De Casibus Virorum Illustrium
Encyclopedia
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 On Famous Women.
. 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. The work was so successful it spawned what has been referred to as the De Casibus tradition, influencing many other famous authors such as Geoffrey Chaucer
, John Lydgate
, and Laurent de Premierfait
. De Casibus also inspired character figures in works like The Canterbury Tales
, The Monk's Tale,, the Fall of Princes (c. 1438), Des Cas de nobles hommes et femmes (c. 1409), 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).
Tuscan
/Italian
tales of Decameron. 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.
and on the inevitable catastrophes awaiting those with great fortune. 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
.
works about famous people
. It showed with the lives of these people that it was not only biographies but snapshots of their moral virtues. Boccaccio relates biographies of famous people that 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
.
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
prose
Prose
Prose is the most typical form of written language, applying ordinary grammatical structure and natural flow of speech rather than rhythmic structure...
composed by the Florentine
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
poet Giovanni Boccaccio
Giovanni Boccaccio
Giovanni Boccaccio was an Italian author and poet, a friend, student, and correspondent of Petrarch, an important Renaissance humanist and the author of a number of notable works including the Decameron, On Famous Women, and his poetry in the Italian vernacular...
of Certaldo
Certaldo
Certaldo is a town and comune of Tuscany, Italy, in the province of Florence, located in the middle of Valdelsa. It is about 35 kilometers southwest of the Florence Duomo....
in the form of moral stories of the falls of famous people, similar to his work of 106 biographies On Famous Women.
Overview
De Casibus is an encyclopedia of historical biography and a part of the classical tradition of historiographyHistoriography
Historiography refers either to the study of the history and methodology of history as a discipline, or to a body of historical work on a specialized topic...
. 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. The work was so successful it spawned what has been referred to as the De Casibus tradition, influencing many other famous authors such as Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer , known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey...
, John Lydgate
John Lydgate
John Lydgate of Bury was a monk and poet, born in Lidgate, Suffolk, England.Lydgate is at once a greater and a lesser poet than John Gower. He is a greater poet because of his greater range and force; he has a much more powerful machine at his command. The sheer bulk of Lydgate's poetic output is...
, and Laurent de Premierfait
Laurent de Premierfait
Laurent de Premierfait was a Latin poet, a humanist and in the first rank of French language translators of the fifteenth century, during the time of the mad king Charles VI of France...
. De Casibus also inspired character figures in works like The Canterbury Tales
The Canterbury Tales
The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer at the end of the 14th century. The tales are told as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together on a journey from Southwark to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at...
, The Monk's Tale,, the Fall of Princes (c. 1438), Des Cas de nobles hommes et femmes (c. 1409), and Caida de principles (a fifteenth century Spanish collection), and A Mirror for Magistrates (a very popular sixteenth-century continuation written by William Baldwin
William Baldwin (author)
-Life:From the West Country, England, Baldwin studied logic and philosophy at Oxford. On leaving Oxford, he became a corrector of the press to the printer Edward Whitchurch. During the reigns of Edward VI and Queen Mary, it appears that Baldwin was employed in preparing theatrical exhibitions for...
and others).
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 vernacularVernacular
A vernacular is the native language or native dialect of a specific population, as opposed to a language of wider communication that is not native to the population, such as a national language or lingua franca.- Etymology :The term is not a recent one...
Tuscan
Tuscan dialect
The Tuscan language , or the Tuscan dialect is an Italo-Dalmatian language spoken in Tuscany, Italy.Standard Italian is based on Tuscan, specifically on its Florentine variety...
/Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
tales of Decameron. 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 favored by luckLuck
Luck or fortuity is good fortune which occurs beyond one's control, without regard to one's will, intention, or desired result. There are at least two senses people usually mean when they use the term, the prescriptive sense and the descriptive sense...
and on the inevitable catastrophes awaiting those with great fortune. 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
Senecan tragedy
Senecan tragedy is a body of ten 1st century dramas, of which eight were written by the Roman Stoic philosopher and politician L. Annaeus Seneca . Rediscovered by Italian humanists in the mid-16th century, they became the models for the revival of tragedy on the Renaissance stage...
