Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors & Architects by Giorgio Vasari

The ten volumes of this book were written in roughly the year 1568, during the Italian Renaissance, by an Italian artist about Italian artists.  The books contain biographies and descriptions of the artists' major works, ordered by style, which is not exactly chronological.  The biographies are written in a gossipy, first-hand style, that revels in namedropping, making the books a Who's Who of the Italian Renaissance (the Name Indices at the back of each book are an amazing collection of Renaissance artists!).

...writing down the lives, the works, the manners, and the circumstances of all those who, finding the arts already dead, first revived them, then step by step nourished and adorned them, and finally brought them to that height of beauty and majesty whereon they stand at the present day.

 An original frontispiece to the first two-volume edition

Look closely at the beginning of the books and you will see the Papal permission (Pius V) for publication that was required for all books a the time, and were issued by the Offiicii sanctissimae Inquisitionis Florentinae, the same office of the inquisition who refused publication rights to Galileo's writings and had him jailed.

The books are all AVAILABLE FOR FREE download as e-books, in various formats, from Project Gutenberg, the grand-daddy of free e-book sites on the Internet.  The edition at Project Gutenberg is the 1912-1914 edition published by MacMillan and Co. Ltd. Together with The Medici Society, and it is a translation from the Tuscan to English by Gaston Du C. De Vere.  Hundreds of photographs accompany the text.

Project Gutenberg was the first group to put public domain texts online for free download.  Others have taken their free texts and packaged them as to-purchase books.  Don't be fooled!  They are all free via Project Gutenberg in various e-book formats, and many are available for free via Amazon.com as Kindle e-books.

Vasari's moody portrait of Lorenzo de' Medici painted long after the man had died, but which is said to be truer to life than those painted during the man's life

Giorgio Vasari was an artist, and in the Florentine tradition, also an architect, but he modestly calls himself "a painter of Arezzo".  He lived from 1511 to 1574.  Most of his commissions were for the Ducal family of Florence, the de' Medici, to whom he dedicates the biographies.  Reading the biographies, you will notice that most commissions for art and buildings came from the Catholic Church, royal families, and wealthy aristocrats.

Most tourists who have visited Florence will recognize Vasari's name as linked to the corridor that connects the old government buildings in the center of Florence, to the Pitti Palace, the last de' Medici palace on the opposite side of the Arno River.  The corridor, designed by Vasari, runs above the shops on Florence's famous Ponte Vecchio.  Actually, the corridor and bridge are the backdrop to this blog.

This view of the Ponte Vecchio gives the best view of Vasari's corridor above the shops.  Vasari describes its construction in Book 10.

Leonardo

The sections that will most interest the casual reader are those about the two most famous artists of the Italian Renaissance:  Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangnolo (that is the Florentine spelling and how the man spelled his own name) Buonarotti.

The biography of Leonardo da Vinci is in Book 4, and it is a very long section, praising the artist as a man and as a scientist and an artist.

"...in supernatural fashion, beauty, grace, and talent are united beyond measure in one single person."

"...to whatever difficulties he turned his mind, he solved them with ease."

A self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci, who was known in his lifetime for his extreme beauty

Michelangelo

The biography of Michelangelo is in Book 9, and it is wonderfully gossipy, full of first-hand accounts of the man, who was a friend of Vasari's, and peppered with quotes from private letters of Michelangelo's.  What comes across strongly is the reverence that the de' Medici showed Michelangelo, a longtime friend of the family, and the artist they trusted to make the family tomb in the Church of San Lorenzo in Florence.

A portrait of Michelangelo, who hated having his portrait made, since he was known during his lifetime for his very unattractive looks

Vasari, the perfect artist toward his patron, ends the books with:

"I shall never be weary of confessing the obligation that I feel towards that lord [ed. Cosimo de' Medici] for so many marks of affection."

A portrait of the first Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo de' Medici, in his full battle armor, painted by the official de' Medici portrait artist, Bronzino, who is described in Book 10.

