Matteo Bandello : Twelve Stories

ZZI DATE DUE /' ck^Jpon i DueBs (TOCCHI I Thtariì livereitv / 1 1 ! PRINTED IN USA Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://archive.org/details/cu31924102029083 In compliance with current Copyright law, Cornell University Library produced this replacement volume on paper that meets the ANSI Standard Z39.48-1992 to replace the irreparably deteriorated original. 2006 CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE 'SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 1 89 1 BY HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE (NJDFSLLI8RI ITALIANI MATTEO BANDELLO Novellieri Italiani MATTEO BANDELLO TWELVE STORIES SELECTED AND DONE INTO ENGLISH WITH A MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR BY PERCY PINKERTON LONDON JOHN C. NIMMO 14, KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND MDCCCXCV L o CONTENTS How Don Diego, being scorned by his mistress, takes up his abode in a grotto, and how he comes out again I An avaricious priest is nicely cheated by certain good fellows, who rob him of afat sheep . -55 Gerardo secretly weds his mistress and sets out for Baruti. The girtsfather wouldgive her in mar- riage; she swoons with grief, and is buriedfor dead. That selfsame day her true husband returns, and, taking herforth from the tomb, discovers that she is not deadj whereupon he tends her, and formally celebrates his nuptials with her .... 67 How Signor Didaco Centiglia, having wedded a damsel, grows weary of her, and how at her hands he meets his death 117 Of the divers mischances and grievous perils which befell Cornelio for the love of his lady . 139 . iv CONTENTS PAGE Of the sad end of two hapless lovers, one dying of poison, and the other ofgriefj together with sundry events ......... 169 Of a trick played upon the Prior of Modena and his monks by an ass which got into the church one night . 235 Pandolfo del Nero is buried alive with his lady-love, and escapes from such peril by a strange chance . 243 Of the Judge of Luccds intrigue with a lady, and how he causes her husband to be put in prison; together with sundry incidents . .257 Simone Turchi, being at enmity with Geronimo Deo- dati ofLucca, makes his peace with himj but after- wards in unheard-of fashion murders him; and is himself burnt alive at Aiitwerp .... 293 Bigolino, the Calabrian, plays a trick upon the Bishop of Reggio, his master, by means of a certain forged bill .... 323 Galeazzo carries off a damsel from Padua, and then kills through jealousy both her and himself . 333 INTRODUCTION MATTEO BANDELLO, who deserves to rank as the most important of the Italian novellieri, was born at Castelnuovo, in Tortona, Piedmont, towards the end of the fifteenth century. It was doubtless owing to the influence of his uncle, Vincenzio Bandello, General of the Dominicans, that he was led to choose the Church as a pro- fession. While yet a boy, he visited Rome, where he joined the Order of the Predicatori, and in due course was sent to the famous convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie at Milan. His stay there, however, was brief, as he was soon called upon to accompany his uncle when in his official capacity he had to visit the various Dominican convents of France, Italy, Germany, and Spain. Travel thus brought the young monk into touch with the world, and so rare an opportunity, at this im- pressionable age, of studying men and manners vi INTRODUCTION was not wasted; indeed it may have served to shape his taste for letters. Much of Bandello's early manhood was passed at Mantua, where he became the tutor and devoted admirer of the accomplished, bewitching Lucrezia Gonzaga. In Scaliger he also found another distinguished friend, and was upon familiar terms with all the most cultured, scholarly gentlemen of the time; for he could count the illustrious families of Visconti, Gonzaga, Da Este, and Sforza as his patrons and friends. Statesmen, and not only men of letters, recognised his ability, and several princes and courtiers entrusted him with important negotia- tions of a political nature. During this time Jhe had excellent opportunities to collect and arrange materials for his famous series of novels, the suggestion to compose these having been made to him by Ippolita Sforza-Bentivoglio—one of the first and most constant of his patrons. But his literary work was grievously interrupted when, in 1525, the Spaniards routed the French and took possession of Milan. As a partisan of France, Bandello's father was condemned to exile, his goods being confiscated and his house destroyed. Matteo himself was obliged to escape, leaving all his papers INTRODUCTION vii and manuscripts behind. After various vicissitudes, he accepted the offer of Cesare