.
Content
De casibus stems from the tradition of exemplary literatureExemplum
An exemplum is a moral anecdote, brief or extended, real or fictitious, used to illustrate a point.-Exemplary literature:...
works about famous people
De viris illustribus
De viris illustribus, meaning "On Illustrious / Famous Men", represents a trope of ancient Roman exemplary literature that was revived during the Italian Renaissance and inspired the assembly or commissioning of series of portraits of outstanding men— and sometimes, by the sixteenth century, of...
. It showed with the lives of these people that it was not only biographies but snapshots of their moral virtues. Boccaccio relates biographies of famous people that 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
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
created characters based on this phenomenon as did Christopher Marlowe
Christopher Marlowe
Christopher Marlowe was an English dramatist, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. As the foremost Elizabethan tragedian, next to William Shakespeare, he is known for his blank verse, his overreaching protagonists, and his mysterious death.A warrant was issued for Marlowe's arrest on 18 May...
.
Book One
- Adam and EveAdam and EveAdam and Eve were, according to the Genesis creation narratives, the first human couple to inhabit Earth, created by YHWH, the God of the ancient Hebrews...
- NembrothNimrodNimrod means "Hunter"; was a Biblical Mesopotamian king mentioned in the Table of Nations; an eponym for the city of Nimrud.Nimrod can also refer to any of the following:*Nimród Antal, a director...
- SaturnSaturn (mythology)In ancient Roman religion and myth, Saturn was a major god presiding over agriculture and the harvest time. His reign was depicted as a Golden Age of abundance and peace by many Roman authors. In medieval times he was known as the Roman god of agriculture, justice and strength. He held a sickle in...
- Cadmus, King of ThebesCadmusCadmus or Kadmos , in Greek mythology was a Phoenician prince, the son of king Agenor and queen Telephassa of Tyre and the brother of Phoenix, Cilix and Europa. He was originally sent by his royal parents to seek out and escort his sister Europa back to Tyre after she was abducted from the shores...
- Jocasta, Queen of ThebesJocastaIn Greek mythology, Jocasta, also known as Jocaste , Epikastê, or Iokastê was a daughter of Menoeceus and Queen consort of Thebes, Greece. She was the wife of Laius. Wife and mother of Oedipus by Laius, and both mother and grandmother of Antigone, Eteocles, Polynices and Ismene by Oedipus...
- ThyestesThyestesIn Greek mythology, Thyestes was the son of Pelops and Hippodamia, King of Olympia, and father of Pelopia and Aegisthus. Thyestes and his twin brother, Atreus, were exiled by their father for having murdered their half-brother, Chrysippus, in their desire for the throne of Olympia...
and AtreusAtreusIn Greek mythology, Atreus was a king of Mycenae, the son of Pelops and Hippodamia, and the father of Agamemnon and Menelaus. Collectively, his descendants are known as Atreidai or Atreidae.... - Theseus, King of AthensTheseusFor other uses, see Theseus Theseus was the mythical founder-king of Athens, son of Aethra, and fathered by Aegeus and Poseidon, both of whom Aethra had slept with in one night. Theseus was a founder-hero, like Perseus, Cadmus, or Heracles, all of whom battled and overcame foes that were...
- Priam, King of TroyPriamPriam was the king of Troy during the Trojan War and youngest son of Laomedon. Modern scholars derive his name from the Luwian compound Priimuua, which means "exceptionally courageous".- Marriage and issue :...
, and his wife HecubaHecubaHecuba was a queen in Greek mythology, the wife of King Priam of Troy during the Trojan War, with whom she had 19 children. These children included several major characters of Homer's Iliad such as the warriors Hector and Paris, and the prophetess Cassandra... - Agamemnon, King of MycenaAgamemnonIn Greek mythology, Agamemnon was the son of King Atreus and Queen Aerope of Mycenae, the brother of Menelaus, the husband of Clytemnestra, and the father of Electra and Orestes. Mythical legends make him the king of Mycenae or Argos, thought to be different names for the same area...
- SamsonSamsonSamson, Shimshon ; Shamshoun or Sampson is the third to last of the Judges of the ancient Israelites mentioned in the Tanakh ....