Book 1

From Cimabue to Agnolo Gaddi, roughly 1240-1387

Includes Giotto and Pisano

Direct link to Book 1 e-books at PG

Book 2

From Berna to Michelozzi, roughly 1369-1432

Includes Aretino, Della robbia, Masaccio and Brunelleschi

Direct link to Book 2 e-books at PG

Book 3

From Filarete to Mantegna, roughly 1431-1517

Includes Piero della Francesca, Lippi, Gozzoli, Ghirlandajo, Pollaiuolo, Botticelli, and Verrocchio

Direct link to Book 3 e-books at PG

Book 4

From Filippino to Puligo, roughly 1511-1527

Includes Filippino, Perugino, da Vinci and Fra Bartolomeo

Direct link to Book 4 e-books at PG

Book 5

From Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo Lotto, roughly 1522-1548

Includes Raffaello, Andrea del Sarto and Sansovino

Direct link to Book 5 e-books at PG

Book 6

From Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi, roughly 1524-1536

Includes San Gallo, del Piombo and Vasari

Direct link to Book 6 e-books at PG

Book 7

From Tibolo to Il Sodoma, roughly 1500-1554

Includes Bandinelli and Pontormo

Direct link to Book 7 e-books at PG

Book 8

From Bastiano to Taddeo Zucchero, roughly 1534-1542

Includes Salviati and Rustici

Direct link to Book 8 e-books at PG

Book 9

From Michelangelo to the Flemings, roughly 1474-1564

Includes Michelangelo (Michelagnolo) and Sansovino

Direct link to Book 9 e-books at PG

Book 10

From Bronzino to Vasari

Includes the descriptions of Bronzino's portraits of the Ducal family, and of the wedding festival for Francesco, Duke Cosimo de' Medici's eldest son and heir, and projects Vasari undertook for the royal family.

Direct link to Book 10 e-books at PG

Would you like a private tour of Vasari's corridor?  Here is one, that includes at the end a bit of the Boboli Gardens and some of Michelangelo's designs at the Church of San Lorenzo.

This review is by Candida Martinelli, of Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site, and the author of the cozy-murder-mystery novel AN EXTRA VIRGIN PRESSING MURDER, and the young-adult/adult mystery novel series THE VIOLET STRANGE MYSTERIES the first book of which is VIOLET'S PROBLEM.

Agostino by Alberto Moravia - Translated by Michael F. Moore

This English translation by Michael F. Moore is of the 1945 classic, coming-of-age novella, Agostino, by the late Italian novelist Alberto Moravia, which is why I requested a review-copy of this book.

From the first lines of the book, we know that thirteen-year-old Agostino views his mother more like a girl-friend than a mother.  He loves others to admire her beauty while she is with him, feeling special being her special companion.  He dislikes men sharing their company, since they are possible rivals for his mother's attention.  He loves the intimacy of their relationship when they vacation together by the seaside.

The author calls the son's affection for his mother what it is:  an infatuation.

...the intensity of his filial vanity and the turmoil of his infatuation would linger for many years to come.

Alberto Moravia

Agostino is a highly self-conscious, observant boy, with emotions that tend to possessiveness and humiliation.  He also has masochistic tendencies that he indulges with his mother and some beach boys.  

The novella was adapted to film in 1962, in Italian.  Here is an old trailer for that film:

 

The teenager is coming-of-age, but the man he is to become is not one he necessarily likes.  The story of his coming-of-age is told in clear, strong prose.  The details shared with the reader draw a picture of what is happening on the beach, and what is happening inside Agostino's young mind.

Moravia's writing skill is sure and firm and confident, without being pompous or flowery.  The dialogue of the beach boys and their actions are realistic and reminiscent of the book Lord of the Flies, which depicted the uncivilized, sadist life of children left on their own.

