavalcanti, Petrarch, Michelangelo, Angelus Silesius, Villon, Baudelaire, and The Song of Roland. His version of Luigi Pirandello's Three Plays was published in the Oxford World's Classics in 2014.
Summary
An anthology of Italian tales covering the period roughly from 1370 to 1630, during which the novella was the dominant form of prose fiction.