Book Two
- Saul, King of IsraelSaul-People:Saul is a given/first name in English, the Anglicized form of the Hebrew name Shaul from the Hebrew Bible:* Saul , including people with this given namein the Bible:* Saul , a king of Edom...
- Rehoboam, King of the HebrewsRehoboamRehoboam was initially king of the United Monarchy of Israel but after the ten northern tribes of Israel rebelled in 932/931 BC to form the independent Kingdom of Israel he was king of the Kingdom of Judah, or southern kingdom. He was a son of Solomon and a grandson of David...
- Athaliah, King of JerusalemAthaliahAthaliah was the queen of Judah during the reign of King Jehoram, and later became sole ruler of Judah for six years. William F. Albright has dated her reign to 842–837 BC, while Edwin R. Thiele's dates, as taken from the third edition of his magnum opus, were 842/841 to 836/835 BC...
- The HebrewsHebrewsHebrews is an ethnonym used in the Hebrew Bible...
- Dido, Queen of Carthage
- Sardanapalus, King of AssyriaSardanapalusSardanapalus was, according to the Greek writer Ctesias of Cnidus, the last king of Assyria. Ctesias' Persica is lost, but we know of its contents by later compilations and from the work of Diodorus...
- Zedekiah, King of JerusalemZedekiahZedekiah or Tzidkiyahu was the last king of Judah before the destruction of the kingdom by Babylon. He was installed as king of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar II, king of Babylon, after a siege of Jerusalem to succeed his nephew, Jeconiah, who was overthrown as king after a reign of only three months and...
- Astyages, King of MediaAstyagesAstyages Astyages Astyages (spelled by Herodotus as Ἀστυάγης - Astyages; by Ctesias as Astyigas; by Diodorus as Aspadas; Akkadian: Ištumegu, was the last king of the Median Empire, r...
- Croesus, King of the LydiansCroesusCroesus was the king of Lydia from 560 to 547 BC until his defeat by the Persians. The fall of Croesus made a profound impact on the Hellenes, providing a fixed point in their calendar. "By the fifth century at least," J.A.S...
Book Three
- Tarquinius the GreatLucius Tarquinius SuperbusLucius Tarquinius Superbus was the legendary seventh and final King of Rome, reigning from 535 BC until the popular uprising in 509 BC that led to the establishment of the Roman Republic. He is more commonly known by his cognomen Tarquinius Superbus and was a member of the so-called Etruscan...
, King of the Romans - Xerxes I, King of the Persians
- Appius Claudius, the decemvirAppius Claudius CrassusAppius Claudius Crassus was a decemvir of the Roman Republic ca 451 BC.His father was Appius Claudius Sabinus, Consul in 471 BCE...
- AlcibiadesAlcibiadesAlcibiades, son of Clinias, from the deme of Scambonidae , was a prominent Athenian statesman, orator, and general. He was the last famous member of his mother's aristocratic family, the Alcmaeonidae, which fell from prominence after the Peloponnesian War...
the Athenian - Hannibal of Carthage
- Artaxerxes, King of the Persians
Book Four
- Marcus Manlius CapitolinusMarcus ManliusMarcus Manlius Capitolinus was consul of the Roman Republic in 392 BC. He was the brother of Aulus Manlius Capitolinus. The Manlii were a patrician gens....
- Dionysius of SyracuseDionysius I of SyracuseDionysius I or Dionysius the Elder was a Greek tyrant of Syracuse, in what is now Sicily, southern Italy. He conquered several cities in Sicily and southern Italy, opposed Carthage's influence in Sicily and made Syracuse the most powerful of the Western Greek colonies...
- PolycratesPolycratesPolycrates , son of Aeaces, was the tyrant of Samos from c. 538 BC to 522 BC.He took power during a festival of Hera with his brothers Pantagnotus and Syloson, but soon had Pantagnotus killed and exiled Syloson to take full control for himself. He then allied with Amasis II, pharaoh of Egypt, as...