There is always an uncomfortable, underlying, unspoken feeling of threat in the story.  One feels Agostino is just a step away from disaster, either with his mother, or with his new-found "friends".  I recall having the same feeling while reading the classic short-story The Lottery, about a sadistic lottery in a small American town.

Sexuality that was, obliviously, all around him all his thirteen years suddenly becomes clear to Agostino, in uncomfortable and awkward ways.  Puberty strikes!  

The dark realization came to him that a difficult and miserable age had begun for him, and he couldn't imagine when it would end.

The hardest part of all this is Agostino's relationship with his oblivious mother, a widow who is too used to living alone with her son, that she has forgotten about modesty.  Her teenaged Agostino is made increasingly uncomfortable by his mother's immodesty and unrestrained sexuality. 

Sometimes he wondered how older boys, knowing what he knew, could still love their mothers.

The summer and Agostino's association with the rough group of beach boys transforms Agostino into a young man who is uncomfortable in both his high-class world, and in the rough, crude world of the poor.  Agostino is lost somewhere in between the two classes. 

Agostino is also full of self-loathing for his sexual feelings toward his mother, causing him to debase himself and to embrace deceit.  He is left longing to become a man, a euphemism for a sexual man, for sexual relations with women, hoping that will stop him from desiring his mother. 

Yes, Freud had a great influence on Moravia!  As did growing up an Italian male in a society where mothers often turned to their sons for emotional support, rather to their unfaithful, macho husbands.

The translation is wonderful, communicating the force of Moravia's powerful, un-embellished prose.  The biggest compliment one can give a translation is that it doesn't read like a translation, and that is the case with Agostino, translated from the original Italian by Michael F. Moore.

From the book's description, which gives rather too much away:

A thirteen-year-old boy spending the summer at a Tuscan seaside resort feels displaced in his beautiful widowed mother’s affections by her cocksure new companion and strays into the company of some local young toughs and their unsettling leader, a fleshy older boatman with six fingers on each hand. Initially repelled by their squalor and brutality, repeatedly humiliated for his well-bred frailty and above all for his ingenuousness in matters of women and sex, the boy nonetheless finds himself masochistically drawn back to the gang’s rough games. And yet what he has learned is too much for him to assimilate; instead of the manly calm he had hoped for he is beset by guilty curiosity and an urgent desire to sever, at any cost, the thread of troubled sensuality that binds him to his mother still.

Alberto Moravia’s classic and yet still startling portrait of innocence lost was written in 1942 but rejected by Fascist censors and not published until 1944, when it became a best seller and secured the author the first literary prize of his career. Revived here in a sparkling new translation by Michael F. Moore, Agostino is poised to enthrall and astonish a twenty-first-century audience.

This English translation of Agostino is published by the NewYork Review of Books Classics:

An innovative list of fiction and nonfiction for discerning and adventurous readers

Direct link to Agostino at NYRB-C

Here are direct links to Agostino at Amazon.com, to this English translation and to the original Italian edition, and to a collection of Moravia novels which includes Agostino.

Here are more books published by the New York Review of Books Classics that are set in Italy:

This review is by Candida Martinelli, of Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site, and the author of the cozy-murder-mystery novel AN EXTRA VIRGIN PRESSING MURDER, and the young-adult/adult mystery novel series THE VIOLET STRANGE MYSTERIES the first book of which is VIOLET'S PROBLEM.

Daisy Miller by Henry James

This classic novella from 1879, roughly fifty pages long, is by America's foremost novelist, Henry James (b.1843-d.1916), a master of the psychological novel.  The novella is in the public domain, so it is free to download as an e-book from a source I provide below.

You may know Henry James as a writer of heavy, dense prose, but this novella is closer in style to writer Edith Wharton:  conversational, gossipy, often humorous description of relations between men and women of a certain class during the Belle Epoch, with a serious ending.

