Admiration

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Decameron (1353)

  From the concupiscence of the religious, Boccaccio next turns to a story (I, 5) involving the concupiscence of a king, and of how it was held at bay by the resourcefulness of a young gentlewoman, the Marchioness of Montferrat, whose husband was away on a Crusade. The stratagem of the chicken banquet leads in turn to a story (I, 6) concerning food of an altogether different quality, where a man accused by an inquisitor of blasphemy humiliates his persecutor with a witty remark concerning the watery soup doled out to the poor by the inquisitor and his fellow Franciscans. The shaming of a parsimonious benefactor forms the subject, also, of the tale that follows (I, 7), but this time it is brought about by the elaborate telling of a story within a story by one Bergamino, described as ‘a faster and more brilliant talker than anyone could ever imagine’ ( ‘oltre al credere di chi non l’udí presto parlatore e ornato’ ). The target of Bergamino’s timely parable is Can Grande della Scala, whose sudden fit of meanness towards his guest is totally out of character, whereas the protagonist of the following tale (I, 8), Ermino Grimaldi, is not only the richest man in Italy but also so much of a miser that his name has become synonymous with avarice. The transformation of his character is effected by the sharp riposte (‘Let Generosity be painted there’) of a distinguished courtier, Guiglielmo Borsiere, to his request for a suitable topic for a new picture he intends to commission for the main hall of his house in Genoa. Admonitory wit effects a comparable transformation in the next story (I, 9), recounting the way in which a gentlewoman of Gascony, travelling through Cyprus, having suffered a brutal assault from a pack of ruffians, converts the king, a cowardly weakling, into the implacable scourge of all wrongdoers. And the First Day ends with yet another admonitory tale (I, 10), this time featuring a brilliant physician, Master Alberto of Bologna, now ‘an old man approaching seventy’, who reproaches a young gentlewoman and her companions for mocking his amatory feelings towards her, by his witty and delightfully allusive account of the way young ladies go about the eating of leeks. No specific topic is prescribed for the stories of the First Day, but all are concerned with various forms of human weakness, and all involve the application of the intellectual faculties to correct or modify their harmful effects. Intelligence is thus established as the initial theme of the work as a whole, whilst in the stories of the Second Day the theme of Fortune occupies a dominant position. Boccaccio’s third major theme is Love, which figures prominently in the stories of the following three days, although in several of the stories narrated on those days, especially on the Third Day, Intelligence is an important ancillary theme.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  It was at any rate in Florence that Boccaccio spent his childhood. Contemporary records indicate that his infancy coincides with the period when his father was making his mark with the famous Florentine banking house known as the Compagnia dei Bardi. At some time before 1320, his father married Margherita de’ Mardoli, whose family could proudly boast an ancestral connection with Beatrice Portinari, the inspiring force of Dante’s Commedia. From early childhood, therefore, he was ideally placed to acquire the rudiments of that veneration of Dante which is evident in the whole of his work from his earliest compositions to the lengthy but unfinished commentaries on Dante’s poem that constitute his last major literary labour. One of the companions of his childhood and adolescence was Zanobi da Strada, who like Boccaccio was destined to become a poet and to establish himself in Neapolitan society. And it was Zanobi’s father, Giovanni Mazzuoli, acting as tutor to both, who encouraged his pupils to study and admire the work of the poet of the Commedia. Boccaccio’s reverence for Dante was similar in its intensity to that of Dante himself for Virgil. Just as Dante’s poetry is interspersed with echoes and reminiscences of the Aeneid, so Boccaccio’s work is consistently studded with fragments from the medieval epic of his Florentine predecessor. Boccaccio’s description of Dante, in a letter to Petrarch of 1359, as the first guide of his studies (primus studiorum dux) recalls the terminology used by Dante in the Commedia to describe the great Latin poet. At the age of thirteen, or thereabouts, Boccaccio moved from Florence to Naples, where his father had been appointed to a high-ranking position in the Neapolitan branch of the Bardi bank, which, like the other leading Florentine banking houses, the Peruzzi and the Acciaiuoli, had for many years been the financial mainstay of the kingdom’s Angevin rulers. Even before reaching adolescence, the young Boccaccio had himself been apprenticed by his father to a career in banking, for which he had no natural inclination whatsoever. After what he later described as ‘six wasted years’, he persuaded his father to allow him to take up the study of canon law at the Neapolitan Studium, a Dominican institution established in 1269, which had close links with the university, founded in 1224 by Emperor Frederick II. Although his formal course of studies there was little more congenial to him than the career he had abandoned, it enabled him not only to begin assembling the vast store of erudition that underpins all of his literary work, but also to establish influential contacts in the fields of scholarship and culture in general.