, tyrant of Samo - CallisthenesCallisthenesCallisthenes of Olynthus was a Greek historian. He was the son of Hero and Proxenus of Atarneus, which made him the great nephew of Aristotle by his sister Arimneste. They first met when Aristotle tutored Alexander the Great...
the Philosopher - Alexander of Egypt
- DariusDarius I of PersiaDarius I , also known as Darius the Great, was the third king of kings of the Achaemenid Empire...
, King of the Persians - EumenesEumenesEumenes of Cardia was a Thracian general and scholar. He participated in the wars of the Diadochi as a supporter of the Macedonian Argead royal house.-Career:...
, ruler of Cappadocia and Paphlagonia - OlympiadeOlympiasOlympias was a Greek princess of Epirus, daughter of king Neoptolemus I of Epirus, the fourth wife of the king of Macedonia, Philip II, and mother of Alexander the Great...
, Queen of Macedonia - AgathoclesAgathoclesAgathocles , , was tyrant of Syracuse and king of Sicily .-Biography:...
, King of Sicily - ArsinoeArsinoe I of EgyptArsinoe I was a Greek Princess who was of Macedonian and Thessalian descent. She was the second daughter and youngest child born to the diadochus who was King of Thrace, Asia Minor and Macedonia Lysimachus from his first wife the Queen consort, Nicaea of Macedon...
, Queen of Macedonia - PyrrusPyrrhus of EpirusPyrrhus or Pyrrhos was a Greek general and statesman of the Hellenistic era. He was king of the Greek tribe of Molossians, of the royal Aeacid house , and later he became king of Epirus and Macedon . He was one of the strongest opponents of early Rome...
, King of Egypt - ArsinoeArsinoe II of EgyptFor other uses see, ArsinoeArsinoë II was a Ptolemaic Greek Princess of Ancient Egypt and through marriage was of Queen Thrace, Asia Minor and Macedonia as wife of King Lysimachus and later co-ruler of Egypt with her brother-husband Ptolemy II Philadelphus For other uses see, ArsinoeArsinoë II...
, Queen of Crete
Book Five
- SeleucusSeleucus I NicatorSeleucus I was a Macedonian officer of Alexander the Great and one of the Diadochi. In the Wars of the Diadochi that took place after Alexander's death, Seleucus established the Seleucid dynasty and the Seleucid Empire...
and AnthiocusAntigonus I MonophthalmusAntigonus I Monophthalmus , son of Philip from Elimeia, was a Macedonian nobleman, general, and satrap under Alexander the Great. During his early life he served under Philip II, and he was a major figure in the Wars of the Diadochi after Alexander's death, declaring himself king in 306 BC and...
, Kings of Asia and Syria - Marcus Atilius RegulusMarcus Atilius RegulusMarcus Atilius Regulus , a general and consul in the ninth year of the First Punic War...
- SyphaxSyphaxSyphax was a king of the ancient Algerian tribe Masaesyli of western Numidia during the last quarter of the 3rd century BC. His story is told in Livy's Ab Urbe Condita .-Biography:...
, King of Numidia - Anthiocus the GreaterAntiochus I SoterAntiochus I Soter , was a king of the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire. He reigned from 281 BC - 261 BC....
, King of Asia and Syria - Hannibal, leader of Carthage
- PrusiaNicomedes I of BithyniaNicomedes I , second king of Bithynia, was the eldest son of Zipoetes I, whom he succeeded on the throne in 278 BC.-Overview:He commenced his reign by putting to death two of his brothers but the third, subsequently called Zipoetes II, raised an insurrection against him and succeeded in maintaining...
, King of Bithynia - PerseusPerseus of MacedonPerseus was the last king of the Antigonid dynasty, who ruled the successor state in Macedon created upon the death of Alexander the Great...
, King of Macedonia - Pseudo-Philip of MacedoniaPhilip V of MacedonPhilip V was King of Macedon from 221 BC to 179 BC. Philip's reign was principally marked by an unsuccessful struggle with the emerging power of Rome. Philip was attractive and charismatic as a young man...
- Alexander BalasAlexander BalasAlexander Balas , ruler of the Greek Seleucid kingdom 150-146 BC, was a native of Smyrna of humble origin, but gave himself out to be the son of Antiochus IV Epiphanes and Laodice IV and heir to the Seleucid throne...