 

Illustration of a woman offering her help to Daisy, from an illustrated book version of Daisy Miller, free PDF link below

The novella is written in two parts.  The first part of the novella is set in Vevey, Switzerland, a favorite resort location for travelers on the Grand Tour of Europe, next to Lake Geneva, and a stopover before taking the journey through the Alpine passes into Italy.  The second part of the novel is set in Rome, Italy, which was generally the stop before Naples and Pompeii for the Grand Tour tourist.

Rome, Italy, in 1879 is unlike Rome of today.  The Roman sights were open to the public without any fee, and without any closing times.  But it was also home to malaria, in that time before D.D.T. spraying.  A visit to Rome could be deadly.

Illustration of the narrator, from an illustrated book version of Daisy Miller, free PDF link below 

The narrator of the novella is Winterbourne, a spoiled, rich, indulgent, lazy young man, who spends most of him time courting older women in Switzerland.  Winterbourne tells the story of his acquaintance with Annie P. Miller (Daisy Miller), a poorly educated, spoiled, wealthy American woman with an unpolished character and a coquettish demeanor, and an Aspergers-like incomprehension of social niceties and acceptable social behavior.

Daisy is rather brainless.  To her, Europe means hotels, trains, new dresses in Paris.

...Europe was perfectly sweet.  She was not disappointed--not a bit.  She had ever so many intimate friends that had been there ever so many times.

And then she had had ever so many dresses and things from Paris.  Whenever she put on a Paris dress she felt as if she were in Europe.

Here is a clip from a 1974 film-adaptation with a truly awful performance by Cybil Shepard, but it does stick very faithfully to the book, and it was filled on location, this scene at Vevey, Switzerland.

 Illustration of an Italian fan of Daisy's, from an illustrated book version of Daisy Miller, free PDF link below

Winterbourne meets Daisy at Vevey and writes her off as a pretty American flirt with low morals, or at least rather dense, thick, unsophisticated in the way of the world, and the in the rules of propriety. 

...an extraordinary mixture of innocence and crudity...

...continued to present herself as an inscrutable combination of audacity and innocence...

...naturally indelicate...

...audacity and puerility...

 Illustration of a critic of Daisy's, from an illustrated book version of Daisy Miller, free PDF link below

Daisy's mother and young brother are equally dense and inappropriate.  Daisy's mother is like a doormat for her strong-willed, spoiled daughter.  Daisy's beauty and wealth has insulated her from much of the criticism that her behavior causes.  But we learn that fashionable New York City society has deemed Daisy uncouth, the product of new money from the girl's businessman father.  She is the like the daughters on MTV's Sweet Sixteen show, raging idiots untamed by their cowed, new-money mothers.

Henry James's story of Daisy Miller's dangerous folly was a common theme at the time.  Other books warned new-money mothers and young women and their fathers of the dangers they ran trying to fit into high-society without understanding the rules of behavior:  The Hazards of New Wealth by W. D. Howells, The Sword of Damocles by A. K. Green, The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton, to name a few.

 Illustration depicting the dangers of malaria in Rome, from an illustrated book version of Daisy Miller, free PDF link below

Daisy Miller, as described by Henry James, is a classic Aspergers.  She has an attractive face, an expensive wardrobe, a limited range of emotions, and she is clueless about societal norms and accepted behaviors.  She cannot understand social clues or cues.  But her wealth and beauty have given her an arrogance and self-assurance that takes blows when her poor decisions have serious consequences. 

It is an interesting and even entertaining read, written in a lighter style than usual for Henry James.  The depictions of people and their psychology always rings true.  The portraits of expatriate life in Switzerland and Rome in the late 1800s are drawn by a man who knew the locales well.  If you enjoy Edith Wharton, you will enjoy Daisy Miller.

Daisy Miller,...

Buy This at Allposters.com

A still-image from a 1974 film adaptation of Daisy Miller

The novella Daisy Miller is in the public domain and available to download for free in various e-book formats from Project Gutenberg, the grand-daddy of free e-books on the Internet.

