A Boccaccian Renaissance: Essays on the Early Modern Impact of Giovanni Boccaccio and His Works (William and Katherine Devers Series in Dante and Medieval Italian Literature)

A Boccaccian Renaissance brings together essays written by internationally recognized scholars in diverse national traditions to respond to the largely unaddressed question of Boccaccio's impact on early modern literature and culture in Italy and Europe. Martin Eisner and David Lummus co-edit the first comprehensive examination in English of Boccaccio's impact on the Renaissance. The essays investigate what it means to follow a Boccaccian model, in tandem with or in place of ancient authors such as Vergil or Cicero, or modern poets such as Dante or Petrarch. The book probes how deeply the Latin and vernacular works of Boccaccio spoke to the Renaissance humanists of the fifteenth century. It treats not only the literary legacy of Boccaccio's works but also their paradoxical importance for the history of the Italian language and reception in theater and books of conduct. While the geographical focus of many of the essays is on Italy, the volume concludes with three studies that open new inroads to understanding his influence on Spanish, French, and English writers across the sixteenth century. The book will appeal strongly to scholars and students of Boccaccio, the Italian and European Renaissance, and Italian literature. Contributors: Jonathan Combs-Schilling, Rhiannon Daniels, Martin Eisner, Simon Gilson, James Hankins, Timothy Kircher, Victoria Kirkham, David Lummus, Ronald L. Martinez, Ignacio Navarrete, Brian Richardson, Marc Schachter, Michael Sherberg, and Janet Levarie Smarr Cover 1 Half Title 2 Series Page 3 Title 4 Copyright 5 Advisory Board 7 Contents 8 List of Illustrations 10 Acknowledgments 12 Introduction: Finding the Renaissance Boccaccio 14 PART 1. Boccaccio and Renaissance Humanism 28 1 . Boccaccio and the Political Thought of Renaissance Humanism 30 2 . Boccaccio’s Humanist Brigata: Reading the Decameron in the Quattrocento 63 PART 2. Framing the Renaissance Boccaccio 84 3 . Poets Prefer company: Boccaccio’s Portraits and the Three crowns of Florence 86 4 . Under the Cover of a Green-Hued Book: Boccaccio’s Pastoral Project 121 5 . Squarzafico’s Vita di Boccaccio and Early Modern Print Culture: A New Model for the Study of Biography 139 6. Vernacularizing the Latin Boccaccio In Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Italy: Notes on Niccolò Liburnio’s Delli Monti, Selve, Boschi and Giuseppe Betussi’s Genealogia de Gli Dei 178 PART 3. Boccaccio in Renaissance Italy 210 7 . Bembo, Boccaccio, and the Prose 212 8 . “For Instruction and benefit”: The Renaissance Boccaccio as Model of Language and Life 229 9 . De nuptiis comoediae et novellae: Italian Comedy Receives Boccaccio’s Decameron (1486–1533) 249 PART 4. Boccaccio in Renaissance Europe 278 10 . Boccaccio’s Second Life in French: Anthoine Le Maçon’s Decameron and Marguerite de Navarre’s Heptaméron 280 11 . Boccaccio in the Spanish Renaissance: Juan de Flores’s Grimalte y Gradisa 306 12 . Regendering Griselda on the London Stage 320 Contributors 338 Index 342 "A Boccaccian Renaissance brings together essays written by internationally recognized scholars in diverse national traditions to respond to the largely unaddressed question of Boccaccio's impact on early modern literature and culture in Italy and Europe. Martin Eisner and David Lummus co-edit the first comprehensive examination in English of Boccaccio's impact on the Renaissance. The essays investigate what it means to follow a Boccaccian model, in tandem with or in place of ancient authors such as Vergil or Cicero, or modern poets such as Dante or Petrarch. The book probes how deeply the Latin and vernacular works of Boccaccio spoke to the Renaissance humanists of the fifteenth century. It treats not only the literary legacy of Boccaccio's works but also their paradoxical importance for the history of the Italian language and reception in theater and books of conduct"-- Provided by publisher A Boccaccian Renaissance brings together internationally recognized scholars to reveal Boccaccio's impact on early modern literature and culture in Italy and Europe.