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  “It must have been difficult being a single mother,” I said, thinking of my mother. “No, I prefer to be my own boss.” “I mean money-wise.” “People always think that. But that’s because they aren’t artists. The secret to being an artist is to know how to live well without money.” “How?” This was something I really wanted to know. “With creativity! Plus, I don’t covet all those bourgeois possessions people hold so dear.” “I know! My mother can’t let go of any possessions, and as a result, I don’t seem to want anything. Material, I mean.” Renate’s smile was warm even though she didn’t show her teeth. “I knew you were copacetic.” One of her paintings on the wall caught my attention. A naked woman, whose long black hair fell to her lovely bare behind, faced a smaller mirror image of herself walking out of a shadowy mountain pass. A raven perched at the naked woman’s foot. “That’s my friend Raven,” Renate said. “She loved Edgar Allen Poe, so she purchased a pet raven in his honor.” “So that’s her raven?” “Oh, yes. The two of them bonded so deeply that she had her name legally changed to Raven. When her lovers would visit, the bird would screech and peck at them in a jealous rage.” “Did she get rid of the bird?” “No, she stopped having her lovers over.” Renate had the timing of a vaudeville comedian. I laughed, recognizing that I needed to respond to her humor to keep her approval. “My friend,” she continued, “then slept over at her lovers’ houses, but the bird fell sick with depression and wouldn’t eat. So now she doesn’t go anywhere, just stays buried at home with the raven.” “It really is an Edgar Allen Poe story!” “Yes, that’s what Anaïs said. Raven is part of our circle.” The circle I wanted to be part of. “Are all the women in these paintings in your circle?” I looked around at the paintings of women in various degrees of undress, each posed with her animal spirit. “My circle with Anaïs? No. Most of them haven’t even met Anaïs.” Renate watched my reaction to her work. “Take your time.” I took more time than I really needed to look at the highly saturated, acrylic paintings that recalled Salvador Dali’s trompe-l’oeil dreamscapes. “It’s the kind of painting nobody does anymore,” Renate said, sighing. It was true; her surrealist style was dated and out of sync with the pop and op art of the day. Her paintings, like Anaïs’s novels, embodied a European prewar fascination with the subconscious, while Warhol’s soup cans and Vasarely's optics were reflecting our surface, modern realities. I looked at Renate’s skillfully executed but somehow naive paintings: a slender woman lying alongside a panther, a woman with blue skin floating on a swan’s spread wing, a woman with the same eyes as her Siamese cat, a naked woman sitting lotus in a field, feeding grapes to a little goat.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  escaped his close attention. The varied experience he thereby acquired of the practical everyday world was bound to some extent to be reflected in the pages of the Decameron, the writing of which coincided with the years immediately following the death of his father. The story of Boccaccio’s life from about 1350 until his death in 1375 is the story of a steadily increasing involvement in humanistic culture combined with the growth of the reputation for diplomacy and eloquence he had already achieved among his Florentine fellow citizens. The first of numerous official missions was undertaken in the autumn of 1350, when he was sent to the Romagna for purposes difficult to determine. But it was after his return from the Romagna, in the early part of October 1350, that he was deputed to welcome the foremost man of letters in fourteenth-century Europe at the gates of the city, and offer him the traditional gift of a ring. Francesco Petrarca was on his way to Rome for the Jubilee, and during his stay in Florence he was a guest in Boccaccio’s house in the San Felicita quarter of the city. From that moment there began a friendship between Petrarch and Boccaccio which was to endure for the rest of their lives, and which was one of the most influential meetings of minds in the history of European culture. Their relationship was not one of equals, however, for Boccaccio, nine years younger and still comparatively unknown beyond the borders of Florence and Naples, consistently referred to Petrarch as his magister until the latter’s death in 1374, whilst Petrarch was well content to accept Boccaccio’s over-modest assessment of his own role as discipulus. In a letter written in 1372 to Niccolò Orsini, he refers to Petrarch as ‘my famous teacher... to whom I owe all that I am worth’ (‘inclitus preceptor meus... cui quantum valeo debeo’). In March 1351, five months after their initial meeting in Florence, the two men met again, this time in Padua. Boccaccio had been sent there as bearer of official letters setting aside a decree of 1302 which had exiled Petrarch’s father and confiscated his property. The letters invited Petrarch not only to return to his native Tuscany but to accept a professorial chair at the Studium, or university of Florence. Boccaccio’s mission was unsuccessful, much to the annoyance of the Signory, which revoked its decision. (Petrarch shortly afterwards accepted a similar offer from the Visconti lord of Milan, and took up a chair at the nearby University of Pavia.) One of Boccaccio’s Latin epistles describes with unusual warmth and affection the lengthy discussions that he and Petrarch engaged in during his visit. It was probably on that occasion that he formulated the views on poetry he later set down in the last two books of his Genealogia deorum gentilium (Genealogy of the Gentile Gods), a work he had already begun at some time before 1350.