Direct link to the Daisy Miller e-book download page

If you wish to see the book as it was originally published, with beautiful illustrations, and download a PDF book made from the scanned paged for free, here is the link at the Internet Archive, a wonderful resource for free e-book on-line.

Direct link to the Daisy Miller viewer page and e-book download page

Henry James adapted the novella for the stage, changing the sad ending for a happy one, in an attempt to pander to theatre-goers.  If you are interested in this version, here is a direct link to the un-produced play as it was printed in a book, available for free as in various e-book formats, including a PDF of the scanned pages of the original book, at the Internet Archive.

Direct link to the play Daisy Miller viewer page and e-book download page

If you are interested, here is a link to the Wikipedia page for Daisy Miller, but I suggest you read the novella first, form your own opinion, then read the page, or other critical articles about the story.

Direct link to the Daisy Miller Page

If you wish to purchase a print version of Daisy Miller, or the 1974 film adaptation, here are direct links to the products at Amazon.com.

This review is by Candida Martinelli, of Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site, and the author of the cozy-murder-mystery novel AN EXTRA VIRGIN PRESSING MURDER, and the young-adult/adult mystery novel series THE VIOLET STRANGE MYSTERIES the first book of which is VIOLET'S PROBLEM.

The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri

Dante Alighieri (b.1265 - d.1321), Florence, Italy's most famous son, lived during turbulent times.  Europe was in the process, sometimes the violent process, of deciding how much influence the church should have in running matters of state. 

Today's Europe is secular, meaning that church and state are separate, and rarely interfere with each other, and refrain from dictating to each other.  Secular states allow for greater religious diversity and greater personal liberty than religious states.  But that was anything but the case during Dante's time.

Dante believed in God, and in secularism.  He was persecuted for his secular beliefs by banishment from his beloved nation-state of Florence.  So Dante, in exile, sought solace in his religious beliefs:  he wrote The Divine Comedy.

Imagine you had been slighted by many of your friends, defeated by your enemies, and was made victim to the machinations of corrupt leaders and civil servants.  Now imagine, what your revenge might be.

Dante was not a violent man, so his revenge was not bloody.  Dante was a writer, so his revenge took the form of a book, The Divine Comedy, in verse that would both entertain and educate readers, and malign those responsible for his situation.

If Dante's book were solely rants against his enemies, it would never have stood the test of time.  In fact, the parts of The Divine Comedy in which he mentions by name the leaders and rich of his day, wallowing in Hell or Purgatory, are least accessible to us today.  We don't know who these people are, so we miss the joke.  (However, what a wonderful revenge, to make these people, for eternity, examples of Hell's and Purgatory's torments!)

But by making The Divine Comedy a detailed description of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, and detailing the sins and qualities that land us in each of these zones of the netherworld, Dante ensured that his tale would appeal to readers forever.

It's immensely fun, and delightfully satisfying, to read an imaginative account of where your own enemies might end up, and how they'll suffer eternal damnation for what they've done to you during your lifetime.  In fact, the most entertaining section of The Divine Comedy is Hell!

Dante encourages us to behave better in life, just in case his imaginings are anywhere near the truth of what becomes of us after death.  Just like religions themselves, Dante, by illustrating the Christian view of afterlife, gives us hope of rewards after death for self-restraint during life.  Justice comes to all, even if a bit late, and it lasts for eternity.

To top all that off, Dante accomplished another goal of his, one that he had cherished for a long time.  He strongly believed that beautiful literature could be written in the daily language of Florentines.  So he wrote The Divine Comedy in ordinary Italian, rather than in the preferred Latin.  The book's success did wonders for raising the respect level of the Italian language.

Amazingly, Dante's Italian is very readable to student's of today's Italian.  It is not like the middle-English literature written in the 1300s, or even like Shakespearean English from the 1600s.  Dante's Italian is accessible, especially when accompanied, side-by-side, by an English translation.

