Virginia Brown is Senior Fellow, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto.
In 1362, Boccaccio…wrote specifically ‘for the ladies,’ this time
in Latin…[on] a subject as stately as the city’s soaring ruins and
luminous marble statues: “Famous Women”…(biographies of 106 women,
beginning with “Eve Our First Mother” and ending with the monarch
to whose lady-in-waiting he dedicated the book, Queen Joanna “of
Sicily and Jerusalem”)… In a pungent new translation by Virginia
Brown, [Boccaccio’s] famous women hold up very well indeed. This
beautiful little book…spearheads a new publication program designed
to make accessible important works of Renaissance Latin to modern
readers…the success of Famous Women suggests that the ladies read
their Boccaccio as we are invited to read him: with forbearance for
his foibles and delight in the tales he tells with such gusto and
skill.
*New York Times Book Review*
A monument of classical scholarship for its time, [Famous Women]
contains the biographies of women renowned for valor in warfare and
fearlessness in the face of death, for writing and the arts, for
political rulership, and for the particularly womanly virtues of
marital chastity and devotion to husbands living and dead… The book
became immensely popular in the late Middle Ages, and it was
quickly translated into the major languages of Western Europe. It
has now been given an expert and readable English translation…
Famous Women is an appropriate book with which to inaugurate this
series, since it stands at a cusp in cultural history between
medieval attitudes and the new mental universe of the
Renaissance.
*New Republic*
Whispered in the language of the dead, tales of one hundred and six
famous and infamous women of ancient times breathe new life in this
inaugural edition of the Harvard I Tatti Renaissance Library’s
Famous Women… Giovanni Boccaccio’s book emerges as the earliest
amalgam of biographies celebrating and describing the deeds of
women exclusively, flushed with the timeless air of antiquity… [I]n
its first English translation, [Famous Women] bridges the
boundaries of language and fosters the perpetual rediscovery of
Renaissance intellectualism.
*Fore Word Magazine*
Inspired by Petrarch’s Lives of Famous Men, [Famous Women]
represents the first biographical compendium of women’s lives.
Boccaccio prepared 106 brief lives of women…covering both the
virtuous and the infamous… This edition provides the original Latin
with a graceful and accurate translation by medievalist Brown on
facing pages, the first translation in almost 40 years. Her efforts
are a profound contribution to literature. Highly recommended.
*Library Journal*
Harvard University Press’s I Tatti Renaissance Library is the only
library offering to scholars, students and citizens the sublime
works of the Italian Renaissance written in Latin and translated
into lucid English... Famous Women is a wonderfully enjoyable book
to read in its style of fine clearness. The stories are tales of
virtue. Courageous women defend honor and truth and in their
defense they give us magnificent models to follow in this life of
adversity.
*Window on Italy*
The Loeb Classical Library…has been of incalculable benefit to
generations of scholars… It seems certain that the I Tatti
Renaissance Library will serve a similar purpose for Renaissance
Latin texts, and that, in addition to its obvious academic value,
it will facilitate a broadening base of participation in
Renaissance Studies… These books are to be lauded not only for
their principles of inclusivity and accessibility, and for their
rigorous scholarship, but also for their look and feel. Everything
about them is attractive: the blue of their dust jackets and cloth
covers, the restrained and elegant design, the clarity of the
typesetting, the quality of the paper, and not least the sensible
price. This is a new set of texts well worth collecting.
*Times Literary Supplement*
An aristocratic devotion to our culture continues to manifest
itself even today in the most prestigious centers of study and
thought. One has merely to look at the very recent (begun in 2001),
rigorous and elegant humanistic series of Harvard University, with
the original Latin text, English translation, introduction and
notes.
*Il Sole 24 Ore*
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