Fregoso and his wife, Costanza Rangoni, to accompany them to France, since in Italy he could find no permanent home. Fregoso, at one time a distinguished Venetian general, had espoused the French cause, and possessed a beautiful chateau at Bassen, near Agen, in Aquitaine. jHere with these friends Bandello remained, living, as he himself tells us, " tranquilly for the muses and for himself." Through the influence of friends, some of his manuscripts were eventually recovered from the Spaniards, and he now spent this period of leisure in revising and re-writing his stories with a view to their publi- cation. In 1 541 Bandello lost his patron, for Fregoso, who had gone to Venice as ambassador of Francis I., was assassinated at Milan, by order of the Governor, the Marchese del Vasto. However, for this misfortune Matteo had a recompense when nine years later Henry II. made him Bishop of Agen, as an acknowledgment of his allegiance to France during the Italian wars. Bandello, never- theless, exercised his Episcopal functions as little as possible, leaving the government of his diocese to a viii INTRODUCTION deputy, Giovanni Valerio, Bishop of Grasse, while enjoying to the full the pecuniary and social advan- tages of his new position. Being thoroughly worldly by nature, he preferred to remain to the last a citizen of the world, a literary courtier for whom the austere seclusion of the cloister had no charm. The date of his death is uncertain. The first set of his novels, in three parts, appeared at Lucca in 1554. He had originally intended the renowned Aldus to bring them out, but the printer's death pre- vented this. In 1573 the fourth part of his novels was published, this time at Lyons, as the Lucca edition had caused no small outcry in Italy. This final instalment may have appeared after his death, which certainly did not occur until 1561, if not later. In this fourth part Bandello prints the tale of Simone Turchi, which his kinsfolk in Lucca had suppressed, when it was intended to include it in the 1554 edition. Indeed there is no doubt that many of the stories, all founded, as their author delights to in- form us, upon actual facts, gave grievous offence to many Italian families of rank, who could read be- tween the lines and identify the actors in many a romance of passion and treachery, bloodshed and revenge ; and, but for the fact that he remained on INTRODUCTION ix alien soil and sheltered by the Church, the novelist's boldness might have been punished with tragic speed. The meagre details of his life leave us at least with the conviction that Bandello was a man of scholarly attainments. We know that he produced a version of the Hecuba of Euripides, that he made several translations from the Latin, and that he had amassed materials for the construction of an important Latin dictionary, which were among the manuscripts lost when the Spaniards sacked Milan. He also wrote love-sonnets and canti in ottava rima to his patro- ness, Lucrezia Gonzaga. But these counted only as interludes, as trifles by the way. It was by his novels that he determined to achieve a reputation, and with unfailing diligence and zeal he made them the serious business of his life. The interest roused by the Decamerone and by Masuccio's tales may have encouraged Bandello to win success in the same field. The novella was the fashionable pastime of the moment, and Bandello sought to make his collection of tales remarkable for their vividness and force. Above all he desired to base them upon actual fact. "These novels of mine," he says, " are not fables but true histories." From Masuccio he doubtless took the idea of dedi- x INTRODUCTION eating each tale to some illustrious friend, prefacing this by an elaborately- written prologue. These dedications have their value as showing the reasons which led to the writing of this or that story. But in the present short selection we have preferred to omit them, and let the tales speak for themselves. Derived as it was from the French fabliau, at that epoch for Italians of all classes the novella possessed absorbing attraction. When Bandello came forward to contribute to the entertainment of his countrymen he brought them a set of tales surprisingly varied in detail and in interest, full of human nature, and touched with the reckless buoyant spirit of the time. Their appeal was im- mediate and extensive. By their spontaneous sim- plicity and vigour they reached a larger public than Boccaccio had been able to allure by his florid, more delicately finished work. But then the Tuscan intended his Decamerone to belong to literature; and to literature Bandello avowedly gave little heed. His main intention was to be popular and to amuse.

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