But remember, there are scholars who study The Divine Comedy all their scholarly lives.  There are books published yearly interpreting everything from Dante's use of numbers, names, places, stars, words, smells, sounds, light, dark, literary figures--oh, you get the picture.

But that doesn't mean the average reader cannot enjoy The Divine Comedy.  Take my advice:  kick anyone who tries to tell you The Divine Comedy is too complex, or that you need an accompanying explanatory book ten times the length of the poem.  If you enjoy your first read of Dante's entertaining story, you can always consult those books later.

Here are the famous first lines in Italian and English:

Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
che' la diritta via era smarrita.

My advice would be to start with the parts that interest you the most.  For most people, that would be Hell.  Those wonderful levels of Hell Dante describes with various sinners and their punishments that fit their crimes, are full of juicy, gory details.

For the entire text, on-line, English next to Italian, visit my Dante page at Italophiles.com (Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site), my Italian culture site.  I also include many amazing illustrations by Dore, and links to several on-line resources about Dante.

You can download a free e-book of The Divine Comedy from Project Gutenberg, the grand-daddy of free e-book websites.

Direct link to The Divine Comedy free e-books

Direct link to free e-books of Dante's Vision of Hell with 65 illustrations by Gustave Dore'

Here is a sampling of paperback books of The Divine Comedy available at Amazon.com, including two dual-language editions.

This review is by Candida Martinelli, of Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site, and the author of the cozy-murder-mystery novel AN EXTRA VIRGIN PRESSING MURDER, and the young-adult/adult mystery novel series THE VIOLET STRANGE MYSTERIES the first book of which is VIOLET'S PROBLEM.

The Aspern Papers by Henry James

This Henry James novella, The Aspern Papers, is set in decaying Venice.  It was first published in 1888, and was made into a sanitized black and white film in 1947.  The film is pure, delightful, entertaining melodrama.  You can view it below, thanks to YouTube.  The original story, as written by Henry James, however, is darkly wonderful, and not at all melodramatic.

From the a description from a Henry James website (see below):

As a means of getting hold of papers relating to the early-nineteenth century American romantic poet Jeffrey Aspern, the unnamed narrator manages to obtain lodgings in the Venetian palazzo which houses the very old lady who, in her youth, was Aspern’s muse and (probably) lover. Juliana and her niece remain secretive, and the narrator is, ultimately, unable to pay the emotional price which the papers will cost him.

If you have ever read a Henry James novel, especially the later novels, you know they can be ponderous and verbally dense.  The Aspern Papers are anything but!  This is Henry James-light.  It is a joy to read the wordsmith with the brakes on.

The descriptions of decaying Venice, and the decrepit palace are very convincing, and even poetical.  The decrepit woman central to the story is monstrous.  The deceit and cunning and evil intent of the characters is richly described.

You can download a free e-book of The Aspern Papers from Project Gutenberg, the grand-daddy of free e-book sites.  The offer the book in various e-book formats.

Direct link to The Aspern Papers free e-books

The book is available in various formats.  Here are the versions of The Aspern Papers available at Amazon.com.

Please visit this wonderful Henry James website.

This review is by Candida Martinelli, of Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site, and the author of the cozy-murder-mystery novel AN EXTRA VIRGIN PRESSING MURDER, and the young-adult/adult mystery novel series THE VIOLET STRANGE MYSTERIES the first book of which is VIOLET'S PROBLEM.

The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

 

Marcus Aurelius is the fifth of the so-called “five good emperors” that preceded the decline of the Roman Empire.  He was hand picked, carefully educated, and trained for his position.  He studied at the right hand of his predecessor, Antoninus Pius, a follower of the Stoicists, a philosophical group that advocated moderation and self-control.  So it is no surprise that Marcus Aurelius knew how to perform his job and carried out his duties with diligence, which he did from 161 to 180 A.D.

