This is our backup site. Click here to visit our main site at MellenPress.com
Subject Area: Italy & Italian Studies
Davis, Roy W.1993 0-7734-9558-4 224 pages
The thrust of these symposium papers engaged the development of perspective in early modern England, an evolution in thought and practice that crossed disciplinary lines to be felt in the art, literature, and history of England. Individual papers explore perspectives on representation (e.g., history in fiction and fiction in history); development of frames for historical and literary narratives and their impact on point of view; implications of coordinate developments in painting and narrative, such as simultaneous introduction of fixed-point perspective and third person narrative; and the relationship between fact and fiction as they were defined in early modern England. The essays alter current perspectives on the origins of the early modern period, connecting new insights into intellectual developments to their embodiment in the art, literature, and history of the period.
House, Jane
2015 1-4955-0366-6 160 pages
Translation by Jane House. This book is part of the multivolume Mellen collection of contemporary Italian drama, which comprises fourteen plays, of which thirteen are first translations. The collection, covering 1950 to 2001, includes introductions to the playwrights, production photographs, a general bibliography of works in English on Italian drama of the period, and bibliographies specific to the playwrights in each book. Jack D. Street wrote the general introduction to the collection. Foreword by Marvin Carlson.
Makolkin, Anna
2004 0-7734-6272-4 320 pages
The study reconstructs the Italian protohistory of Odessa, founded in 1794 by the immigrants from Genoa and Naples, Venice and Palermo. For the first time and upon the lengthy and elaborate archival research in Italy and Ukraine, the Odessa of Alexander Pushkin and Anna Akhmatova, battleship Potemkin and Eisenstein, Babel and Kandinsky enters European historiography as a world of the dynasties of De Ribas and Frapoliies, Rossies and Bubbas, Bernadazzies and Riznich, Molinaries, Iorini et al. Having revised the narratives of the Tzarist, Soviet, pre- Perestroika and post- Communist past, the monograph not only reclaims the first Italian settlers, but examines the process of forging Europeanness, a cultural identity beyond the traditional East and West, nation and people.
European culture has been notably influenced by Italian civilization, and Odessa is one of the important manifestations of this phenomenon. The book places this 18th century Italian migration to the Black Sea into various contexts: the ancient Porto-Franco, the 12th-14th century Crimea, the persecution of Jesuits and Jews, Risorgimento and Romantic Europe. It challenges the post-modern concept of colonialism by presenting the colonial Other through history and philosophy, semiotics and architecture, history of art and musicology. This history of Odessa not only reveals the neglected European past, but also imagines the future of the European continent, explaining the role of migration and mechanism of cultural transport.
Fanelli, Carlo
2012 0-7734-4078-X 128 pages
The present study is divided into three parts, the first of which is an in-depth introduction by Carlo Fanelli to the authors and problems of 16th century Renaissance Italian dialect comedy and the relevance of a playwright such as Angelo Beolco (RUZANTE). Particular attention is paid to the comedy from the point of view of the social problems presented by veterans or deserters after long and socially disastrous wars. The second part is a short introduction to the manuscript history of RUZANTE’s dialect comedy El Parlamento prior its printing by Stefano Alessi at Venice in 1551. The Verona Codex 36 is datable to 1524, the Marciana (Venice) IT.XI,66 (in worse conditions as a manuscript) is of a later period (1526-1542), the first probably used by the playwright to prepare the comedy for staging: Verona Codex 36 is here presented in the third part with suggested modifications and a possible theatrical translation into modern English. Parts 2 and 3 are by John B Trumper.
Needham, Jonathan
2013 0-7734-3057-1 256 pages
The present work provides an entirely unique translation of nineteenth century Italian writer Ugo Foscolo’s universally unknown, yet aesthetically superb poem “The Graces.” Originally written in Neoclassical Italian, Foscolo’s poem embraces all which is “harmonious” and “beautiful”?in ancient Greek and Roman art and poetry as well as in Neoclassical aesthetics. Those qualities mentioned above which renowned poets such as Homer, Catullus, Virgil and others have savored in their writings, and find full artistic expression in “The Graces," which, assuming the identity of a temple or a sculpture, celebrates the creation of poetry itself. It is the sweetness and the euphony of the Graces' gentle affections, welcomed into even the hearts of poets like Dante, Lord Byron, and John Keats, which placate or rather "subdue" mankind's violent, feral nature and arouse in man a love for poeticizing. Dr. Needham’s translation in English not only retains the authentic flavor of Foscolo’s Italian poem and all that Neoclassicalism embodies, but also includes insightful criticism concerning other English translations of the poem. There are also unique commentaries on certain verses in the text which allude to themes of sensuality and eroticism seen in the rococo works of French painters such as Fragonard and Watteau contrasted with themes of purity and modesty noted in the works of French artist Jacques-Louis David and Antonio Canova. It is precisely to this inspiring nineteenth century Italian sculptor that Ugo Foscolo dedicates his poetic opus.
Tordi, Anne Wilson
2004 0-7734-6446-8 336 pages
This work is a critical edition of an Italian poetic version of the legend of Alexander the Great. The Alexandreida in rima was written in the 15th century, and was primarily derived from a 12th century Latin prose version of a Greek romance. Although a versifier of limited abilities, the anonymous Italian compiler perceived that he had, literally, a fabulous tale to tell, and he worked diligently to transform it into ottava rima, the popular poetic form of the time. His poem brought to the Italian public one of the richest legends of all time, and it met with such success that it was reprinted 16 times between the 16th and 18th centuries. This work will make accessible to scholars a popular epic whose hero was honored as one of the Nine Worthies of the early modern period.
Noether, Emiliana P.
1989 0-88946-095-7 250 pages
Thematically organized around the American Constitution, this collection of essays focuses on: (1) Italian influences on American thinkers during the Revolutionary years; and (2) Italian reactions to the Constitution and its republican order.
Getscher, Robert H.