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  As a good many people affirm, the King was most scrupulous to observe his compact with the girl, for he always styled himself her loyal knight for as long as he lived, and never entered the lists without displaying the favour she had sent him. By deeds such as these, then, does a sovereign conquer the hearts of his subjects, furnish occasions to others for similar deeds, and acquire eternal renown. But among the rulers of today, there are few if any who train the bowstrings of their minds upon any such objective, most of them having been changed into pitiless tyrants.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  57 It is true that the tale is prefaced and rounded off with a series of pious observations on the infinite and all-seeing mercy of God, but these are no more than deliberate set-pieces, designed it seems to avert the charge of irreligiousness which a bare recital of the narrative would otherwise certainly have provoked. Nor does the remarkable catalogue of Ciappelletto’s nefarious practices, concluding with the statement that ‘he was perhaps the worst man ever born’, imply, as Branca suggests, 58 that Boccaccio is adopting a disapproving attitude towards the character. On the contrary, in the remainder of the tale Ciappelletto controls the situation so masterfully as to arouse the reader’s sneaking admiration. The lengthy description of Ciappelletto, establishing him as a forger, a liar, a hypocrite, a promoter of discord, a sadist, a psychopath, a blasphemer, an alcoholic, a pederast, a glutton, a gambler and a swindler is from the stylistic point of view quite unique in the Decameron, with the possible exception of the portrait of Gucci in the story of Friar Cipolla (VI, 10). The method normally used by Boccaccio to introduce his characters involves the communication of an absolute minimum of information, and the characters acquire depth and consistency through their participation in the narrative, rather than through what the author tells us about them. In departing from his normal practice for the tale of Ciappelletto, the author clearly had in mind the peculiar requirements of this particular narrative, which depends for its effect upon establishing from the very beginning that Ciappelletto is the personification of evil, that he is in fact ‘the worst man ever born’. Only then is it possible to savour to the full the crescendo of effrontery that marks Ciappelletto’s subsequent confession and that provides the story with its raison d’être. Unless the reader is made aware of the penitent’s grossly iniquitous past, the motivation for the false confession is non-existent and the narrative becomes meaningless. Hence the lengthy portrait of Ciappelletto is no more and no less than a narrative device, quite insusceptible to a moralistic reading. In other words, it tells the reader everything he needs to know about Ciappelletto, and nothing at all about Boccaccio except that he was a shrewd craftsman, aware of the need to adapt his technique to the demands of a particular story. What the tale of Ciappelletto, viewed as a whole, does tell us about Boccaccio is that he was alive to the paradoxes and inconsistencies of the established social order, and that he took a mischievous delight in directing attention towards them. There is no mistaking the tone of gleeful admiration in which he recounts Ciappelletto’s stage-by-stage deception of the saintly, unsuspecting friar, a process involving the creation of a fictitious persona completely antithetical to Ciappelletto’s true character.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  But finding that the rings were so alike that it was impossible to tell them apart, the question of which of the sons was the true and rightful heir remained in abeyance, and has never been settled. ‘And I say to you, my lord, that the same applies to the three laws which God the Father granted to His three peoples, and which formed the subject of your inquiry. Each of them considers itself the legitimate heir to His estate, each believes it possesses His one true law and observes His commandments. But as with the rings, the question as to which of them is right remains in abeyance.’ Saladin perceived that the fellow had ingeniously side-stepped the trap he had set before him, and he therefore decided to make a clean breast of his needs, and see if the Jew would come to his assistance. This he did, freely admitting what he had intended to do, but for the fact that the Jew had answered him so discreetly. Melchizedek gladly provided the Sultan with the money he required. The Sultan later paid him back in full, in addition to which he showered magnificent gifts upon him, made him his lifelong friend, and maintained him at his court in a state of importance and honour.