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1-1-2016 Book Review of Merchant Writers: Florentine memoirs from the Middle Ages and Renaissance Brian Jeffrey Maxson East Tennessee State University, [email protected]

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Citation Information Maxson, Brian Jeffrey. 2016. Book Review of Merchant Writers: Florentine memoirs from the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Sixteenth Century Journal. Vol.67(4). 1114-1116.

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the weak-tongued Thersites , and this entails altering texts so that inspiration for Homer) theological and use of Homer (chap. 5), more overtly becomes an artful satirist. Milton's the and the failed commonwealth. For Milton political in tone, takes aim at both royalists ineptitude leads to a return of mon­ antidote to bickering councils whose Iliad becomes the above all distorts perspec­ devolved into ambition, and ambition archy. Councils too often contradicts about better to reign in Hell directly tive. Here the famous line voiced by Satan be a servant in the land of the living than lament to Odysseus that he would rather Achilles's had brought upon him. This grave, something his own contentiousness to be a king in the leave out hope, for irenic docility, as his enumerated virtues is not to say that Milton seeks the , and thus, in keeping with a theme of it can lead to idleness arising from complacency edge, Milton's seeming golden mean. chapter, humans must keep on the razor's barred from publishing on politics, with Hobbes, who spent his latter years, Wolfe ends valorizing the char­ 's Homer is the consummate monarchist, translating Homer. Hobbes Achilles in hint that any of Homer's characters (e.g., acter of Agamemnon, editing out any his equal. Further, Hobbes emphasizes with Agamemnon over Brise"is) were the contention a covenant with its Leviathan, if it exists for any other reason than for the futility of council an iteration of that it also is nothing other than just wherein said council acknowledges is the Leviathan even to the point that he war of all. Hobbes's Agamemnon becomes the a wonderful read, delightfully of property. In closing, I loved this text: dispenser and source ire. hip to which the academy should asp informative, and the kind of scholars ~ . from the Middle Ages and Renaissance Merchant Writers: Florentine Memoirs Vittore Branca. Trans. Murtha Baca. 2015. vii+ 407 pp. $75.00. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, ISBN 978-1-4426-3714-6. • REVIEWED BY: Brian Jeffrey Maxson East Tennessee State University his Mercanli Scrit­ Italian historian Vittore Branca published In 1986 the influential ricordanze from that edited several unpublished Florentine tori (Milan: Rusconi), a work by thirty years that book has been well thumbed fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. For the by Giovanni Morelli, Buonaccorso period for its editions of important texts historians of the translation by Murtha and others. Merchant Writers is a full Pitti, Bernardo Machiavelli, series of da Ponte Italian Library, a growing Baca of this important text for the Lorenzo significant Italian historical works. Baca's features new English translations of books that rich and accessible that they the content of these ricordanze is so translation is lively, while but they also to late medieval history to newcomers, not only can provide an introduction familiar with these texts. reveal new insights even to readers already continually unique in its preservation and fifteenth-century is somewhat Fourteenth- of these texts are the city's archives and libraries. Some of hundreds of ricordanze across inter­ months, years, or even decades. Others books of credits and debits spanning account events (such as births and with occasional notes on major family mLx financial matters a peace treaty, or events (such as a joust held to commemorate marriages) and major civic formal Still others blur the boundaries between to the city by the , for example). a visit involved in civic affairs recounts and family record keeping, as an author history writing in addition to the family's developments in and outside Florence both the major political ricordanze for sixty years historians have used these role in those events. Over the past 111 5 This material may be protected by copyright law (Title 17Book U.S. Code) Reviews