, King of Syria - DemetriusDemetrius I of MacedonDemetrius I , called Poliorcetes , son of Antigonus I Monophthalmus and Stratonice, was a king of Macedon...
, King of Syria - Alxander ZebennaAlexander II ZabinasAlexander II Zabinas , ruler of the Greek Seleucid kingdom, was a counter-king who emerged in the chaos following the Seleucidian loss of Mesopotamia to the Parthians. Zabinas was a false Seleucid who claimed to be an adoptive son of Antiochus VII Sidetes, but in fact seems to have been the son of...
, King of Syria - JugurthaJugurthaJugurtha or Jugurthen was a King of Numidia, , born in Cirta .-Background:Until the reign of Jugurtha's grandfather Masinissa, the people of Numidia were semi-nomadic and indistinguishable from the other Libyans in North Africa...
, King of the Numidians
Book Six
- Gaius Marius of ArpinumGaius MariusGaius Marius was a Roman general and statesman. He was elected consul an unprecedented seven times during his career. He was also noted for his dramatic reforms of Roman armies, authorizing recruitment of landless citizens, eliminating the manipular military formations, and reorganizing the...
- Cleopatra
- Mithridates, King of PontusMithridates VI of PontusMithridates VI or Mithradates VI Mithradates , from Old Persian Mithradatha, "gift of Mithra"; 134 BC – 63 BC, also known as Mithradates the Great and Eupator Dionysius, was king of Pontus and Armenia Minor in northern Anatolia from about 120 BC to 63 BC...
- Orodes, King of ParthiaOrodes II of ParthiaOrodes II of Parthia ruled the Parthian Empire from 57 to 38 BC. Orodes was a son of Phraates III, whom he murdered in 57 BC, assisted by his brother Mithridates...
- Gnaeus Pompeius MagnusPompeyGnaeus Pompeius Magnus, also known as Pompey or Pompey the Great , was a military and political leader of the late Roman Republic...
- Marcus Tullius CiceroCiceroMarcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...
- Marcus Antonius, the Triumvirate and Cleopatra
Book Seven
- Herod, King of the JewsHerod the GreatHerod , also known as Herod the Great , was a Roman client king of Judea. His epithet of "the Great" is widely disputed as he is described as "a madman who murdered his own family and a great many rabbis." He is also known for his colossal building projects in Jerusalem and elsewhere, including his...
- Tiberius CaesarTiberiusTiberius , was Roman Emperor from 14 AD to 37 AD. Tiberius was by birth a Claudian, son of Tiberius Claudius Nero and Livia Drusilla. His mother divorced Nero and married Augustus in 39 BC, making him a step-son of Octavian...
, Gauis CaligulaCaligulaCaligula , also known as Gaius, was Roman Emperor from 37 AD to 41 AD. Caligula was a member of the house of rulers conventionally known as the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Caligula's father Germanicus, the nephew and adopted son of Emperor Tiberius, was a very successful general and one of Rome's most...
and Valeria MessalinaMessalinaValeria Messalina, sometimes spelled Messallina, was a Roman empress as the third wife of the Emperor Claudius. She was also a paternal cousin of the Emperor Nero, second cousin of the Emperor Caligula, and great-grandniece of the Emperor Augustus... - Nero Claudius CaesarNeroNero , was Roman Emperor from 54 to 68, and the last in the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Nero was adopted by his great-uncle Claudius to become his heir and successor, and succeeded to the throne in 54 following Claudius' death....
- Aulis Vitellius CaesarVitelliusVitellius , was Roman Emperor for eight months, from 16 April to 22 December 69. Vitellius was acclaimed Emperor following the quick succession of the previous emperors Galba and Otho, in a year of civil war known as the Year of the Four Emperors...
Book Eight
- Francesco PetrarchPetrarchFrancesco Petrarca , known in English as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar, poet and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch is often called the "Father of Humanism"...
, the most illustrious author - Valerian AugustusValerian (emperor)Valerian , also known as Valerian the Elder, was Roman Emperor from 253 to 260. He was taken captive by Persian king Shapur I after the Battle of Edessa, becoming the only Roman Emperor who was captured as a prisoner of war, resulting in wide-ranging instability across the Empire.-Origins and rise...