2002 0-7734-7187-1 342 pages
Giorgio Vasari, friend of Michelangelo and the first art historian, in the second edition of his Lives of the Artists, mentioned almost 500 different prints from the 15th and 16th centuries, from both Italy and the North. Even with a number of editions of Vasari’s Lives now in print, this section of his text on prints is not readily available, and it has never been annotated. This volume identifies his numerous references and discusses the implications of his choices. The illustrations show works not found in the standard illustrated compendiums, such as Bartsch and Hollstein. Others depict works that Vasari recommended but that have slipped from our modern conventions of what ideas a print should convey, and how it should convey them. There are 194 illustrations. Two Volume set: Volume 1: Text 0-7734-7187-1 342pp. 2002 Volume 2: Reproductions 0-7734-7005-0 400pp. 2002 This is an oversize (8 1/2x 11) set. Due to the size and the large number of illustrations, each volume is priced at $299.95
Getscher, Robert H.
2002 0-7734-7005-0 400 pages
Giorgio Vasari, friend of Michelangelo and the first art historian, in the second edition of his Lives of the Artists, mentioned almost 500 different prints from the 15th and 16th centuries, from both Italy and the North. Even with a number of editions of Vasari’s Lives now in print, this section of his text on prints is not readily available, and it has never been annotated. This volume identifies his numerous references and discusses the implications of his choices. The illustrations show works not found in the standard illustrated compendiums, such as Bartsch and Hollstein. Others depict works that Vasari recommended but that have slipped from our modern conventions of what ideas a print should convey, and how it should convey them. There are 194 illustrations. Two Volume set: Volume 1: Text 0-7734-7187-1 342pp. 2002 Volume 2: Reproductions 0-7734-7005-0 400pp. 2002
Conlon, Raymond
2002 0-7734-6905-2 516 pages
A selection of Renaissance Italian, Spanish and Portuguese plays in translation, each accompanied by an introduction to the author and his works and their cultural milieu.
Alexander, Foscarina
1990 0-7734-9706-4 140 pages
Traces, in the works of three Italian writes belonging to different periods and backgrounds, a common aspiration to a lost harmony. This perennial aspiration has found expression in many forms. It is the vital nature of this quest, one often deemed by them to be hopeless, that gives the work of these writers its dynamism and sometimes tragic tension.
Farrell, Joseph
1997 0-7734-8465-5 272 pages
Papers in this volume examines the work of Carlo Goldoni in relation to the output of other theatre writers across Europe in the Age of Enlightenment, and also reconsiders Goldoni's work in the light of new questions raised by recent critical discussions.
Chapple, Erasmi
1991 0-7734-9630-0 240 pages
Libero Bigiaretti's Checkpoint, is a translation of poetry in Italian into English making the latest work by Italian author Libero Bigaretti available to the North American public. Bigiaretti searches for where the other has become the absolute denial of the reality of the self. What is singular is his perspective of a man who looks at life with the consciousness that his work is done. Bigaretti writes humorously from that narrow strip of no-man’s land between the memory of a meaningful life and the contemplation of death. The book contains an introduction, notes, original text, and translation. Libero Bigiaretti's Checkpoint, is a translation of poetry in Italian into English making the latest work by Italian author Libero Bigaretti available to the North American public. Bigiaretti searches for where the other has become the absolute denial of the reality of the self. What is singular is his perspective of a man who looks at life with the consciousness that his work is done. Bigaretti writes humorously from that narrow strip of no-man’s land between the memory of a meaningful life and the contemplation of death. The book contains an introduction, notes, original text, and translation. Fourteen illustrations by the author are also included.
Berry, Paul
1995 0-7734-8899-5 84 pages
Cairns, Christopher
1989 0-88946-080-9 472 pages
Garlington, Aubrey S.
2023 1-4955-1142-1 100 pages
"The Church of San Giovanni Evangelista (SGE)...stands in the heart of the city being one block up from the Via Martelli.... SGE came under the jurisdiction of the "Padri delle Scuole Pie" more formally known as the "Clerici di Madre di Dio," informally as "Scolopi"...in 1775 following the Jesuits' expulsion. The Jesuits had been in charge of the church since its erection in the late sixteenth century following a design by Ammannati. From the beginning SGE was intended for their use...." -Aubrey Garlington (Introduction)
Kreglianovich, Giovanni
2003 0-7734-6740-8 492 pages
Howard, Patricia
2002 0-7734-7087-5 220 pages
Griffiths, C. E. J.
1993 0-7734-9396-4 376 pages
These essays address unifying themes such as the acquisition of knowledge (Fracastoro's theories on the cognitive process); textual criticism (the editing of the works of Livy and Alberti); the academic and social value of humanist studies (the views of Dante and Lombardelli); literary imitation (of the classics and the Bible in Piccolomini, humanists' imitation of each other in the case of Petrarch and Boccaccio); and the reflection of social reality in literature (freedom versus duty in Ariosto and Quarini, marriage and the law in Renaissance comedy, the role of women in the chivalric epic, in comedy and in the novellas of Masuccio, political expediency in Machiavelli and in treatises on the courtier from Castiglione on). An indication of the breadth of the impact of the movement is given by studies which describe its effect on the literary tradition of Wales and on writers of the Enlightenment like Parini.
Alighieri, Dante
2004 0-7734-6526-X 592 pages
Rediscovered in a manuscript of the Roman de la Rose in 1881, the Fiore comprises a cycle of 232 sonnets tracing the adventures, misfortunes, and triumph of the lover in his pursuit of the rose, all this representing a version of the archetypal text of Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, and preserving in full the brilliance of the original in its ample recourse to irony and parody. The ‘internal signature’ of the poem straightaway gave rise to speculation as to the possibility of the poem’s belonging to Dante. The present edition, which reproduces the now received text of Gianfranco Contini, offers in parallel to this a diplomatic transcription of the sole MS in which the poem survives (Montpellier, Bibliothèque universitaire H438), as well as a lively English translation and three sets of critical and historical apparatus (ecdotic, literary and historical, and interpretative). The detailed introduction provides an account of the historical and linguistic aspects of the text as well as a discussion of its meaning and significance responsive to developments in the sphere of Rose criticism proper. There is a full, up-to-date bibliography, glossary, table of references from the Fiore to the canonical Dante, and specialised rhetorical and technical index.
Arndt, Stephen
1994 0-7734-9385-9 720 pages
This is the only translation in the 400-year history of Dante translations into English that is perfectly rhymed. When read metrically, the translation falls into perfect iambic pentameter, and when read naturally, it flows in a meter very similar to Dante's original. This translation avoids the archaisms and awkward syntax of other rhymed translations and is more literally accurate.
