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De casibus virorum illustrium

{{Short description|1355-74 work of Latin biographies by Giovanni Boccaccio}}

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{{Infobox medieval text

| name = De casibus virorum illustrium

| alternative title(s) = On the Fates of Famous Men

| image = File:Fortune wheel (15c., French).jpg

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| caption = Illuminated recto from Parisian edition (1467)

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| author(s) = Giovanni Boccaccio

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| language = Latin

| date = 1355–1374

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| provenance = Certaldo

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De casibus virorum illustrium (On the Fates of Famous Men) is a work of 56 biographies in Latin prose composed by the Florentine poet Giovanni Boccaccio of Certaldo in the form of moral stories of the falls of famous people, similar to his work of 106 biographies De Mulieribus Claris.

Overview

De casibus is an encyclopedia of historical biography and a part of the classical tradition of historiography. It deals with the fortunes and calamities of famous people starting with the biblical Adam, going to mythological and ancient people, then to people of Boccaccio's own time in the fourteenth century.[http://www.stjohns-chs.org/english/Medieval/history-tragedy.html History of Tragedy] The work was so successful it spawned what has been referred to as the De casibus tradition,Narrative, Authority, and Power: The Medieval Exemplum and the Chaucerian by Larry Scanlon, p. 119, Cambridge University Press (1994), {{ISBN|0-521-04425-1}} influencing many other famous authors such as Geoffrey Chaucer, John Lydgate, and Laurent de Premierfait.Alan Coates, et al., A Catalogue of Books Printed in the Fifteenth Century now in the Bodleian Library (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 596-617. {{ISBN|0-19-951373-2}} De casibus also inspired character figures in works like The Canterbury Tales,[http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/exhibns/chaucer/influences.html Chaucer's influences] The Monk's Tale,[https://www.jstor.org/stable/458006 JSTOR: The Mediaeval Setting of Chaucer's Monk's Tale] the Fall of Princes (c. 1438),Richard A. Dwyer, "Arthur's Stellification in the Fall of Princes" Philological Quarterly, 57 (1978), pp. 155-171 Des cas de nobles hommes et femmes (c. 1409),[http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=909 The Literary Encyclopedia] and Caida de principles (a fifteenth-century Spanish collection), and A Mirror for Magistrates (a very popular sixteenth-century continuation written by William Baldwin and others).Vittorio Zaccaria, Introduzione, in Giovanni Boccaccio's De Casibus Virorum Illustrium volume 9 of Tutte le opere di Giovanni Boccaccio under guidance of Pier Giorgio Ricci and Vittorio Zaccaria, ed. Vittore Branca, 12 volumes I Classici Mondadori (Milan:Arnoldo Mondadori editor, 1983)

Development

Boccaccio wrote the core of his work from about 1355 to 1360 with revisions and modifications up to 1374. For almost four hundred years this work was the better known of his material. The forceful written periodic Latin work was far more widely read then the now famous vernacular Tuscan/Italian tales of Decameron.Louis Brewer Hall, "Introduction," De casibus illustrium virorum (Gainesville: Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, 1962), v. The Renaissance period saw the secular biography development which was spearheaded partly by the success of this work being a stimulus and driving force of the new biography-moral genre.

Purpose

Boccaccio's perspective focuses on the disastro awaiting all who are too favoured by luck and on the inevitable catastrophes awaiting those with great fortune.[http://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-153377/De-casibus-virorum-illustrium De casibus virorum illustrium (work by Boccaccio) -- Britannica] He offers a moral commentary on overcoming misfortune by adhering to virtue through a moral God's world. Here the monastic chronicle tradition combines with the classical ideas of Senecan tragedy.

Content

De casibus stems from the tradition of exemplary literature works about famous people. It showed with the lives of these people that it was not only biographies, but also snapshots of their moral virtues.Medieval France: An Encyclopedia By William W. Kibler, p. 129, Routledge Publisher (1995), Paris, {{ISBN|0-8240-4444-4}} Boccaccio relates biographies of famous people who were at the height of happiness and fell to misfortune when they least expected it. This sad event is sometimes referred to as a "de casibus tragedy" after this work. William Shakespeare created characters based on this phenomenon, as did Christopher Marlowe.{{Cite web |url=http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/drama/medievaltragedy.html |title=Medieval tragedy |access-date=2007-12-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100313194331/http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/drama/medievaltragedy.html |archive-date=2010-03-13 |url-status=dead }}

Lives recounted

{{commons category|De casibus}}

In order, directly translated from Latin.Giovanni Boccaccio, Tutte le opere Vol. 9: De casibus virorum illustrium ed. trans. V. Zaccarria (La Scuola: Mondadori, 1983).

Only the historical figures whose names feature in chapter titles (i.e., whose lives are recounted more at length) are reported; the total number is far greater.