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Being of a very astute disposition, Saladin realized that the worthy knight had not invited them when they first met for fear of their refusing, and that, so as to make it impossible for them to deny him their company that evening, he had cleverly beguiled them into coming to his house. And having returned Messer Torello’s greeting, he said: ‘Sir, if it were possible to complain of courteous men, we should have good cause for complaint against you, for to say nothing of taking us slightly out of our way, you have more or less constrained us to accept this handsome gesture of yours, when all we did to merit your civility was to exchange a single greeting with you.’ To which the knight, who was no less wise than he was eloquent, replied: ‘If I may judge from your appearance, gentlemen, my civility is bound to be a poor thing by comparison with your deserts. But to tell the truth you could not have found a decent place to lodge outside Pavia. Do not be aggrieved, then, to have added a few more miles to your journey for the sake of a little less discomfort.’ As he was speaking, his servants gathered round the visitors, and as soon as they had dismounted, their horses were led away to the stables. Meanwhile Messer Torello conducted the three gentlemen to the rooms that had been prepared for them, where they were helped off with their riding-boots, after which Torello offered them refreshment in the form of deliciously cool wines, and detained them with agreeable talk until it was time to go to supper. Saladin and his companions and attendants were all conversant with the Italian tongue, so that they had no difficulty in following Messer Torello or in making themselves understood, and they were all of the opinion that this knight was the most agreeable, civilized, and affable gentleman they had so far had occasion to meet. For his own part, Messer Torello concluded that they were gentlemen of quality, much more distinguished than he had previously thought, and reproached himself for his inability to entertain them in company that evening, with a banquet of greater splendour. He therefore resolved that he would make amends next morning, and having explained to one of his servants what he had in mind, he sent him to Pavia, which never closed its gates4 and was very close at hand, with a message for his wife, a lady of great intelligence and exceptional spirit. This done, he led his visitors into the garden, and politely asked them who they were, whence they came, and where they were going, to which Saladin replied: ‘We are Cypriot merchants, we come from Cyprus, and we are on our way to Paris to conduct certain business of ours.’ ‘Would to God,’ said Messer Torello, ‘that this country of ours produced gentlemen of a kind to compare with what I see of the merchants of Cyprus.’

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  “Terrible? I’m awed by you! I’ve never heard of a woman with two husbands. Only men have done it until now.” I thought her adventurous leap beyond women’s traditional roles as remarkable as walking on the moon. She may not have been a great writer, but she was a pioneer, a breaker of boundaries, a daring explorer! I could see that she was pleased that I’d recognized her extraordinary courage, but she cautioned in a hushed voice, “You must never reveal it. People don’t understand.” “Well, I understand,” I said, pleased that I was uniquely qualified to do so. She had figured out how never to be abandoned, never caught short of a man. “It’s because your father abandoned you like mine did. By having two husbands you’re protected. You’ll always have a spare.” “That’s not it at all!” “It isn’t?” “No. I can’t leave either man because I know how it feels to be abandoned. I couldn’t inflict that on someone I love. I’m trapped by my compassion.” She looked completely sincere, but to me, an extra husband as an insurance policy remained a much more compelling reason. To emphasize her more altruistic perspective, Anaïs asked, “Don’t you recall the terrible pain when your father left? Could you cause someone that pain?” “No,” I said uncertainly. “But remember I told you I was glad my father left.” She was scrutinizing me. “If you cannot understand the cruelty it would wreak on Hugo and Rupert to learn of my double life, how can I trust you to keep my secret?” “Because I gave you my word.” I looked her in the eye. “Once I give my word I’ll never break it. It’s a matter of honor.” “At twenty-one, you haven’t had much opportunity to test your honor.” “Yes, I have. For some reason people have always told me secrets, and I always keep my word.” “What secret did someone ask you to keep?” She leaned into me conspiratorially. I thought about it. Which secret could I tell that wouldn’t harm anyone and might also impress her? “That my father was Jewish.” “Did someone ask you not to tell that?” “My father. I found out by accident when I was sixteen, when an aunt I’d never heard of came to see a play at the Coronet Theater and recognized my name on the program. She took me out to Canters Deli after the play and told me my father had broken off from his Jewish family and changed his last name. I was thrilled to find out I was half Jewish, because my best friend was, but when I talked with my father about it, he told me never to tell anyone.” “And now you have just told me.” She gave me a hard smile. She had caught me!