Nissen, Christopher
1993 0-7734-9835-4 156 pages
This study deals with the depiction of ethically correct punishment in four late medieval Italian novella collections: Boccaccio's Decameron, Fiorentino's Pecorone, Sacchetti's Trecentonovelle, and Sercambi's Novelliere. It analyzes the function of ethics in dozens of short tales which can be profitably studied not only by scholars of Italian and other literatures, but also by students of medieval and Renaissance history, sociology, and philosophy.
Street, Jack D.
2015 1-4955-0380-1 216 pages
D.D. Carnicelli translated Ferdinando (from Neapolitan); Jane House, Beautiful Maria.This book is part of the multivolume Mellen collection of contemporary Italian drama, which comprises fourteen plays, of which thirteen are first translations. The collection, covering 1950 to 2001, includes introductions to the playwrights, production photographs, a general bibliography of works in English on Italian drama of the period, and bibliographies specific to the playwrights in each book. Jack D. Street wrote the general introduction to the collection. Foreword by Marvin Carlson.
Tench, Darby
2005 0-7734-6107-8 348 pages
This is a fascinating study on the many ways that immediacy and mediation function in the novels of the nineteenth-century Italian novelist Giovanni Verga (1840-1922). Against the backdrop of an understanding of nineteenth-century realism, the author demonstrates how mediation and “the immediacy impression” function as rhetorical devices in Verga’s writings, and in I Malavoglia in particular. Girard, Bakhtin, and Serres provide important conversation partners for her throughout. The author has translated all of the Italian passages into English and has provided thorough annotation both in the form of endnotes and footnotes. This work makes important contributions to the study of Giovanni Verga and nineteenth-century realism.
Migiel, Marilyn
1993 0-7734-9392-1 204 pages
Using feminist, psychoanalytic, and deconstructionist approaches to Torquato Tasso's 1581 Gerusalemme Liberata (Jerusalem Delivered), this book argues that Tasso explored alternate modes of writing and reading by reflecting on the genealogical tales of his non-Christian women characters, Clorinda, Erminia, and Armida. They permit Tasso to explore what it might mean to ask an alternate series of questions about one's relation to the father. By examining the interpretive and ethical questions that rise from the problematic genealogies of Tasso's orphan daughters, we arrive at a better understanding of the relation between the poem's dominant ideology, on one hand, and the stories that it seeks to suspend and displace on the other.
Hodgart, A. Buono
1997 0-7734-8661-5 220 pages
This comparative study of Giordano Bruno's Candelaio examines a large number of theatrical authors, from the classical tradition as well as from Italian vernacular and dialect. It takes into account Bruno's recognized sources as well as unknown authors, philosophers as well as poets, playwrights as well as 'poligrafi della penna'. The study concludes that it is the polemic attack on pedantry - in the special sense attributed to it by Bruno - which constitutes the central impulse of Candelaio: a polemic against intellectual obscurantism and degenerated morals. This meaning explains and justifies, emblematically, the title itself: Candelaio is the bearer of the light of truth. Thus, by its very name, the play declares its function, to clarify and enlighten - and claims the ethical significance, as a human and social document, which makes it worth reading.
Faraone, Rosella
2017 1-4955-0583-9 272 pages
An examination and determination of Giovanni Gentile's role - also concerning racism in Italy - would not be complete without considering whatever is attributable to his person but also whatever was involved in the wide cultural activities he was responsible for. Much attention has rightly been paid to Gentile as a philosopher, politician, ideologist and organizer of culture. These activities are an integral part of Gentile's historical, cultural and human profile but also essential to understand and evaluate his individual dimension.
Giraldi, G. B.
1999 0-7734-8191-5 224 pages
This is the first reliable version of Giraldi's sole comedy, Gli Eudemoni (The Lucky Ones), completed in 1549. The five Acts of the play proper are preceded by a prologue, showing that, in all probability, it was intended for public performance; but there is some doubt as to whether the author ever in fact mounted a production of it. Illustrates the theories on comedy enunciated by the author in the contemporary Discorso intorno al comporre delle comedie e delle tragedie, first published in 1554.
Roma, Elisa
2013 0-7734-4472-6 324 pages
The only book of its kind that offers a detailed account of the orthography, phonology and morphology of Middle Irish available in print. This is an important research tool for linguists and professors and graduate students working in the language arts. The book covers key issues of initial mutations, and gives a detailed account of inflection and word formation of nouns, adjectives, pronouns, numerals, adverbs, verbs and prepositions. Attested forms are commented upon from a historical point of view, and the dynamics of linguistic conversation and innovation, the mechanism of analogy, contrasting the Middle Irish forms with the corresponding Old Irish ones with an eye on the evolution of the language.
Rozier, Louise
2004 0-7734-6435-2 191 pages
In Italian.
This book is on Paola Masino who wrote prolifically during the Fascist dictatorship. She belonged to the European and international intelligentsia of the time and her work was widely read and reviewed. Her short stories were published in the most prestigious Italian literary magazines and her first novel Monte Ignoso was awarded the 1931 Viareggio Literary Prize.
Paola Masino’s narrative explores the realm of myths, allegories, dreams and hallucinations in order to break down the boundaries between rationality and irrationality and to expose the fundamental contradictions and limitations of reality. Life and death, the alienation and the tragedy of modern man, the changing realities of the traditional nuclear family, as well as the exploration of women self-representation and identity, are the dominant themes in her narrative. Masino’s discourse challenges patriarchal authority and the representation of models of femininity by putting into question the ideology of the woman-mother/caretaker of family and angel of domesticity promoted by the Fascist regime. Masino’s work was never censured by the regime. However, because of her strong experimental writing - from surrealism to magic realism, from the absurd to the grotesque – her narrative was qualified as “defeatist,” and she was personally criticized for “writing like a man.”
Paola Masino’s official literary production stopped shortly after WWII when Massimo Bontempelli, her life companion, fell ill. A well-known member of the Academy of Italy, Bontempelli died in 1960 and Masino dedicated the rest of her life to the publication and organization of his literary legacy. There is no doubt that Masino’s contributions have been overshadowed by Bontempelli’s stature and preeminence. However, Paola Masino is truly an avant-garde writer whose talent, complex style and independent voice fully contribute to the literature of twentieth-century Italy.
Mulryne, J.R.
1992 0-7734-9608-4 440 pages
Essays from a specialist seminar held at University of Warwick, April 1990, under the auspices of Graduate school of Renaissance Studies. The essays examine festival occasions taking place between 1560 and 1660, and draw attention to some of the more vigorous developments of the form of political theater, not only in Italy but also Denmark, France, England, and the German-speaking states.
