Giovanbattista Giraldi (Ferrara, 1504 - Ferrara, 1573). De Gli Hecatommithi. 2 vols. Vinegia: Girolamo Scotto, 1566.
Giambattista Giraldi, also called Cinthio, wrote tragedies and satirical works, sonnets and treatises on epic and dramatic literary theory. His Hecatommithi, 112 "nouvelles" collected in immitation of Boccaccio's Decameron, consists of moralistic narratives which were soon imitated and translated in France, Spain and England. Giraldi's story of the "Moor of Venice" inspired Shakespare's Othello.
The Durand Collection copy is the second edition, published in Venice in 1566 by Girolamo Scotto. It was corrected and improved, although it lacks some final sections of the second part of the princeps.
The first edition was published in 1565 in Monte Regae by Lionardo Torrentino. There is a Spanish translation of the first part of the Hecatommithi, made by Luys Gaitan de Vozmediano, published in Toledo by P. Rodriguez in 1590 with the title: Primera parte de las cien novelas. In 1968 Henry L. Snuggs published Giraldi Cinthio on romances (Lexington, University of Kentucky Press), the first English translation of the Discorso intorno al comporre dei romanzo. This is Giraldi's theory of epic poetry and vindication of Ariosto's Orlando furioso.
|
 |