Marcus Aurelius was a man who was blessed, or cursed, depending on your point of view, with a self-reflective nature.  And like self-reflective people, he strove to become a better person.  He recorded his self-reflective journey on paper in his personal diary, his Meditations, which were published after his death with the title To Himself, an ironic title considering they were written for him alone and yet published for all the world to read.

 

While sometimes called a treatise on the stoic life, the writings of Marcus Aurelius are more a diary of his reflections while on campaigns to defend fringes of the Roman Empire from invasion by enemy hordes.  Marcus Aurelius was, unique for a reflective person, also a man of action when necessary, successfully defending the Empire during his years as Emperor from 161 to 180 A.D. from revolts in the East and enemy tribes in the North.

While, to me, much of the Meditations reads as a drunken or drug induced rant by a tired and life-weary man, they have their moments of interest.  An interesting note:  they were written in Greek, the language of the educated at the time.  Only much later did Latin take up that role, usurped eventually by English, as attested to by the scientific and academic journal preference for English.

To read more about Marcus Aurelius as an Emperor of Rome, visit Italophiles.com (Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site), my website about Italian culture.  My Marcus Aurelius page has lots more information about Marcus's son, the Roman Christians, and excerpts from the book.

 

The Limitations of Self-reflection for Self-improvement

 

Other self-reflective people have found inspiration in Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations.  They should, however, also look at the book for a better understanding of the limitations of self-reflection as a tool for self-improvement.

 

If the person wishing to become a better person is closed off to external ideas and looks only within or to those within their trusted circle, the ideas they consider for self-criticism and self-improvement can be too limited to make them a truly good person.

 

This was the case with Marcus Aurelius.  He accepted the ideas of the superstitious peoples of his time.  He condoned, and at times more than condoned, the persecution of the minority Christians in the superstitious hope of bettering the lives of the majority pagan citizens.

 

Marcus Aurelius’s complicity with this mass-murder shows that self-reflection without enlightened thought can get a person only so far.  It would take the Enlightenment and it’s descendent, Liberal Humanism, to bring humanity to a higher moral level.

 

Some points, key to the Stoic Philosophy, are repeated throughout the twelve Books that make up the Meditations.

• Reason must rule the body; logic must be used to determine the truth, by first collecting differing ideas and then testing them against the facts to see which hold firm, and re-evaluating them as new facts become available.
• Live according to nature, which means accepting that we are all a part of God’s universe with a bit of God in all of us, called our soul, and we must try to behave as God-like as possible to honor our soul and God, and the most God-like behavior is to work for the common good.
• It is in your own power to maintain the beauty of your soul, or to be a decent human being; the ethics of our lives, how we put to use the truths we determine, define who we are and we are in control of our choices and behavior; the highest good is a virtuous life and that can be achieved by living in moderation.
• Death can come at any moment so be prepared for it; this is a common sentiment in those faraway times (and sadly for many still today) with poor healthcare, irregular diets, poor storage and preservation of food, and frequent violence; Marcus Aurelius certainly thought of it more than others because he suffered poor health all his life, dying at the age of 59 from a long and painful illness.
• Use self-reflection to purify your soul and find truth and right; review each day your actions and reactions to others and ask yourself if you behaved as you should, then resolve to improve your behavior the next day; also keep good thoughts, as thoughts predetermine our actions.
• Fame is fleeting so one should not seek it, and if one has it, don’t court it or indulge in it, or place too high a value on it, because it has so little real value in the big scheme of things; as Emperor, one can imagine his position gained him many wannabe sycophants, and it seems clear that Marcus Aurelius shunned them; he is famous for appointing worthy advisers and military and civic leaders.

Free e-book versions are available from Project Gutenberg, the grand-daddy of all free e-book websites.

Direct link to the free e-books

Paperback editions are available from Amazon.com.

This review is by Candida Martinelli, of Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site, and the author of the cozy-murder-mystery novel AN EXTRA VIRGIN PRESSING MURDER, and the young-adult/adult mystery novel series THE VIOLET STRANGE MYSTERIES the first book of which is VIOLET'S PROBLEM.