=Book One=

=Book Two=

=Book Three=

=Book Four=

=Book Five=

=Book Six=

=Book Seven=

=Book Eight=

=Book Nine=

  • Brunhilda of Austrasia
  • Romilda
  • Desiderius
  • Pope John XII
  • Romanos IV DiogenesÇoban, R. V. (2020). The Manzikert Battle and Sultan Alp Arslan with European Perspective in the 15st Century in the Miniatures of Giovanni Boccaccio's "De Casibus Virorum Illustrium"s 226 and 232. French Manuscripts in Bibliothèque Nationale de France. S. Karakaya ve V. Baydar (Ed.), in 2nd International Muş Symposium Articles Book (pp. 48-64). Muş: Muş Alparslan University. [https://www.academia.edu/48958867/Giovanni_Boccaccio_nun_De_Casibus_Virorum_Illustrium_Adl%C4%B1_Eserinin_Biblioth%C3%A8que_Nationale_de_France_daki_226_ve_232_Numaral%C4%B1_Frans%C4%B1zca_N%C3%BCshalar%C4%B1nda_Yer_Alan_Minyat%C3%BCrlerde_XV_Y%C3%BCzy%C4%B1l_da_Avrupal%C4%B1_G%C3%B6z%C3%BCyle_Malazgirt_Sava%C5%9F%C4%B1_ve_Sultan_Alp_Arslan_a_Bak%C4%B1%C5%9F Source] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210518111803/https://www.academia.edu/48958867/Giovanni_Boccaccio_nun_De_Casibus_Virorum_Illustrium_Adl%C4%B1_Eserinin_Biblioth%C3%A8que_Nationale_de_France_daki_226_ve_232_Numaral%C4%B1_Frans%C4%B1zca_N%C3%BCshalar%C4%B1nda_Yer_Alan_Minyat%C3%BCrlerde_XV_Y%C3%BCzy%C4%B1l_da_Avrupal%C4%B1_G%C3%B6z%C3%BCyle_Malazgirt_Sava%C5%9F%C4%B1_ve_Sultan_Alp_Arslan_a_Bak%C4%B1%C5%9F |date=2021-05-18 }}
  • Andronikos I Komnenos
  • Valeria Messalina
  • Henry (VII) of Germany
  • Charles of Anjou
  • James Master of the Templars
  • Walter VI of Brienne
  • Philippa of Catania

See also

References

= Primary sources =

  • Tutte le opere di Giovanni Boccaccio, ed. Vittore Branca (Verona: Arnoldo Mondadori, 1964)
  • The Fates of Illustrious Men, trans. Louis Brewer Hall (New York, Frederick Ungar Publishing, 1965)
  • Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes translated from Boccaccio's De Casibus Virorum Illustribus by Laurent de Premierfait (1400) [https://www.jstor.org/stable/382913 Laurent de Premierfait: The Translator of Boccaccio's De Casibus Virorum Illustrium][https://www.jstor.org/stable/477172 The Manuscripts of Laurent de Premierfait's 'Du Cas des Nobles' (Boccaccio's 'De Casibus Virorum Illustrium')]

[http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521300070&ss=ind The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism - Cambridge University]

=Secondary sources=

  • Miscellanea di Studi e Ricerche sul Quattrecento francese, ed., F. Simone (Turin: Giappichelli, 1966)
  • Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes ed., Patricia May Gathercole, Chapel Hill - University of North Carolina (1968)
  • Çoban, R. V. (2020). The Manzikert Battle and Sultan Alp Arslan with European Perspective in the 15st Century in the Miniatures of Giovanni Boccaccio's "De Casibus Virorum Illustrium"s 226 and 232. French Manuscripts in Bibliothèque Nationale de France. S. Karakaya ve V. Baydar (Ed.), in 2nd International Muş Symposium Articles Book (pp. 48-64). Muş: Muş Alparslan University. [https://www.academia.edu/48958867/Giovanni_Boccaccio_nun_De_Casibus_Virorum_Illustrium_Adl%C4%B1_Eserinin_Biblioth%C3%A8que_Nationale_de_France_daki_226_ve_232_Numaral%C4%B1_Frans%C4%B1zca_N%C3%BCshalar%C4%B1nda_Yer_Alan_Minyat%C3%BCrlerde_XV_Y%C3%BCzy%C4%B1l_da_Avrupal%C4%B1_G%C3%B6z%C3%BCyle_Malazgirt_Sava%C5%9F%C4%B1_ve_Sultan_Alp_Arslan_a_Bak%C4%B1%C5%9F Source] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210518111803/https://www.academia.edu/48958867/Giovanni_Boccaccio_nun_De_Casibus_Virorum_Illustrium_Adl%C4%B1_Eserinin_Biblioth%C3%A8que_Nationale_de_France_daki_226_ve_232_Numaral%C4%B1_Frans%C4%B1zca_N%C3%BCshalar%C4%B1nda_Yer_Alan_Minyat%C3%BCrlerde_XV_Y%C3%BCzy%C4%B1l_da_Avrupal%C4%B1_G%C3%B6z%C3%BCyle_Malazgirt_Sava%C5%9F%C4%B1_ve_Sultan_Alp_Arslan_a_Bak%C4%B1%C5%9F |date=2021-05-18 }}

=Related references=

  • Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies (1405)
  • Egan, Margarita trans. The Vidas of the Troubadours, New York, Garland (1984)
  • Joinville, Jehan de Vie de saint Louis, ed., Noel L. Corbert. Sherbrook Naoman (1977)
  • Richards, Earl Jeffery trans. The Book of the City of Ladies, New York, Persea (1982)
  • Lalande, Denis, ed., Le livre des fais du bon messiere Jehan le Maingre, dit Bouciquaut Geneva: Droz (1985)

Footnotes

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External links

  • [http://openn.library.upenn.edu/Data/0028/html/ms_439_016.html MS 439/16 Fall of princes at OPenn]

{{Giovanni Boccaccio}}

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Category:Biographies in Latin

Category:Books about Nero

Category:Works by Giovanni Boccaccio

Category:14th-century books in Latin