logicaJ approach. Addition­ from every type of methodo every kind of study and many of the seemingly has led to the publication of ent interest and their idiosyncrasy ally, their inher a handful of exceptional examples in their original Italian. Of these, most striking examples editions designed for the typicaJly in high-quality, partial have been translated into English, cker's Two Memoirs of le is undoubtedly Gene Bru The most well-known examp large por­ classroom. 1967), a book that translates (New York: Harper & Row, Renaissance Florence er, and adventurer Buonaccorso the Florentine patrician, gambl tions of the ricordanze by more mundane births, a sociaJ riser and recorder of well as those by Gregorio Dati, of Mer­ Pitti, as example is a partiaJ translation civic offices held. Another popular marriages, and Writers of the Italian Renaissance so by Murtha Baca (Merchant canti scrittori in 1999, al the juiciest highlights featured a limited sample of York: Marsilio Publishers]) which with the·full [New Writers provides English readers much longer work. Now, Merchant excerpts but from that ers intrigued by these shorter development for Anglo read text; it is a welcome . for further reading in English previously had few options and fifteenth­ who ricordanze by fourteenth- Writers contains ten different da Merchant taken up by accounts by Paolo r, the majority of the text is century Florentines; howeve who was active in the ce of Boccaccio; Domenico Morelli, Certaldo, who was an acquaintan who was Morel­ century; and Buonaccorso Pitti, the turn of the fifteenth witticisms years surrounding of 388 pieces of advice and Paolo da Certaldo's text consists li's contemporary. MoreUi's text combines a history e fourteenth-century life. Giovanni on most aspects of lat and a history of Florence profiles of Morelli's ancestors, of the Morelli family, biographical but not exclusively, per­ early fifteenth centuries, particularly, during the late fourteenth and diary fo llows. Here cy. Buonaccorso Pitti's well-known taining to events of war and diploma hant, gambler, and France, and beyond as a merc his many adventures in , d in Mer­ Pitti details shorter texts are also include powerful French nobles. Several familiar of the most efforts to control grain prices by Domenico Lenzi details government chant Writers. A text rise to favor and his distancing Donato Velluti describes his a time of famine in 1329. ribes his business during in the 1340s. Goro Dati desc the Duke of Athens in Florence himself from of the fifteenth century. Around as his moral vows at the turn dealings in as well of a secular home for will provides for the establishment the same time Francesco Datini's r up an unintended text describes efforts to cove poor in Prato. Bernardo Machiavelli's and bind books, the well as Bernardo's efforts to buy f an unmarried servant girl, as udes pregnancy o lo Machiavelli). The book concl s (most notably, a young Nicco and to educate his son these texts and a leading Branca, the original editor of a biographical portrait ofVittore with century. ccaccio during the twentieth left historian of Bo to the fascinating ricordanze edly introduce more readers This book will deserv for general readers and merchants. The book is designed behind by Renaissance Florentine times minor errors bibliographical references. At is generally light on notes and confusion as such for a secondary citation or the such as the wrong title e to appear in the footnotes, quibble is that it is impossibl by the same name. Another of two different Florentines in full: compare, fo r where it has been included a text has been excerpted and n pub­ tell where with the much shorter versio edition of Gregorio Dati's diary example, the Brucker true accomplishments: For are overshadowed by this book's lished here. But these critiques most of which were introduces a vast body of writings, non-speciaJists, this translation will hopefully lead ut Italian. As such, the book inaccessible for readers witho original previously and Renaissance ItaJy, to the exciting world of late medieval at new people to the es themselves. It is hoped th ely, to the archives and librari Italian texts, and then, ultimat 1116 Sixteenth CenturyThis material Journal may XLVIl/4 be protected (2016) by copyright law (Title 17 U.S. Code)

to Lauro Martines and Murtha Baca's An a paperback version for classroom use (similar Publishers, 1994] in the same series) will Italian Renaissance Sextet [New York: Marsilio soon follow. ~~ the and t he The : The Epic Battle Between Knights of St. John. Bruce Ware Allen. 2015. ix + 325 pp. $29.95. Lebanon, NH: University of New England Press, ISBN 978-1-61168-765-1.

REVIEWED BY: Ronald H. Fritze Athens State University heroism, endurance, and the fog of The siege of Malta in 1565 is a story of high drama, is also a story worth retelling. That is what war. It is a story that has been told before but it the siege. The siege lasted for four months Bruce Ware Allen does in his new account of of September. It was an excruciating four from the middle of May through the middle grueling heat of a Mediterranean summer. months full of vicious fighting conducted in the siege. Forty percent of the book deals Allen quite rightly does not jump right into the sultan 's deci­ with the lead-up to the Turkish attack. The Ottoman Many considerations went into his sion to attack Malta was a long time in the making. was not a safe place to sail; it was infested decision. The sixteenth-century Mediterranean who preyed on merchant ships and with corsairs or pirates, both Muslim and Christian, of St. John of Jerusalem, also known as coastal towns of the opposite religion. The Knights most active and aggressive of the corsairs. the , were counted among the enclave at Acre in 1291 , they set up their After they were driven out of the last Crusader also happened to be one of the most headquarters on the pleasant isle of Rhodes, which they raided Muslim shipping in the Med­ heavily fortified places on earth at that time. There In 1480, the Ottoman sultan Mehmet iterranean as the power of the Ottoman Turks grew. the Magnificent made a second assault on II tried but failed to capture Rhodes. Suleiman to evacuate their stronghold. Ultimately Rhodes in 1521 and succeeded, forcing the Knights new home. the Emperor Charles V gave them Malta for their Emperor and king of Spain with vast Meanwhile, Charles V, who was both Holy Roman with Ottoman expansionism in the Bal­ possessions in Italy, came into increasing conflict Papacy, Genoa, and the Knights of St. John, kans and the Mediterranean. His allies were the or veiled pro-Ottoman actions. The while Venice and France engaged in either neutrality in the spring of 1564 managed to capture Knights were intrepid and ruthless predators, and of a trading voyage. It was a double blow the Ottoman royal galleon, Sultana, in the course Suleiman's personal property, the Sultana and insult to the Ottoman court. Besides being daughter Mihrimah, the eunuchs had been full of valuable cargo belonging to Suleiman's had made enemies of people who had of the Harem, and various concubines. The Knights considerations also made Malta a worthy intimate access to the ear of Suleiman. Strategic tion would provide Suleiman a command­ target for Ottoman aggression; its strategic loca Mediterranean and it would allow him to ing position against the Christian nations of the North African clients and vassals. exercise greater control of his independent-minded was sent against Malta under the An Ottoman fleet larger than the Spanish Armada the vizier Mustapha over the army. joint command of over the fleet and join them with additional thousands of The great Muslim corsair leader Turgut would be problematic with Piali and Mustapha North African troops. Joint command proved to