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Agricola, whose original name was Roelef Huisman, was born near Groningen, 1443, and died 1485. He enjoyed the highest reputation in his day as a scholar and received unstinted praise from Erasmus and Melanchthon. He has been regarded as doing for Humanism in Germany what was done for Italy by Petrarca, the first life of whom, in German, Agricola prepared. He was far in advance of the Italian poet in the purity of his life. After studying in Erfurt, Louvain and Cologne, Agricola went to Italy, spending some time at the universities in Pavia and Ferrara. He declined a professor’s chair in favor of an appointment at the court of Philip of the Palatinate in Heidelberg. He made Cicero and Quintilian his models. In his last years, he turned his attention to theology and studied Hebrew. Like Pico della Mirandola, he was buried in the cowl of a monastic order. The inscription on his tomb in Heidelberg stated that he had studied what is taught about God and the true faith of the Saviour in the books of Scripture. Another Humanist was Jacob Wimpheling, 1450–1528, of Schlettstadt, who taught in Heidelberg. He was inclined to be severe on clerical abuses but, at the close of his career, wanted to substitute for the study of Virgil and Horace, Sedulius and Prudentius. The poetic Sebastian Brant, 1457–1521, the author of the Ship of Fools, began his career as a teacher of law in Basel. Mutianus Rufus, d. at Gotha 1526, in his correspondence, went so far as to declare that Christianity is as old as the world and that Jupiter, Apollo, Ceres and Christ are only different names of the one hidden God.1066 A name which deserves a high place in the German literature of the last years of the Middle Ages is John Trithemius, 1462–1505, abbot of a Benedictine convent at Sponheim, which, under his guidance, gained the reputation of a learned academy. He gathered a library of 2,000 volumes and wrote a patrology, or encyclopaedia of the Fathers, and a catalogue of the renowned men of Germany. Prelates and nobles visited him to consult and read the Latin and Greek authors he had collected. These men and others contributed their part to that movement of which Reuchlin and Erasmus were the chief lights and which led on easily to the Protestant Reformation.1067 § 69. Reuchlin and Erasmus.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Now, all of you will frequently have heard mention of King Charles the Old,1 or in other words Charles the First, by whose magnificent enterprise, as well as by the glorious victory he later achieved against King Manfred, the Ghibellines were expelled from Florence and the Guelphs returned to the city. Hence it came about that a certain knight, called Messer Neri degli Uberti,2 left Florence with his entire household and a large fortune, bent upon taking refuge under the very nose of King Charles; and so as to seek a secluded spot, where he might live out his remaining years in peace, he went to Castellammare di Stabia,3 where, a stone’s throw away from the other habitations in the area, amid the olives, hazels, and chestnuts that abound in those parts, he purchased an estate on which he built a fine and comfortable mansion. Beside the mansion he laid out a delectable garden, in the centre of which, there being a goodly supply of fresh water, he constructed a fine, clear fishpond in the Florentine style, which he stocked in his own good time with abundant supplies of fish. His sole occupation being that of making his garden daily more attractive, it happened that King Charles, in the heat of summer, went to Castellammare to relax for a while, and on hearing of the beauty of Messer Neri’s garden, he was anxious to inspect it. But knowing to whom it belonged, he decided that since the knight was a political adversary of his, he would make his visit informal, and sent word that on the following evening he desired to sup with him incognito in his garden, together with four companions. Messer Neri took very kindly to this proposal, and having made preparations on a truly lavish scale, and arranged with his household what was to be done, he received the King in his fair garden as cordially as he possibly could. After inspecting and admiring the whole of Messer Neri’s garden and his house, the King washed and sat down at one of the tables, which had been placed at the side of the pool. He then ordered Count Guy de Montfort,4 who was one of his four companions, to sit on his right and Messer Neri on his left, and directed the other three to wait upon him, taking their instructions from Messer Neri. Dainty dishes were set before him, and wines of rare excellence, and the King was warmly appreciative of the way in which everything had been so tastefully and admirably planned, without anyone knowing he was there or making him feel embarrassed.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Little did More suspect that, within ten years of the publication of his famous book, texts would be drawn from it to support the Peasants’ Revolt in Germany.1125 In it are stated some of the sociological hopes and dreams of this present age. The author was voicing the widespread feeling of his own generation which was harassed with laws restricting the wages of labor, with the enclosures of the commons by the rich, the conversion of arable lands into sheep farms and with the renewed warfare on the Continent into which England was drawn.1126 John Fisher, who suffered on the block a few months before More for refusing to take the oath of supremacy, and set aside the succession of Catherine of Aragon’s offspring, was 79 years old when he died. Dean Perry has pronounced him "the most learned, the most conscientious and the