“Three hundred novellas” by Sacchetti in brief
In the preface to his book, the author confesses that he wrote it, following “the example of the excellent Florentine poet, Messer Giovanni Boccaccio.” “I, the Florentine Franco Sacchetti, an ignorant and rude man, asked himself to write a book for you, collecting in it stories about all those unusual cases that, in the old days or today, took place, as well as some of those that I myself watched and by whom was a witness, and even about some, in which he participated himself. ” In the novels act as real and fictitious persons, often this is another incarnation of some “wandering plot” or moralizing story.
In the novel, the fourth Messer Barnabo, the ruler of Milan, a man cruel but not without a sense of justice, was angry one day at the abbot, who did not keep well enough the entrusted two guard dogs. Messer Barnabo demanded the payment of four thousand florins, but when the abbot begged for mercy, he agreed to forgive his debt, provided that
The hero of the sixth novel, the Marquis of Aldobrandino, the ruler of Ferrara, wants to have some rare bird to keep it in a cage. With this request he turns to a certain Florentine Basso de la Penn, who kept a hotel in Ferrara. Basso de la Penn is old, of short stature, enjoys the reputation of a man of an extraordinary and great joker. Basso promises the marquis to fulfill his request. Returning to the hotel, he calls the carpenter and orders him a cage large and strong, “so that it suits the donkey”, if Basso suddenly comes to mind to put him there. Once the cage is ready, Basso enters it and tells the porter to take himself to the marquis. The Marquis, seeing Basso in a cage, asks what this means. Basso responds that, pondering over the request of the Marquis, he realized how rare he himself is, and decided to give the marquise himself as the most unusual bird in the world. The Marquis orders the servants to put the cage on the wide sill and swing it. Basso exclaims: “Marquis, I came here to sing, and you want me to cry.” The Marquis, having held Basso all day at the window, releases him in the evening, and he returns to his hotel. Since that time, the marquis has become sympathetic to Basso, often invites him to his table, often orders him to sing in a cage and jokes with him.
Dante Alighieri acts in the eighth novel. It is to him that a very learned, but very skinny and short Genoese, who has specially come to Ravenna for this, turns to him for advice. His request, however, is this: he is in love with a lady who has never even honored him with a glance. Dante could offer him only one way: wait until his beloved lady gets pregnant, as it is known that in this state, women have different quirks, and perhaps she will have a penchant for her timid and ugly admirer. Genoese was hurt, but realized that his question did not deserve another answer. Dante and the Genoese become friends. Genoese is a clever man, but not a philosopher, otherwise, in a mental glance at himself, he could understand “that a beautiful woman, even the most decent, desires that the one she loves,
In the eighty-fourth novel Sacchetti depicts a love triangle: the wife of the Siena painter Mino starts a lover and takes him at home, taking advantage of her husband’s absence. Unexpectedly returns to Mino, as one of the relatives told him about the disgrace that his wife covers.
Hearing a knock at the door and seeing her husband, the wife hides her lover in the workshop. Mino mainly painted crucifixes, mostly carved, so the unfaithful wife advises the lover to lie on one of the flat crucifixes, hands spread out, and covers it with a canvas so that it is indistinguishable from other carved crucifixes in the dark. Mino unsuccessfully looking for a lover. Early in the morning he comes to the workshop and, noticing the two toes that have leaned out from under the canvas, guesses that it is there that the person lies. Mino chooses from the tools that he uses, carving crucifixes, hatchets and approaches the lover to “cut off from him the main thing that led him into the house.” The young man, understanding the intentions of Mino, jumps off his place and runs away, shouting: “Do not joke with an ax!” The woman easily manages to send the lover clothes, and when Mino wants to beat her, she herself deals with him so that he has to tell his neighbors that a crucifix fell on him. Mino reconciles with his wife, and thinks to himself: “If a wife wants to be bad, then all people in the world can not make her good.”