Street, Jack D.
2003 0-7734-6738-6 420 pages
This anthology fills a lacuna in the investigation of European avant-garde theater, from Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi to the New Theater of the Absurd. The introduction justifies the place of the Italian Theater of the Grotesque, and the text remedies the lack of access to its plays by translating the ones included in the anthology into English. Of the seven representative plays, five have never been translated into English before.
Desvignes, Lucette
2011 0-7734-3943-9 300 pages
Analysis and examination of the travel fiction of Lucette Desvignes, for the first time in English, that uses the author’s own experiences, as well as the Lucette’s characters, to show how she changed the genre.
Budani, Donna M.
2003 0-7734-6880-3 216 pages
This book provides an in-depth cultural study that will interest scholars in anthropology, women’s studies, and history. In particular it presents a study of Orsognese women’s narratives of their experience in World War II, presenting a detailed account of the author’s ethnographic field practice showing that the patterns that emerge from the narratives are an integral part of the contemporary Orsognese social context. It examines these as concepts of sociability, relatedness, and community, based on principles of social interaction the Orsognese women manifested in their social practice.
Salamone, Frank A.
2008 0-7734-5230-3 188 pages
This work examines the experience of Italians as Italian-Americans in Rochester, New York, following World War II. Overall, the work explores the meaning of ethnicity and sheds light on anthropological, sociological, and historical theories of ethnicity and its use to advance the goals of a people. This book contains eight black and white photographs.
Quaglia, Lucia
2006 0-7734-5768-2 268 pages
This book analyzes Italy’s policy toward European monetary integration from the creation of the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1957 to the final stage of Economic and Monetary Union in 1999 and the first five years thereafter. It is argued that “ideas,” in the form of “policy paradigms,” are crucial in framing member states’ trajectories in the European Union (EU) and they are therefore core components of the process of Europeanization. Policy paradigms need to be contextualized by considering the evolution of domestic institutions.
According to the foreign policy paradigm that prevailed in Italy from the Second World War until the late 1990s, “Europe” has been of paramount priority, which has been associated with its political, economic and cultural modernization. The economic policy paradigm, instead, has shifted from Keynesian economics in the 1960s and 1970s to the monetarist-inspired, stability-oriented paradigm of the 1980s and 1990s. The pro-European foreign policy paradigm explains why Italian policymakers decided to join all the European monetary initiatives, whereas the economic paradigm, which, for most of the time, was far apart from the stability-oriented paradigm embedded in European monetary regimes, explains Italy’s difficult adaptation. The book concludes by pointing out that the foreign policy paradigm has begun to shift since the late 1990s.
Chirumbolo, Paolo
2013 0-7734-4550-1 432 pages
This book shows how landscape, place, and territory play a crucial role in all forms of aesthetic communication. Whether real, mythological, fantastic, allegorical, or symbolic, they are essential constituents of the verbal and visual construction of an artwork. The authors show how space determines narrative plots and shapes emotional, rational, and social tendencies of any aesthetic expression. The analysis has shifted from the principles of mimesis to recent critical attention given to specific perspectives in different cultural lenses. This volume, edited by two enterprising scholars especially interested in mapping new trends in Italian literature and cinema, is a brilliant collection of theoretical and analytical essays. These writings explore the issues of aesthetics from a plurality of angles related to the literary and cinematic treatment of space.
Rorato, Laura
2009 0-7734-3900-5 400 pages
This volume examines the role of Gianni Celati in shaping Italian fiction and culture since the 1960s as a leading narrator, writer, scholar, translator and filmmaker. In Italian
Burkle-Young, Francis A.
1997 0-7734-8581-3 264 pages
This book gathers for the first time virtually all that is known about the last of the unreformed and unregenerate cardinals of the sixteenth century, Innocenzo Ciocchi del Monte, the adopted cardinal-nephew of Pope Julius III. At the same time, it contains a wealth of material, some of it never explored before, on the del Monte family in general, and Julius III in particular. It also explores in detail the dynastic connections of the del Monte and illuminates some of the leading parts played by the family in the case of the divorce of Henry VIII, the rise of the Jesuits, and in the perils of the Order of St. John in that time.
Talbot, George
2000 0-7734-7782-9 420 pages
Lord Charlemont conceived of his three-volume history of Italian poetry as a contribution to the reputation in the English-speaking world of the Italian literary tradition, by means of a substantial annotated anthology of texts, with his translations in parallel. Over 300 pages of his 1600 page manuscript are dedicated to Dante, easily the most detailed treatment in English before the work of professional scholars in the nineteenth century. Charlemont was a will-known scholarly figure of the Johnsonian period. This critical edition presents Charlemonts facing page translations of each authors work.
Talbot, George
2000 0-7734-7780-2 640 pages
Lord Charlemont conceived of his three-volume history of Italian poetry as a contribution to the reputation in the English-speaking world of the Italian literary tradition, by means of a substantial annotated anthology of texts, with his translations in parallel. Over 300 pages of his 1600 page manuscript are dedicated to Dante, easily the most detailed treatment in English before the work of professional scholars in the nineteenth century. Charlemont was a will-known scholarly figure of the Johnsonian period. This critical edition presents Charlemont’s facing page translations of each author’s work.
Talbot, George
2000 0-7734-7784-5 412 pages
Lord Charlemont conceived of his three-volume history of Italian poetry as a contribution to the reputation in the English-speaking world of the Italian literary tradition, by means of a substantial annotated anthology of texts, with his translations in parallel. Over 300 pages of his 1600 page manuscript are dedicated to Dante, easily the most detailed treatment in English before the work of professional scholars in the nineteenth century. Charlemont was a will-known scholarly figure of the Johnsonian period. This critical edition presents Charlemont’s facing page translations of each author’s work.
Privitera, Joseph F.
1998 0-7734-8337-3 272 pages
English translation of Pirandello's original Sicilian plays, retaining the names of the original characters, their dialogue, with all the peculiarities and characteristics of the Sicilian tongue and the nature and flavor of their mores, thus underscoring the fact that Sicily and Sicilians are different ethnically, culturally and linguistically from continental Italians. Volume 1 also contains the Preface, a complete list of Pirandello's plays, and an introduction setting Pirandello's life and Sicilian plays in context.