The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio

In his 62 years (b.1313-d.1375), Giovanni Boccaccio was a prolific poet and storyteller in Latin and Italian.  He was a close friend of the scholar/poet Petrarch, and a trusted emissary of the rulers of his day.  Boccaccio lived at various times in Naples, Florence, Venice, and Paris, where he was actually born to his French mother as the illegitimate son of a Tuscan merchant.  His father’s attempts to make him a merchant, and then a canon failed, and he finally found his own way as a scholar, poet and writer of tales.

It wasn’t until his middle-age that he wrote the work still read and enjoyed today, The Decameron.  The structure of the collection of often bawdy short stories explains the title:  the book is divided into ten days during which each member of a group of ten people tells one tale, so each day’s tales equal ten.  Each day, the group is given a theme by one of the storytellers to which their stories must comply, such as infidelity, honor, avarice.  

It was an outbreak of the plague in 1348 in Florence that prompted Boccaccio to finally write the work for which he had long been collecting material.  The group of ten are actually in Fiesole above Florence to escape the plague, and tell the stories to provide amusement during their exile.

Like the poet Petrarch with his Laura, and poet Dante with his Beatrice, Boccaccio had his Fiammetta, his poetical inspiration, and in his case, his lover and introduction into court society.  He featured her in many of his works, including The Decameron.

Fiammetta is one of the storytellers, and at the end of the Fourth Day he describes her receiving the laurel wreath, the kingly symbol given to the person who will decide the next day’s theme.  His description of her is most likely how Boccaccio lovingly saw her, although I’m not too sure I’d like to be said to have “eyes in her head that matched those of a peregrine falcon”.

It reads in part:

Fiammetta, whose wavy tresses fell in a flood of gold over her white and delicate shoulders, whose softly rounded face was all radiant with the very tints of the white lily blended with the red of the rose, who carried two eyes in her head that matched those of a peregrine falcon... 

The Decameron was one of the earliest printed books, the first edition coming out of Venice in 1471.  Before it was printed, people paid to have it copied and illustrated for their private libraries. 

But early editions of the book are a rare find today, because most were burned in Florence’s main square by the radical reform-mined preacher Savonarola in 1497, about a year before he himself was burned there for heresy, actually, for being a big pain in the behind to the rulers of Florence and to the clergy.  

Early English translations of The Decameron were edited of their bawdiness, just as early editions of A Thousand and One Nights was stripped of its licentiousness in early translations.  Only later did faithful translations appear.  But even before it was translated into English, English writers Chaucer and Shakespeare borrowed generously from the work.

Here is a quote about a woman defending herself against a charge of cheating on her husband, at which she was caught in the act:

...ask my husband if I ever denied him, but did not rather accord him, when and so often as he craved it, complete enjoyment of myself.

Whereto Rinaldo, without awaiting the Podesta's question, answered that assuredly the lady had always granted him all that he had asked of her for his gratification.

"Then," promptly continued the lady, "if he has always had of me as much as sufficed for his solace, what was I or am I to do with the surplus?  Am I to cast it to the dogs?  Is it not much better to bestow it on a gentleman who loves me more dearly than himself, than to suffer it to come to nought or worse?

For more about the villa that was the location of the storytelling, visit Italophiles.com (Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site), my website about Italian culture.  The Boccaccio page has lots of info and images.

Free e-books of The Decameron are available from Project Gutenberg, the grand-daddy of all free e-book websites.

Direct links to The Decameron free e-books

Paperback editions of The Decameron, as well as the bawdy 1970s film, are available via Amazon.com.

This review is by Candida Martinelli, of Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site, and the author of the cozy-murder-mystery novel AN EXTRA VIRGIN PRESSING MURDER, and the young-adult/adult mystery novel series THE VIOLET STRANGE MYSTERIES the first book of which is VIOLET'S PROBLEM.