Matteo Bandello
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Matteo Bandello (c. 1480–1562) was an Italian writer, soldier, Dominican friar and bishop, known mostly for his novellas. His collection of 214 novellas made him the most popular short-story writer of his day.[1]
Biography
Matteo Bandello was born at Castelnuovo Scrivia, near Tortona (current Piedmont), c. 1480. He received a good education, and entered the church, but does not seem to have been very interested in theology. For many years he lived at Mantua and Castel Goffredo, and superintended the education of the celebrated Lucrezia Gonzaga, in whose honour he composed a long poem. The decisive Battle of Pavia, as a result of which Lombardy was taken by the emperor, compelled Bandello to flee; his house at Milan was burnt and his property confiscated. He took refuge with Cesare Fregoso, an Italian general in the French service, whom he accompanied into France.[2]
He was later raised to the
The stories on which
English translations of novellas
The only nearly complete translation of Bandello's tales into English is "The novels of Matteo Bandello", translated by
There is a second book of Bandello in an English translation (1892) by Percy Edward Pinkerton and containing twelve tales.[5] This translation uses more modern modes of expression than Payne's translation.
In 2023 Michael Curtotti published a translation of Bandello’s Romeo and Juliet story into modern English: Romeo and Juliet: A New English Translation.[6] There is critical apparatus on the similarities between Bandello’s and Shakespeare’s versions; and Bandello’s text is divided into paragraphs for ease of comparison with the translation on facing pages.
Source material
The vast majority of the stories derive from those Bandello heard from contemporaries, reported as real life events. Far more rarely, some stories are based on literary or historical sources, such as book 5 of Dante's Purgatory (part 1, story 11), the Lucretia and Tarquin episode in Livy's History of Rome (part 2, story 15), story #23 of the Heptameron (part 2, story 17), and Francesco Petrarch's Triumph of Love from Triumphs (part 2, story 41). Some derive from English history, such as the chronicle of Mary Douglas, niece to King Henry VIII of England (part 3, story 44) and Henry VIII's six wives (part 3, story 45), some from Spanish history, such as Alfonso X (part 4, story 10). All of them were told to him by men, but a minority of dedicatory prefaces are offered to women. Bandello writes that the dedicatory prefaces to the nobility or to worthy persons are useful to him as a shield in case someone becomes offended by one of the stories and is tempted to attack him (part 2, story 32). He shows psychological insight into jealousy, in particular the description of two types of jealous men, the first from feelings of inadequacy and the second from feelings of the fickleness of women (part 3, story 47).
The most striking stories include two whores seeking to win their husbands back (part 1, story 17), two brother thieves in cahoots to rob the treasures of the king of Egypt (part 1, story 23), a disdained lover voluntarily choosing to live inside a cave (part 1, story 25), a woman killing herself only out of fear that her good fortune will turn bad (part 1, story 48), Filippo Lippi, released from slavery in Africa because of his talent as a celebrated painter (part 1, story 50), a woman disdaining a man and then killing herself when he no longer pursues her (part 2, story 16), an abbot making music from a chorus of pigs (part 2, story 23), an adulterous lover buried alive and then saved (part 3, story 1), a merchant's murder of another (part 4, story 1), a case of double adultery whereby each husband cuckolds the other (part 4, story 11), and two women yelling at each other after being falsely told they are hard of hearing (part 4, story 21).
Plays by Shakespeare
Four Bandello stories were adapted by Shakespeare, including
Plays by others
Bandello stories have also been adapted by other dramatists, including
Notes
- OCLC 11814265.
- ^ a b Encyclopædia Britannica (1911).
- ^ Shemek, p. 162.
- ^ The Novels of Matteo Bandello, Bishop of Agen: Now first done into English prose and verse by John Payne
- ^ Matteo Bandello: Twelve Stories
- ^ Matteo Bandello – Romeo and Juliet – A New English Translation by Michael Curtotti, Canberra, Aldila Press, 2023, 196 pp.
- JSTOR 20779485.
References
- Bandello, Matteo (1890). OL 7046324M.
- Bandello, Matteo (1895). Pinkerton, Percy (ed.). Matteo Bandello: Twelve Stories. London: John C Nimmo.
- Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
- Shemek, Deanna (1998). Ladies Errant: Wayward Women and Social Order in Early Modern Italy. Durham and London: Duke University Press. ISBN 0-8223-2167-X.
Further reading
- Hartley, K. H. (1960). Bandello and the "Heptameron": Study in Comparative Literature. Melbourne University Press. ISBN 0-424-05460-4.
- Ferguson, Gary (2008). Queer (re)readings in the French Renaissance: Homosexuality, Gender, Culture. Aldershot, Hampshire, UK: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. pp. 82–88. ISBN 978-0-7546-6377-5.
External links
- Centro Studi Matteo Bandello e la Cultura Rinascimentale (in Italian)
- Matteo Bandello's works: text, concordances and frequency lists