Privitera, Joseph F.
1998 0-7734-8339-X 284 pages
English translation of Pirandello's original Sicilian plays, retaining the names of the original characters, their dialogue, with all the peculiarities and characteristics of the Sicilian tongue and the nature and flavor of their mores, thus underscoring the fact that Sicily and Sicilians are different ethnically, culturally and linguistically from continental Italians. Volume 1 also contains the Preface, a complete list of Pirandello's plays, and an introduction setting Pirandello's life and Sicilian plays in context.
Crelly, William Richard
1990 0-88946-146-5 456 pages
Focuses on the inventive range of Giovanetti's poetic imagery, which has never been studied, and on its art-historical ramifications.
Pitruzzello, Rosy Maria
2022 1-4955-0937-0 110 pages
From the author's Abstract: "This study of comparative literature focuses its attention on a selection of literary works written by two Sicilian female writers who lived between the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries, maria Messina and Elvira Mancuso.
"...this book analyzes and describes the literary and existential voices of the two pro-femininst writers through their heroines and characters, who fought against or humbly accepted and surrendered to the patriarchal restrictions and chauvininst society they belonged to. This is shown in the works Ragazze Siciliane and L/amore negato by Maria Messina and Una vecchia storia...inverosimile by Elvira Mancuso.
Jensen, Brian Møller
2006 0-7734-5854-9 324 pages
This book is a very valuable collection of fifteen thorough and well-documented studies on liturgical texts in medieval Italian manuscripts, including the English versions of five published in Italian as well as five new unpublished studies. Hagiography is the central theme in these studies.
Gilson, Simon A.
2000 0-7734-7808-6 316 pages
This study investigates Dante’s knowledge of several traditions of the extensive medieval literature on light and optics and examines how he assimilates and reworks related imagery, themes, and motifs in his writing. “Gilson’s account demonstrates the extent to which in Dante’s mind art and science are closely akin. Equally, he provides a valuable survey of the debates which were current in Dante’s time in the field of optics (as well as revealing the deficiencies of most recent studies of the issue). The book is written with great clarity and considerable subtlety in the analysis of Dante’s text. It draws together material from a wide range of medieval sources and is likely to be of interest as much to the student of medieval philosophy as to readers of the Commedia.” – Dr. R. Kirkpatrick
Bent, George R.
2006 0-7734-5968-5 636 pages
Locked inside the walls of a severely cloistered monastery, monks from the Camaldolese house of Santa Maria degli Angeli had access to some of the most innovative paintings produced in Florence between 1350 and 1425. Leading painters of the day, like Nardo di Cione and Lorenzo Monaco, filled manuscripts and decorated altars with richly ornamented pictures that related directly to liturgical passages recited – and theological positions embraced – by members of the institution. In a city marked by wealthy and sophisticated ecclesiastical communities, the one at Santa Maria degli Angeli had few peers.
Dependent on the benefices of a powerful network of patronage, the monks in Santa Mara degli Angeli counted among their staunchest allies families associated with the most important political alliances in Florence, and by 1378 the monastery was considered by many to be closely linked to the city’s most potent families. Monks executed a variety of tasks and obligations which took place throughout the year. Among these was a lengthy and solemn procession, held on specific feast days, that took the community to every altar and altarpiece in the monastic complex. The route they took and the images they saw caused each participant to see his collection of images in sequence, and thus encouraged him to consider the altarpieces in his environment both individually and collectively. The culmination of this procession came to be the extraordinary high altarpiece produced by Lorenzo Monaco in 1413, the Coronation of the Virgin, which summarized both the entire program of monastic imagery in Santa Maria degli Angeli and the importance of individual patronage in Europe’s most progressive and potent city-state. This work examines and explains the appearance, function, and uses of painting in one of the day’s most important cultural centers.
Because of the size of the book and the large number of photographs, this book is priced at $399.95.
McErlean, J. M. P.
1996 0-7734-8853-7 328 pages
This is the first scholarly study of the intertwined careers in Corsica of Napoleon and his rival, Pozzo di Borgo,and of the feud that followed. It is based on essential and rare primary archival sources. This is the first account of Pozzo di Borgo as the Bonapartes' family lawyer. It provides fresh information on the Bonaparte family's lawsuits. It is based on exhaustive scrutiny of the private Pozzi Di Borgo family papers, particularly the Memoirs of C. A. Pozzo di Borgo, as well as contemporary documents from the Archives Nationales, the Bibliothèque Nationale, the Public Record Office, the British Library, the National Library of Scotland, the Corsican Departmental Archives, (and particularly the papers of the Royal Jurisdiction of Ajaccio), and Princeton University Library. What emerges is a portrait of the young Napoleon different from the conventional one, suggesting that he was much less important in Corsica than often portrayed. The outstanding importance of Pozzo di Borgo in Corsican politics and in the expulsion of the Bonapartes from Corsica is clearly established. The last chapter, drawing on the widest ever range of sources, revises the established account of the epochal struggle between Napoleon and Pozzo from 1796 to Napoleon's death, situating it in the context of international relations.
Broers, Michael
1997 0-7734-8609-7 596 pages
Ancien régime Piedmont is a little-studied area, and so there exists a geographical and conceptual imbalance in the historiography of the Napoleonic era which this work addresses. It concentrates on the character and shape of mainstream political life in an area representative of the much of the territory controlled by the Napoleonic régime. It illustrates that the major problems of law and order and political polarization which beset the Revolutionary period did not disappear under Napoleon. They preoccupied his government as much as those of his predecessors. These problems, rather than ideological questions of national unity - were the chief concern of his Italian subjects, and so the question of law and order stands at the center of this work. Chapter headings include: the Absolutist Heritage; Crisis of the Ancien Régime; Patriots in Piedmontese Society; French Policy After Annexation; Resistance & Repression; Defence of Society; Resentment & Ralliement; Restoration & Reaction.
Buscemi, Santi V.
2016 1-4955-0427-1 468 pages
The father of Italian dialect theater Luigi Capuana (1839-1915) embraced the literary movement verismo (Italian realism). His major plays, with their emphasis on naturalism and objectivity over symbolism, have now been beautifully translated for an English readership and audience.