most devout of the bishops of his day." In 1511, he recommended Erasmus to Cambridge to teach Greek. On the way to the place of beheadal, this good man carried with him the New Testament, repeating again and again the words, "This is life eternal to know Thee and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." "That was learning enough for him," he said. To Grocyn, Colet, More and Fisher the Protestant world gives its reverent regard. It is true, they did not fully apprehend the light which was spreading over Europe. Nevertheless, they went far as pioneers of a more rational system of education than the one built up by the scholastic method and they have a distinct place in the history of the progress of religious thought.1127 In Scotland, the Protestant Reformation took hold of the nation before the Renaissance had much chance to exercise an independent influence. John Major, who died about 1550, wrote a commentary on the Sentences of Peter the Lombard and is called "the last of the Schoolmen." He is, however, a connecting link with the new movement in literature through George Buchanan, his pupil at St Andrews. Major remained true to the Roman communion. Buchanan, after being held for six months in prison as a heretic in Portugal, returned to Scotland and adopted the Reformation. According to Professor Hume-Brown, his Latin paraphrase of the Psalms in metre "was, until recent years, read in Scotland in every school where Latin was taught."1128 Knox’s History of the Reformation was the earliest model of prose literature in Scotland. CHAPTER IX.THE PULPIT AND POPULAR PIETY.§ 72. Literature.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  "Whatever judgment," says Leopold von Ranke, who was a good Lutheran (Die römischen Päpste, I. 29), "we may form of the Popes of former times, they had always great interests in view: the care of an oppressed religion, the conflict with heathenism, the propagation of Christianity among the Northern nations, the founding of an independent hierarchical power. It belongs to the dignity of human existence to will and to execute something great. These tendencies the Popes kept in higher motion." In the last volume of his great work, published after his death (Weltgeschichte, Siebenter Theil, Leipzig, 1886, pp. 311–313), Ranke gives his estimate of the typical Pope Gregory VII., of which this is a condensed translation: — "The hierarchical system of Gregory rests on the attempt to make the clerical power the basis of the entire human existence. This explains the two principles which characterize the system,—the command of (clerical] celibacy, and the prohibition of investiture by the hands of a layman. By the first, the lower clergy were to be made a corporation free from all personal relations to human society; by the second, the higher clergy were to be secured against all influence of the secular power. The great hierarch had well considered his standpoint: he thereby met a want of the times, which regarded the clergy, so to say, as higher beings. All his words had dignity, consistency and power. He had a native talent for worldly affairs. Peter Damiani probably had this in view when he called him, once, the holy Satan .... Gregory’s deliverances contain no profound doctrines; nearly all were known before. But they are summed up by him in a system, the sincerity of which no one could call in question. His dying words: ’I die in exile, because I loved justice,’ express his inmost conviction. But we must not forget that it was only the hierarchical justice which he defended to his last breath."—In the thirteenth chapter, entitled "Canossa," Ranke presents his views on the conflict between Gregory VII. and Henry IV., or between the hierarchical and the secular power. Adolf Harnack, a prominent historian of the present generation, in his commemorative address on Martin Luther (Giessen, 1883, p. 7), calls "the idea of the papacy the greatest and most humane idea (die grösste und humanste Idee) which the middle age produced."

• From The Decameron (1353)

  What are we to conclude then, gentle ladies? Are we to regard a king who gave away his crown and sceptre, an abbot who reconciled an outlaw to the Pope at no cost to himself, or an old man who exposed his throat to the dagger of his adversary, as being in any way comparable to one who performed so noble a deed as Messer Gentile? For here we have the case of a man in the ardent flush of youth, who, believing himself to be legally entitled to that which the negligence of others had discarded and which he had the good fortune to retrieve, not only kept his ardour under decent restraint, but on obtaining the very object which he had coveted with his whole being for so long, generously surrendered it. In all conscience, none of the instances previously cited seems to me comparable to this. FIFTH STORYMadonna Dianora asks Messer Ansaldo for a beautiful May garden in the month of January, and Messer Ansaldo fulfils her request after hiring the services of a magician. Her husband then gives her permission to submit to Messer Ansaldo’s pleasure, but on hearing of the husband’s liberality Messer Ansaldo releases her from her promise, whilst the magician excuses Messer Ansaldo from the payment of any fee. Every member of the joyful company praised Messer Gentile to the very skies, after which the king called upon Emilia to follow: and with a confident air, as though she were longing to speak, she thus began: Dainty ladies, no one can seriously deny that Messer Gentile acted munificently, but if anyone should claim that to do more would be impossible, it will not be too difficult to prove that they are wrong, as I propose to show you in this little story of mine. In the province of