Giovanni Battista Giraldi (November, 1504 - December 30, 1573) was an
ItalianItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
novelist and
poetA poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
. He appended the nickname
Cinthio to his name and is commonly referred to by that name (which is also rendered as
Cynthius,
Cintio or, in Italian,
Cinzio).
Born at
FerraraFerrara is a city in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital city of the Province of Ferrara.It is situated 50 km north-northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream of the Po River, located 5 km north. The town has broad streets and numerous palaces...
, he was educated at the university there, and in 1525 became its professor of
natural philosophyNatural philosophy or the philosophy of nature , is a term applied to the study of nature and the physical universe that was dominant before the development of modern science...
. Twelve years afterwards, he succeeded
Celio CalcagniniCelio Calcagnini was an Italian humanist and scientist from Ferrara. His learning as displayed in his collected works is very broad....
in the chair of
belles-lettresBelles-lettres or belles lettres is a term that is used to describe a category of writing. A writer of belles-lettres is a belletrist. However, the boundaries of that category vary in different usages....
.
Between 1542 and 1560 he was a private secretary, first to Ercole II and afterwards to Alfonso II d'Este; but having, in connection with a literary quarrel, lost the favour of his patron, he moved to
MondoviMondovì is a town and comune of Piedmont, northern Italy, located c. 80 km from Turin.The town, located on the Monte Regale hill, is divided into several rioni : Piazza , Breo, Pian della Valle, Carassone, Borgato and Rinchiuso, lower, next to the Ellero stream, developed from the 18th...
, where he remained as a teacher of literature until 1568.
Giovanni Battista Giraldi (November, 1504 - December 30, 1573) was an
ItalianItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
novelist and
poetA poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
. He appended the nickname
Cinthio to his name and is commonly referred to by that name (which is also rendered as
Cynthius,
Cintio or, in Italian,
Cinzio).
Born at
FerraraFerrara is a city in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital city of the Province of Ferrara.It is situated 50 km north-northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream of the Po River, located 5 km north. The town has broad streets and numerous palaces...
, he was educated at the university there, and in 1525 became its professor of
natural philosophyNatural philosophy or the philosophy of nature , is a term applied to the study of nature and the physical universe that was dominant before the development of modern science...
. Twelve years afterwards, he succeeded
Celio CalcagniniCelio Calcagnini was an Italian humanist and scientist from Ferrara. His learning as displayed in his collected works is very broad....
in the chair of
belles-lettresBelles-lettres or belles lettres is a term that is used to describe a category of writing. A writer of belles-lettres is a belletrist. However, the boundaries of that category vary in different usages....
.
Between 1542 and 1560 he was a private secretary, first to Ercole II and afterwards to Alfonso II d'Este; but having, in connection with a literary quarrel, lost the favour of his patron, he moved to
MondoviMondovì is a town and comune of Piedmont, northern Italy, located c. 80 km from Turin.The town, located on the Monte Regale hill, is divided into several rioni : Piazza , Breo, Pian della Valle, Carassone, Borgato and Rinchiuso, lower, next to the Ellero stream, developed from the 18th...
, where he remained as a teacher of literature until 1568. Subsequently, on the invitation of the senate of
MilanMilan in Italy, is the capital of the region of Lombardia and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while the urban area is the fifth largest in the E.U. with an estimated population of 4.3 million...
, he occupied the chair of
rhetoricRhetoric is one of the arts of using language as a means to persuade. Along with grammar and logic or dialectic, rhetoric is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. From ancient Greece to the late 19th Century, it was a central part of Western education, filling the need to train public...
at
PaviaPavia , the ancient Ticinum, is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy, northern Italy, 35 km south of Milan on the lower Ticino river near its confluence with the Po. It has a population of c. 71,000...
until 1573, when, in search of health, he returned to Ferrara, where he later died.
Besides an
epicAn epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...
entitled
Ercole (1557), in twenty-six
cantoThe canto is a principal form of division in a long poem, especially the epic. The word comes from Italian, from the Latin canto, meaning "I sing," and has a corollary in the Sanskrit , or "chapter." Famous examples of epic poetry which employ the canto division are Valmiki's The Ramayana ,...
s, Cinthio wrote nine
tragediesTragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that, paradoxically, offers its audience pleasure...
, the best known of which,
OrbeccheOrbecche is a tragedy written by Giovanni Battista Giraldi in 1541. The play was responsible for a sixteenth-century theoretical debate on theater, especially with regards to decorum.-Plot:...
, was produced in 1541. The bloodthirsty nature of the play, and its style, are, in the opinion of many of its critics, almost redeemed by occasional bursts of genuine and impassioned poetry.
His literary work was ideologically influenced by the Catholic Reformation. In the theatrical works there appears a vein of experimentation that anticipates some typical elements of taste of the modern European theatre, for example the Elizabethan theatre and
baroqueBaroque is an artistic style prevalent from the late 16th century to the early 18th century. The popularity and success of the Baroque style was encouraged by the Roman Catholic Church, which had decided at the time of the Council of Trent that the arts should communicate religious themes in...
styles, where psychological violence and horror are used in function and dramatic action structured in real time.
Among the prose works of Cinthio is the
Hecatommithi or
Ecatomiti, a collection of tales told somewhat after the manner of
BoccaccioGiovanni 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...
, but still more closely resembling the novels of Cinthio's contemporary,
Matteo Bandello-Biography:Matteo Bandello was born at Castelnuovo Scrivia, near Tortona , about the year 1480 or 1485. He received a good education, and entered the church, but does not seem to have been very interested in theology. For many years he lived at Mantua, and superintended the education of the...
. Something may be said in favour of their professed claim to represent a higher standard of morality. Originally published at
MondovìMondovì is a town and comune of Piedmont, northern Italy, located c. 80 km from Turin.The town, located on the Monte Regale hill, is divided into several rioni : Piazza , Breo, Pian della Valle, Carassone, Borgato and Rinchiuso, lower, next to the Ellero stream, developed from the 18th...
in 1565, they were frequently reprinted in Italy, while a French translation appeared in 1583 and one in Spanish in 1590. They have a peculiar interest to students of
English literatureEnglish literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; Joseph Conrad was born in Poland, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, V.S....
, for providing the plots of
Measure for MeasureMeasure for Measure is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1603 or 1604. It was originally classified as a comedy, but is now also classified as one of Shakespeare's problem plays. Originally published in the First Folio of 1623, the play's first recorded performance was...
and
OthelloOthello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian short story "Un Capitano Moro" by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565...
. That of the latter, which is to be found in the
Hecatommithi is conjectured to have reached
ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's preeminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
through the French translation; while that of the former is probably to be traced to
George WhetstoneGeorge Whetstone was an English dramatist and author.He was the third son of Robert Whetstone , a member of a wealthy family that owned the manor of Walcot at Barnack, near Stamford, Lincolnshire...
's
Promos and Cassandra (1578), an adaptation of Cinthio's story, and to his
Heptamerone (1582), which contains a direct English translation. It has also been noted that the story of
OthelloOthello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian short story "Un Capitano Moro" by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565...
and "Un Capitano Moro" resemble the earlier tale of "The Three Apples", a story narrated by
ScheherazadeScheherazade , sometimes Scheherazadea, Persian transliteration Shahrazad or Shahrzād , is a legendary Persian queen and the storyteller of One Thousand and One Nights.- In the narration :...
in the
One Thousand and One Nights (
Arabian Nights). To Cinthio also must be attributed the plot of
Beaumont and FletcherBeaumont and Fletcher were the English dramatists Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, who collaborated in their writing during the reign of James I....
's
Custom of the Country.