Richards, John
2008 0-7734-5236-2 200 pages
This book examines Petrarch’s relationship with Francesco il Vecchio da Carrara, lord of Padua, who was the poet’s host during his final years (1367-74), and for whom he started to rewrite his great work of Roman history, the De Viris Illustribus. The exemplary purpose of this text was extended in the form of a major fresco cycle in the Sala Virorum Illustrium of the Carrara palace in Padua, the Reggia. This book contains 10 black and white photographs.
O’Grady, Deirdre
2000 0-7734-7703-9 152 pages
This study is the first to forge a direct link between the Italian theatre of the post-romantic period, the adaptation of Shakespeare’s Othello by Boito and the theatre of the absurd of Pirandello. It traces the significance of the fusion of genre through the symbolic images appertaining to light-darkness, beauty/ugliness, youth/age. It demonstrates the rediscovery of Evil and its application to psychological manipulation as seen in the poetry of the writers of Scapigliatura Milanese, of the late 19th-century. Emphasis is placed on the externalization of the inner conflict, with the psychological victim assuming the roles of manipulated monster and controlled marionette. Finally, the work is the first to consider in juxtaposition the place of Jester (Piave, Rigoletto) and Puppet (Pirandello, Il berretto a sonagli), and how they provide a link between he tragically comical and the absurd.
Van Watson, William
1989 0-7734-2002-9 150 pages
This study examines, from a variety of critical perspectives, Pasolini's complex, paradoxical, and eclectic drama. This book offers the most comprehensive study of Pasolini's theatre to date in any language.
Cordaro, Phillip
1991 0-7734-9709-9 88 pages
Vitiello, Justin
1993 0-7734-2226-9 528 pages
This study incorporates over forty oral histories of Sicilian emigrants to North Italy, Germany, South Africa, and America, collected upon their return in 1988 to their hometown of Trappeto, a village of about 3,000 inhabitants in Palermo Province. The documents are analyzed as subjective/objective, or inter-subjective sources for understanding of a people's emigration. The multi-disciplinary approach includes anthropological, folkloric, poetico-literary, historical and sociological aspects. It reveals a still-vital Sicilian culture. As contribution to the work of conservation, the Trappetese oral histories are transcribed verbatim, translated faithfully, and printed in the final chapter.
Berrong, Richard M.
1992 0-7734-9230-5 160 pages
Catalani's letters contain a fascinating eyewitness account of the process of creating opera in turn-of-the-century Italy. They show what he and his contemporaries, among them Puccini, Mascagni, Leoncavallo, and Giordano, went through to obtain a libretto, arrange a premiere, and encourage subsequent productions of a new score. And, since there is no English-language biography of Catalani, this volume also provides readers not versed in Italian an opportunity to learn about the composer of La Wally and Loreley.
Giacomini, Laura
2017 1-4955-0556-1 472 pages
An exploration of he theme of the noble dwelling in the particular socio-political and cultural context of Spanish Milan in the Borromean period (1560-1631), moving between poles of private commoditas and publica elegentia and drawing on the concepts of magnificence, propriety, comfort and splendour. The text is written in Italian and contains 40 black and white photos.
Corona, Gabriella
2012 0-7734-2905-0 260 pages
This essay owes its significance to a carefully constructed case study. It examines environmental policies in one particular city, Naples, Italy. But it shows events that could happen anywhere. Re-establishing the cycle of nature through recycling is an exceptionally difficult task. These authors show how the people of Naples attempted to establish environmentally sound policy initiatives by considering all possible solutions. After much deliberation they opted for more efficient methods of waste disposal.
The waste disposal issue in Naples has been at the center of media attention. It raises questions about whether Italy is threatened by a garbage crisis. Taking cues from other countries, Naples discovered that it could incorporate aggressive measures to reduce its waste. The events described in the book start in Naples but extend to Italy and Europe as well.
The two authors of this book are an environmental historian and a waste management expert of international standing. They engage in a straightforward and serene discussion, resulting in a one-of-a-kind work that leaves bias and ideology behind. The complexity of the issue is a result of the speed at which modern society has developed.
The book addresses the inability of the ruling classes to keep up with its frenetic growth rate. Northern and Southern Italy answered the problems of waste disposal in different ways. Hence the need for a debate on the real problems posed by the management of collective property and environmental resources. In conclusion the authors look at future prospects and suggest practical solutions.
Veronese, Cosetta
2008 0-7734-4972-8 428 pages
This work studies new aspects of the reception of Giacomo Leopardi within the context of Risorgimento culture and European nineteenth-century culture."
Tamburri, Anthony Julian
1998 0-7734-8270-9 160 pages
Reconsiders the entire corpus of Aldo Palazzeschi’s poetry by examining text produced over seventy years.
Privitera, Joseph F.
1998 0-7734-7727-6 124 pages
This study reconstructs the grammar of medieval Italian, as used by Dante in his Vita Nova. It is divided into three parts: I – The Grammar; II – A listing of the medieval lexicon in the Vita; and III – a facing page translation of the medieval Italian and English translation of the Vita. This is a work long-needed by Romance language, Italian scholars, and Danteists.
Moody, Margaret J.
2001 0-7734-7364-5 172 pages
Cairns, Christopher
1996 0-7734-8814-6 340 pages
Papers collected in this volume were given at the Arts Centre, Aberystwyth, in March, 1993, at a conference organised to coincide with the English premiere of the first English-language staging of Pietro Aretino's Talanta. Grants had been obtained to construct the Roman perspective set described with such enthusiasm by contemporaries such as Vasari and Aretino himself for the Venice staging of the play in 1542. According to current research, the set has been seen as one of the earliest attempts to reproduce a real place on a stage with topographical accuracy. This set had been reconstructed full-size on the Aberystwyth stage according to the suggested source, and the play had been translated, adapted with new music and modern choreography. Experts on Renaissance theatre practice and in particular on aspects of staging and set-design gathered for this conference. Contains many photographs and drawings.
