Bandello, Matteo

Born in Castelnuovo Scrivia in Piedmont , apparently - in a noble family. His father Giovanni Francesco was probably the court of Sforza (since according to the stories of Matteo himself, with the fall of Lodovico Sforza in 1499 he fled to Rome under the auspices of Prospero and Pompeo Colonna ); Matteo never mentioned his mother. Many of his relatives were priests and theologians.

From the age of 12 he studied in Milan at the Dominican monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie (where his uncle Vincenzo was the prior ) and in 1500 took monastic vows there, then at the University of Pavia . At the age of 20 he entered the Dominican Order , although he continued to lead an active social life. He traveled a lot, accompanying his uncle, who had by then become the general of the order, visited the courts of the sovereigns of Northern Italy ( d'Este , Sforza , Bentivoglio ) and used their location, made numerous acquaintances in aristocratic circles. After the death of his uncle in 1506 he returned to the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie, where he remained, with some interruptions, until 1526.

Living from that time permanently in Milan, he became a regular in secular and literary gatherings with Hippolyta Sforza Bentivoglio . After the battle of Marignano (1515), being closely associated with the overthrown Sforza dynasty, like many other Milanese, he fled the city and went to the hospitable court of Francesco II Gonzaga and Isabella d'Este . After the restoration of Sforza in 1522, he returned to Milan, and three years later, when the city was conquered by the Spaniards, Bandello was again under the wing of the Mantuans - Francesco III Gonzaga (grandson of Isabella).

From 1538 to 1541, he again lives in Mantua, where he is a teacher of Lucretia Gonzaga , to whom he devotes many poems. Then he goes to the service of Giovanni dalla Banda Nere . Finally, he moves on to the Verona "captain" (commander) Cesare Fregoso ( it ) - the Genoese nobleman who fights under the flag of the Republic of Venice . Fregoso, however, being a French spy, dies in an ambush, and Bandello accompanies his widow into exile in the town of Bassens near Agen , in Aquitaine (France).

Since in the years of the struggle of Spain and France for supremacy in Italy, Bandello took the side of the French king, then after the defeat of the French army at the Battle of Pavia ( 1525 ) as a supporter of the French, he lost his estates, and later the French king Henry II (at whose court he spent two years) made him bishop of Agen ( 1550 ). This position Bandello will hold until 1555 (or, possibly, until his death in 1561). In Agen, Bandello spent the rest of his life drawing attention from the leaders of the French Renaissance .

Short stories

Bandello is the author of 214 short stories - this is the main literary work of his life. Shakespeare drew the plot of his tragedy of the same name from one of his novels “Romeo and Juliet”, which goes back to the earlier work of the Italian Luigi da Porto “A Newly Found Story of Two Noble Lovers” (1530) ^[2] .

Shakespeare also from the novels Bandello created his “ Much Ado About Nothing ,” “ Cymbelin ” and “ Twelfth Night, ” John Webster - “ Duchess of Amalfi .” They were also inspired by Lope de Vega , Cervantes .

They were published in Lucca in 1554 (the first three volumes); the fourth posthumous - in Lyon in 1573. “In these short stories, Bandello acts as a skilful depictor of the life of Italian society Cinquecento (16th century) and, in the spirit of his time, pays tribute to sentimental-sensitive and bloody genres. The popularity of Bandello was very significant ” ^[3] . This is “an artless picture of the morals and social life of his time, it has been read and translated into foreign languages ​​a lot, although they do not shine with either special talent or decoration and are distinguished by extreme cynicism in some places” ^[4] . In the future, short stories were published, only in the 18th century full editions were published (4 vols., Lond., 1740; 9 vols., Lond., 1791–93; g., Milan, 1813-14; 4 vols., Turin, 1853 d); in 1818–9 in Adrian’s German translation, only those “from the works of Bandello that could be printed without prejudice to the moral sense of readers” ^[4] came out.

Literary critic S. V. Logish notes: "Novels have no plot frame, like the Boccaccio 's Decameron , they are accompanied by descriptions of places and situations that the author had the opportunity to observe during his trips and services with various gentlemen and military leaders." In his opinion, Bandello does not follow any thematic principle or similarity of situations, emphasizing it himself, saying that his short stories are not “a continuation of a long story”, but are “a mixture of different incidents that happened differently in different places and at different times, with the participation of different people ” ^[5] .

Each novel is preceded by an introduction in the form of a letter of dedication addressed to one of the writer's contemporaries. In them, the author tells under what circumstances he learned about the events of the novel. According to Logisch, letters of dedication "are of great importance for understanding the whole idea, since in them the writer establishes a direct connection with the reality of his time and gives credibility to the stories described." In Russian translations these introductions are absent.

The literary critic notes that Bandello’s texts “replete with historical and everyday details and reflect the festive atmosphere of various Renaissance courtyards. Often the author uses short insertion short stories, which sometimes find a detailed continuation in the next short story, establishing a thematic connection between them (...) The tone of the narrative can range from comic to tragic or pathetic, in the center of the short story there can be intrigues, ridicule, heroic adventures, magical or fabulous transformations. The most attractive for the author are stories of historical and love content, which often have a tragic denouement. On the whole, Bandello strives to make his novels pleasant to the court audience and make him think about what he read ” ^[5] .

It is customary to highlight several sources of the plot from Bandello. This is the "novelty" of the XIII century, the work of Boccaccio, the novels of the XIV century - of which the writer borrows traditional themes and plots. “However, he also uses modern short stories, folklore material, stories from everyday life, stories about famous personalities and travel notes” ^[5] .

In Russian, selected short stories were published in translations of N. Tomashevsky, I. Georgievskaya, A. Shadrin .

Other

From other works of him were published ^[4] :

• Canti delle lodi della S. Lucrezia Gonzaga (Ajan, 1545) - 11 “Songs in praise of Lady Lucretia Gonzaga”
• chapters in tercins “Three Parks” (“Le tre Parche”)
• Rime (ed. Costa, Typ., 1816)
• the imitation of the Hekube by Euripides (ed. Manzi, Rome, 1813)
• "Some fragments of the Poems" ("Alcuni fragmenti delle Rime"), in 1544, dedicated to Queen Margarita of Navarre (they were discovered only in 1816)

According to Logish, the writer did not highly value his poetry: “he called his poetic experiments“ poorly sanded paper “, remaining within the framework of the gallant-courteous subject” ^[5] .