In the storyline one hundred and thirty-sixth between several Florentine artists during a meal, a dispute springs up who is the best painter after Giotto. Each of the artists names a name, but all of them agree that mastery is “fallen and falling every day.” They are objected to by maestro Alberto, skillfully carved out of marble. Never, says Alberto, “human art was not at such a height as today, especially in painting, and even more in the production of images from a living human body.” The interlocutors greet Alberto with a laugh, and he explains in detail what he means: “I believe that the best master that ever wrote and created was our Lord God, but it seems to me that many people saw in the figures created by him a big flaw and are currently correcting them. Who are these modern artists involved in the correction? These are Florentine women, “and further Alberto explains that only women can swarthy maiden, plastering here and there, make” whiter than swan. “And if a woman is pale and yellow, using paint to turn her into a rose. jaws, “lift the sloping shoulders with cotton wool,” Florentine women are the best masters of the brush and cutter that ever existed in the world, for it is quite clear that they are completing what nature has not done. “When Alberto appeals to the assembled, wishing learn their opinion, all unanimously exclaim: make “whiter than a swan”. And if the woman is pale and yellow, use the paint to turn it into a rose. Women can tidy the “donkey’s jaws,” lift the sloping shoulders with the cotton wool, “Florentine women are the best masters of the brush and cutter that ever existed in the world, for it is quite clear that they are completing what nature has not done.” When Alberto appeals to the audience, wanting to know their opinion, they all shout in one voice: make “whiter than a swan”. And if the woman is pale and yellow, use the paint to turn it into a rose. Women can tidy the “donkey’s jaws,” lift the sloping shoulders with the cotton wool, “Florentine women are the best masters of the brush and cutter that ever existed in the world, for it is quite clear that they are completing what nature has not done.” When Alberto appeals to the audience, wanting to know their opinion, they all shout in one voice:
“Long live Messer, who so well judged!”
In the novel two hundred and sixteenth another maestro Alberto, “a native of Germany,” acts. One day this worthy and holy man, passing through the Lombard regions, stops in the village on the Po river, from a certain poor man holding a hotel.
Entering the house to dine and spend the night, maestro Alberto sees a lot of nets for fishing and a lot of girls. Asking the owner, Alberto learns that this is his daughter, and fishing, he earns his living.
The next day, before leaving the hotel, Maestro Alberto masters a fish from the tree and gives it to the owner. Maestro Alberto tells her to tie her to the nets for the time of catching, so that the catch would be great. Indeed, the grateful owner soon becomes convinced that the gift of Maestro Alberto leads to him in the network a huge amount of fish. He soon becomes a rich man. But once the rope breaks off, and the water carries the fish down the river. The owner unsuccessfully searches for a wooden fish, then tries to catch without it, but the catch turns out to be insignificant. He decides to get to Germany, find Maestro Alberto and ask him to again make the same fish. When he gets there, the innkeeper kneels before him and begs for him, out of pity for him and his daughters, to make another fish, “so that he will return to him the favor he gave him earlier.”
But Maestro Alberto, looking at him with sadness, replies: “My son, I would willingly do what you ask of me, but I can not do it, for I must explain to you that when I did the fish I gave you then, , the sky and all the planets were located at that hour so as to inform her of this power… “And such a minute, according to Maestro Alberto, can now happen no sooner than thirty-six thousand years.
The owner of the hotel burst into tears and regrets that he did not tie the fish with iron wire – then it would not be lost. Maestro Alberto comforts him: “My dear son, calm down, because you were not the first to fail to keep the happiness that God sent you, there were many such people, and they not only failed to dispose of and take advantage of the short time that you used, but they could not even catch a minute when she introduced herself to them. “
After long conversations and consolations the innkeeper returns to his difficult life, but often glances down the Po river in the hope of seeing the lost fish.
“So destiny arrives: it often seems like a cheerful gaze to the one who
He knows how to catch her, and often someone who knows how to grab her, remains in the same shirt. “Some grab her, but they can only hold her as long as our innkeeper does, and hardly anyone can regain happiness unless he can wait thirty-six thousand years, as Maestro Alberto said, and this is consistent with what has already been noted by some philosophers, namely: “that in thirty-six thousand years the light will return to the position in which it is at the present time.”
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)