Horne, Philip
1996 0-7734-8745-X 220 pages
Selene is quintessential court theater, written by a courtier, performed before courtiers, and depicting events at a fictitious court. This volume proposes that after 1546, when he entered the service of the Duke of Ferrara as Secretary, Giraldi the playwright had more practical and pressing concerns than the pursuit of literary fame. Charged with the organization of dramatic entertainment, his prime obligation was to devise lively theatrical spectacles for the enjoyment and edification of his peers at court, and he used the theater as an instrument of moral and religious persuasion and as a vehicle for dynastic propaganda. In 1546 Giampaolo Manfrone had been convicted of two assassination attempts against Duke Ercole; it was politically apt, therefore, that Giraldi's choice of plot for the cautionary drama Selene should have been the downfall of a power-hungry noble intent upon murdering his sovereign. The introduction discusses personal experiences and cultural influences at work in Selene. Chapter I examines Giraldi's exposé of court life written for the guidance of an aspiring young courtier and based on his knowledge of the Ferrarese court. Chapter II illustrates his close rapport, as dramatist, with the Duke. Chapter III sets the play in the context of the burgeoning contemporary literature concerning the excellence of women. The Notes to the play comment on its ideological content, resolve syntactical problems, and clarify the movements of the actors on stage. The Glossary lists all word-forms found in the text not represented in modern Italian.
Toscano, Filippo M.
2003 0-7734-3461-5 200 pages
This is a volume on the ancient and esoteric history of Sicily. The reader can see through the eyes of the author-turned-poet how Sicily evolved and how its children became mature adults. It tells of the poetic contribution that its people have given to the world.
Lombardi, Olga F. Melaragno
2005 0-7734-6133-7 244 pages
Jansen, Clifford J.
1992 0-7734-9469-3 200 pages
A study conducted in 1963-64 in a small village in the Sicilian interior focused on how people could improve their living standard through cooperation. In 1988-89, two persons who worked on the original study returned to the same village. Troina has 2,000 fewer inhabitants, no factory exists, and unemployment is still high. However, new houses have been built, cars are to be seen everywhere. Miseria (extreme poverty) is a thing of the past. Despite this, locals still consider the future with insecurity, and the younger generations see no alternative to emigration. The present study explores this contradiction.
Harwood-Gordon, Sharon
1991 0-7734-9650-5 172 pages
Dante interprets for the modern world the Aristotelian via media between Platonism and pre-Socratic sensism that teaches the interdependency of the body and soul in the recognition and interpretation of physical, intellectual, and moral truth. Philosophical and religious dogma, secular and sacred verities must be perceived through the physical senses before they can be comprehended by the rational mind. This is an analysis of Dante's presentation of the poet's experiences during the extraordinary journey that is narrated in the Divina Commedia.
Boggi, Flavio
2010 0-7734-3684-7 272 pages
This book provides an historical and critical framework for the paintings of Lippo di Dalmasio. The catalogue presents 37 items in total, including many new attributions and some previously unpublished works. This is accompanied by all known documents on the artist. This book contains eight color photographs and thirty-five black and white photographs.
Privitera, Joseph F.
2002 0-7734-7034-4 196 pages
This is a philological study of Sanfratellan, whose origin has baffled scholars for centuries. It demonstrates, through language analysis, that when the Normans invaded Sicily in the 11th century, they left in San Fratello a large contingent of Frenchmen from the south of France. These soldier-settlers spoke Provençal, which over the years melded with the town’s proto-Sicilian to form an amalgam which now sounds as French as it does Sicilian. It is understood only by Sanfratellans and not by any other Sicilians. This study is one of the most outstanding contributions to Italian dialectology of the 20th century; yet it reads like an exciting historical whodunit. It will be of interest to language scholars and historians as well as anyone interested in Italy and its past.
Makolkin, Anna
2007 0-7734-5361-X 292 pages
This new study, drawing its inspiration from A History of Odessa, the Last Italian Black Sea Colony (The Edwin Mellen Press, 2004) and based on new archival findings, focuses solely on the eternal cultural legacy of the Italian founders of this unique port, shaped by nearly a century of Italian presence. The work reveals how Odessa Italians constructed a cultural bridge between Eastern and Western Europe via Odessa Italian Opera. The work demonstrates how the exploration of the New Russia by the Odessa Italians helped the Russian Empire to make a leap into modernity, giving them a touch of the Renaissance that the country had skipped, and bringing the Enlightenment that the Empire had seen briefly. This new contribution to European cultural history will be of interest to scholars of European, Italian, Russian and Ukrainian history, art historians and musicologists, as well as students of migration and multiculturalism. This book contains 10 color photographs and 20 black and white photographs.
Chishty-Mujahid, Nadya Q.
2024 1-4955-1257-6 112 pages
"The Sola Busca tarocchi is a set of fifteenth-century copperplate engravings and is considered to be the first complete 78 card tarot deck in the world. But I had long suspected that the Sola Busca tarocchi was not intended to be used for divination purposes, or even as a game. This certainly begged the question of what exactly was its purpose...." -Nadya Q. Chishty-Mujahid ("Preface")
Griffiths, C. E. J.
2000 0-7734-7726-8 328 pages
This monograph is the first major study of Giovacchino Forzano’s theatrical works in either English or Italian. Forzano’s success as a writer and practitioner working in the popular theater in Italy has usually been ascribed to his well-known artistic relationship with Mussolini, but this study goes beyond that. By a detailed analysis of his major plays and contemporary reactions to them, the study shows how Forzano was able successfully to reflect the interests and concerns of contemporary, largely middle-class audiences. It show how he was able to exploit his skills as a dramatist to articulate and exploit contemporary emotions, the study includes the annotated text of a play, Racconti d’autunno, d’inverno e primavera (1937), here published for the first time. It is an interesting example of propagandistic drama whose aim was to celebrate the triumphs of the fascist regime.
Cairns, Christopher
1991 0-7734-9450-2 364 pages
This volume collects three Italian Renaissance comedies not readily available to the English-speaking reader and director: Ariosto's Lena (never before translated into English); Ruzante's Posh Talk (also never translated from the Paduan and Bergamask dialects); and Aretino's Talanta. Of contrasting styles, they share some characteristics, which mirror the advance of all Italian literature from humanism to the Counter-reformation, from Bembo to Sperone Speroni and from rudimentary or symbolic staging to a comparatively sophisticated realism in the treatment of stage space. With illustrations.
Restifo, Giuseppe
2001 0-7734-7678-4 204 pages
In the making of a tourist resort, the strangers and their presence are only half the matter; the other half is the local people and their reactions. This study examines what the Taorminese did to develop their resources, the image and myth of Taormina, reconstructing its history from the local people’s point of view. The social organization of the community, its urban statute and sentiment, its first contact with outsiders, its history and monuments, its popular culture and sense of identiy are carefully investigated.