, the Roman Emperor - Zenobia, Queen of the Palmyrene EmpireZenobiaZenobia was a 3rd-century Queen of the Palmyrene Empire in Roman Syria. She led a famous revolt against the Roman Empire. The second wife of King Septimius Odaenathus, Zenobia became queen of the Palmyrene Empire following Odaenathus' death in 267...
- DiocletianDiocletianDiocletian |latinized]] upon his accession to Diocletian . c. 22 December 244 – 3 December 311), was a Roman Emperor from 284 to 305....
, the Roman Emperor - Maximian HerculesMaximianMaximian was Roman Emperor from 286 to 305. He was Caesar from 285 to 286, then Augustus from 286 to 305. He shared the latter title with his co-emperor and superior, Diocletian, whose political brain complemented Maximian's military brawn. Maximian established his residence at Trier but spent...
, the Western Roman Emperor - Galerius MaximianusGaleriusGalerius , was Roman Emperor from 305 to 311. During his reign he campaigned, aided by Diocletian, against the Sassanid Empire, sacking their capital Ctesiphon in 299. He also campaigned across the Danube against the Carpi, defeating them in 297 and 300...
- Julian the ApostateJulian the ApostateJulian "the Apostate" , commonly known as Julian, or also Julian the Philosopher, was Roman Emperor from 361 to 363 and a noted philosopher and Greek writer....
- Radagaisus, King of the GothsRadagaisusRadagaisus was a Gothic king who led an invasion of Roman Italy in late 405 and the first half of 406. A commited Pagan, Radagaisus evidentily planned to sacrifice the Roman Senators to the gods and burn Rome to the ground. Radagaisus was executed after being defeated by the half-Vandal general...
- King ArthurKing ArthurKing Arthur is a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and...
of the Bretons - RosamundRosamund (Gepid)Rosamund or Rosamunde was the daughter of Cunimund, king of the Gepids, and wife of Alboin, king of the Lombards.Rosamund was born into a kingdom in crisis, as the Gepid people had been fighting a losing battle against the Lombards since 546, firstly within the context of a Lombardic-Byzantine...
, Queen of the Lombards
See also
- The Monk's TaleThe Monk's Prologue and TaleThe Monk's Tale is one of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.The Monk's tale to the other pilgrims is a collection of seventeen short stories, exempla, on the theme of tragedy...
- On Famous Women
- The Legend of Good WomenThe Legend of Good WomenThe Legend of Good Women is a poem in the form of a dream vision by Geoffrey Chaucer.The poem is the third longest of Chaucer’s works, after The Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde and is possibly the first significant work in English to use the iambic pentameter or decasyllabic couplets...
- The Book of the City of LadiesThe Book of the City of Ladiesthumb|400px|right|Picture from The Book of the City of LadiesThe Book of the City of Ladies , or Le Livre de la Cité des Dames, is perhaps Christine de Pizan's most famous literary work, and it is her second work of lengthy prose. Pizan uses the vernacular French language to compose the book, but...
Primary sources
- Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes translated from Boccaccio's De Casibus Virorum Illustribus by Laurent de Premierfait (1400)
- Tutte le Opere de Giovanni Boccaccio ed., Vittore Branca (Verona: Arnoldo Mondadori, 1964)
- The Fates of Illustrious Men, trans. Louis Brewer Hall (New York, Frederick Ungar Publishing, 1965)
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)
Related references
- Christine de PizanChristine de PizanChristine de Pizan was a Venetian-born late medieval author who challenged misogyny and stereotypes prevalent in the male-dominated medieval culture. As a poet, she was well known and highly regarded in her own day; she completed 41 works during her 30 year career , and can be regarded as...
, The Book of the City of LadiesThe Book of the City of Ladiesthumb|400px|right|Picture from The Book of the City of LadiesThe Book of the City of Ladies , or Le Livre de la Cité des Dames, is perhaps Christine de Pizan's most famous literary work, and it is her second work of lengthy prose. Pizan uses the vernacular French language to compose the book, but...
(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)