Selvaggio, Maria Antonietta
2014 0-7734-4247-2 148 pages
This newly discovered educational experiment documents the extraordinary work of Giulia Civita Franceschi in her mission to transform the street urchins of Naples (1913-1928) into living models of dignified conscientious citizens by redeeming them from juvenile delinquency, crime and prison through maritime training on the ship “Caracciolo”.
Horatia, Gillian
1997 0-7734-8659-3 272 pages
These are the first English translations of two of the most significant tragedies of the Italian Renaissance. Trissino's Sophonisba, written in 1515, is considered the first "regular" tragedy written in Italian and the one which paved the way for the other Italian and European tragedies of the century. Aretino's Horatia, published in Venice in 1546, has been hailed not only as one of the most important works of Aretino's literary production, but also as one of the best tragic compositions of sixteenth-century Europe.
Jensen, Brian Møller
2002 0-7734-7073-5 472 pages
"Brian Moller Jensen proposes a wide-ranging reading and interpretation of the liturgy in Piacenza through a rigorous itinerary which recovers the salient points of the codicological production and checks the most significant products which give evidence to the creative qualities of the local liturgies. Its concern is to search for the animus who has inspired the liturgical poetry within the knowledge to approach an exceptional work of mystagogy, of a fascinating catechism performed to introduce and involve the liturgical community in an intense expression of experienced faith. The analysis is all-embracing and investigates in particular, 'the literary aspect, liturgical function and theological contents of these compositions in order to identify the compiler's possible reasons for composing this selection of items.'" -Giacomo B. Baroffio (from The Commendatory Preface)
Troncelliti, Latifah
2004 0-7734-6501-4 270 pages
By challenging the traditional assumption that the historian’s expertise may allow for a superior understanding of the artwork, this study has wide-ranging implications that will make it relevant to many fields. The book examines the art treatises of Cennino Cennini and Leon Battista Alberti. In the official interpretation Alberti’s On Painting is the most important events for the development of Renaissance artistic style. Instead Cennini is repeatedly considered a representative of a medieval school of painting, the earliest artist-writer on the borderline with the medieval period; thus, the prevailing historical picture is one of progressive evolution, from the elementary conception of Cennini, mostly preoccupied with technical problems, to Alberti’s superior theoretical understanding of the painting process. The official interpretation of Cennini and Alberti exemplifies in essence the confusion between art practice and art theory which has been amplified and perpetuated from the Renaissance to the present. In fact, while the importance of Alberti’s writing for Renaissance art is overblown, the official interpretation of Cennini’s work contains serious flaws. It represents a clear case in which the excess of theoretical projection has obscured factors of the utmost importance for the understanding of Renaissance art practice. This work demonstrates that Cennini’s historical position has been misinterpreted and that his treatise, the Libro dell’arte, belongs to the same period in which Alberti wrote his On Painting. It also suggests that the progressive expansion of theoretical speculation has hindered our ability to perceive Renaissance art in a historically-informed, period-appropriate way.
Shiff, Jonathan
1994 0-7734-9424-3 200 pages
This study examines for the first time the thirty-eight anonymous plays performed at the state banquets that Doge Marino Grimani was required by law to offer four times a year for the leading senators and magistrates of the Venetian Republic. Explores the patronage, audience, site, performers, and music of the first performances, and places their ideological content in the context of the Venice of 1600. It finds that their most unusual feature is a ludic use of rhetoric which betrays the influence of the Sienese veglia games. These games, which called for wit, verbal skill, and variety of response, had recently penetrated Venice by means of Girolamo Bargagli's Dialogo de' Giuochi. They inspired the creation of a new theatrical form. A stylistic analysis of the Grimani plays suggests that all but one are the work of a single author, most likely Enea Piccolomini, a figure hitherto unknown to scholarship, and to whom one of the plays has traditionally been attributed.
Kroha, Lucienne
1992 0-7734-9530-4 180 pages
Essays in this collection examine the processes underlying the formation of literary identity in four of the most important and widely-read Italian women novelists of the late 19th century, all of whom were in varying degrees involved in the ongoing debate on the changing role of women in Italian society at that time : Neera, Matilde Serao, the Marchesa Colombi, and Sibilla Aleramo. This study concentrates on the novelty and complexity of their enterprise as women writing in the specific social, cultural and literary context of late 19th-century Italy, and continues the project of reconstructing and mapping the place of women writers in the English and Continental traditions. A concluding chapter examines Luigi Pirandello's Suo Marita (1911), a relatively little-known novel portraying a woman writer in turn-of-the-century Italy from the perspective of a male writer.
Press, Lynne
1999 0-7734-7929-5 300 pages
This is the first comprehensive study in English on the role of female characters and feminine imagery in Leopardi. It offers a multi-faceted approach, places his views on women in context, examines thematic concerns, formal practices and ideological positioning of the time, and focuses on the impact of contemporary women writers such as Madame de Stael and Madame de Lambert on Leopardi’s philosophical writings and literary theory. It brings together biographical, philosophical and literary aspects of Leopardi’s works in relation to the notion, influence and depiction of women and feminine images. With illustrations “All the basic questions of Leopardian criticism are clearly and persuasively reviewed. Press and Williams have produced a perceptive work on Leopardi’s poetry tout court, its genesis in the culture of the Enlightenment, and its literary sources with particular reference to Madame de Stael. . . . the book contains the fullest study of this subject in recent years and will be compulsory reading for anyone interested in it. Most importantly, the book does not look at Leopardi from a narrow feminist or post-feminist standpoint. . . . There is . . . much close textual analysis of the major cants to endear Williams and Press to generations of students.” – Italian Studies “. . . very thoroughly researched and clearly and interestingly written. . . . an original contribution to scholarship. . . .the book will attract the attention of Leopardi scholars internationally. While the authors eschew the more strident forms of feminism fashionable in academic circles, they sensitively explore the role of women in Leopardi’s life and works and the pervasive presence of female figures in his poetry. Particularly pleasing is the way in which Williams and Press situate Leopardi in both an Italian and a European tradition.” – Brian Moloney
Dashwood, Julie
1991 0-7734-9717-X 201 pages
These essays cover much of the span of Italian drama, from its origins, via the Renaissance and the 19th century, to Pirandello and versions for radio and theatre of Svevo's best-known novel. Contributors raise interesting questions concerning the nature of drama and how and where it can be identified.