Friuli,1 which is cold but richly endowed with beautiful mountains, numerous rivers, and limpid streams, there is a town called Udine, where once there lived a beautiful noblewoman called Madonna Dianora, who was married to a most agreeable and good-natured man, exceedingly wealthy, whose name was Gilberto. Because of her outstanding worth, this lady attracted the undying love of a great and noble lord called Messer Ansaldo Gradense, a man of high repute, famous throughout the land for his feats of arms and deeds of courtesy. But although he loved her fervently and did everything he possibly could to persuade her to requite his love, sending her numerous messages to this end, all his efforts were unavailing. Eventually the lady grew tired of the knight’s entreaties, and seeing that however firmly she rejected his approaches he still persisted in loving and importuning her, she decided to rid herself of him once and for all by requesting him to do something for her that was both bizarre and, as she thought, impossible. So one day, she said to the woman who regularly came to see her on Messer Ansaldo’s behalf:

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  “That was good.” Anaïs smiled. She didn’t approve of men being seen as the enemy. She repeatedly reminded me that a woman should be responsible for her own emotional issues and not put them on the man. I shared with Anaïs and Renate my mother’s reaction when I’d told her about my consciousness group’s victory in getting funding for our classes. “That’s wonderful, Trissy!” Mother’s heavily jowled face, exhausted from overwork, had lifted with a rare smile of hope and pride. It was the same with Renate and Anaïs. Their faces were already lifted, and they were already full of hope because of the success of Anaïs’s Diaries; but they glowed, too, with pride for what we younger women had accomplished. This gave me my opening. I invited Anaïs to address my class and women’s group. “Don’t you dare, Anaïs!” Renate butted in. “You have to preserve your strength.” Damn, Renate was working at a cross-purpose. I should have talked to her beforehand. I moaned to Anaïs, “Oh, my students will be so disappointed if you don’t come!” Anaïs looked stricken at the thought of disappointing them. She routinely accepted speaking engagements at remote Midwestern colleges where she had to sleep in associate professors’ guestrooms, and she personally answered every letter she received in sack loads because, she said, “I don’t want my readers to feel rejected. I know what that feels like.” True, she loved the rock star reception when she entered an overflowing auditorium, but in fairness she loved her admirers back. She invited to her parties at the Silver Lake house the loneliest souls met on her travels, people who had told her their sob stories in their letters and then stalked her for, in their floaty words, “a touch of her magic.” She felt it was her job to save them, so Renate and I would find ourselves having to socialize with these airheaded young people—the painfully shy poet who would only speak if asked a question, the girl disfigured in a riding accident who kept one side of her face angled away from you, the runaway with the bad teeth, and the recently released ex-con—all sipping Chablis while standing next to Bebe Barron, a pioneer of electronic music; or James Herlihy, whose novel Midnight Cowboy had become an Academy Award–winning movie. Anaïs would glide over to talk to the most awkward and shy guest at the party and shame the rest of us into following her example. She described herself accurately when she wrote that out of her father calling her ugly as a child had come her x-ray vision. People were made of crystal for her. She saw right through their defects—the humped back, the duck walk, the embarrassing acne—straight to their essence, the shadow of their disappointments, the outline of their desires, the glow of their dreams. She completely lacked snobbery and practiced an almost saintly kindness.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  From early childhood, therefore, he was ideally placed to acquire the rudiments of that veneration of Dante which is evident in the whole of his work from his earliest compositions to the lengthy but unfinished commentaries on Dante’s poem that constitute his last major literary labour. One of the companions of his childhood and adolescence was Zanobi da Strada, who like Boccaccio was destined to become a poet and to establish himself in Neapolitan society. And it was Zanobi’s father, Giovanni Mazzuoli, acting as tutor to both, who encouraged his pupils to study and admire the work of the poet of the Commedia. Boccaccio’s reverence for Dante was similar in its intensity to that of Dante himself for Virgil. Just as Dante’s poetry is interspersed with echoes and reminiscences of the Aeneid, so Boccaccio’s work is consistently studded with fragments from the medieval epic of his Florentine predecessor. Boccaccio’s description of Dante, in a letter to Petrarch of 1359, as the first guide of his studies (primus studiorum dux) recalls the terminology used by Dante in the Commedia to describe the great Latin poet. At the age of thirteen, or thereabouts, Boccaccio moved from Florence to Naples, where his father had been appointed to a high-ranking position in the Neapolitan branch of the Bardi bank, which, like the other leading Florentine banking houses, the Peruzzi and the Acciaiuoli, had for many years been the financial mainstay of the kingdom’s Angevin rulers. Even before reaching adolescence, the young Boccaccio had himself been apprenticed by his father to a career in banking, for which he had no natural inclination whatsoever. After what he later described as ‘six wasted years’, he persuaded his father to allow him to take up the study of canon law at the Neapolitan Studium, a Dominican institution established in 1269, which had close links with the university, founded in 1224 by Emperor Frederick II. Although his formal course of studies there was little more congenial to him than the career he had abandoned, it enabled him not only to begin assembling the vast store of erudition that underpins all of his literary work, but also to establish influential contacts in the fields of scholarship and culture in general. Naples was at that time a flourishing intellectual centre, attracting poets, philosophers, artists and men of letters from all over Europe, especially from France and northern Italy. King Robert the Wise, who occupied the throne from 1309 to 1343, was the most powerful ruler in the Italy of his day, and an enlightened patron and practitioner of the arts. Dante had expressed a poor opinion of the Angevin monarch in the early years of his reign, dubbing him the king who was fit only for writing sermons. But Boccaccio was later to describe him as a second Solomon, and one of the leading Florentine chroniclers of the period, Giovanni Villani, wrote that he was ‘the wisest of the Christians of the last five hundred years’.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘Then do as I suggest,’ said Nathan. ‘You remain here in my house, young as you are, and assume the name of Nathan, whilst I go to live in yours, and henceforth call myself Mithridanes.’ To which Mithridanes replied: ‘If I were able to comport myself so impeccably as you do now, and as you have always done in the past, I should accept your offer without a second thought; but because I feel quite certain that my deeds would only diminish the fame of Nathan, and because I have no intention of impairing another’s name for that to which I cannot myself aspire, I am obliged to refuse it.’ After conversing agreeably together on these and many other matters, they returned as Nathan wished to the palace, where for several days on end he entertained Mithridanes in sumptuous style, giving him every encouragement to persevere in his great and noble resolve. And when Mithridanes wanted to return home with his companions, Nathan let him go, having made it abundantly clear that his liberality could never be surpassed. FOURTH STORYMesser Gentile de’ Carisendi comes from Modena and takes from the tomb the lady he loves, who has been buried for dead. She revives and gives birth to a male child, and later Messer Gentile restores her and the child to Niccoluccio Caccianimico, the lady’s husband. Miraculous indeed did it seem to all those present that anyone should be liberal with his own blood; and everyone agreed that Nathan’s generosity had certainly exceeded that of the King of Spain or the Abbot of Cluny. But after they had debated the matter at some length, the king fixed his gaze on Lauretta, thus showing that he wanted her to tell the next story; and Lauretta began forthwith, as follows: Fair young ladies, so goodly and magnificent are the things we have been told, so fully has the ground already been covered, that those of us who have not yet told our tales would surely be left with no area to explore, unless of course we turn to the deeds of lovers, wherein a most copious supply of tales on any topic is always to be found. For this reason, and also because matters of this sort are especially fascinating for people of our age, I should like to tell you of a generous deed performed by one who was in love. And if it is true that in order to possess the object of their love men will give away whole fortunes, set aside their enmities, and place their lives, their honour, and (what is more important) their reputation in serious jeopardy, then possibly you will conclude, all things considered, that his action was no less striking than some of the ones already described.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  The new path which Erasmus struck out in his edition of the New Testament was looked upon in some quarters as a dangerous path. Dorpius, one of the Louvain professors, in 1515, anticipated the appearance of the book by remonstrating with Erasmus for his bold project and pronounced the received Vulgate text free "from all mixture of falsehood and mistake." This, he alleged, was evident from its acceptance by the Church in all ages and the use the Fathers had made of it. Another member of the Louvain faculty, Latromus, employed his learning in a pamphlet which maintained that a knowledge of Greek and Hebrew was not necessary for the scholarly study of the Scriptures. In England, Erasmus’ New Testament was attacked on a number of grounds by Lee, archbishop of York; and Standish, bishop of St. Asaph, preached a furious sermon in St. Paul’s churchyard on Erasmus’ temerity in undertaking the issue of such a work. The University of Cologne was especially outraged by Erasmus’ attempt and Conrad of Hersbach wrote:1233 — They have found a language called Greek, at which we must be careful to be on our guard. It is the mother of all heresies. In the hands of many persons I see a book, which they call the New Testament. It is a book full of thorns and poison. As for Hebrew my brethren, it is certain that those who learn it will sooner or later turn Jews. But among the men who read Erasmus’ text was Martin Luther, and he was studying it to settle questions which started in his soul. About one of these he asked his friend Spalatin to consult Erasmus, namely the final meaning of the righteousness of the law, which he felt the great scholar had misinterpreted in his annotations on the Romans in the Novum instrumentum. He believed, if Erasmus would read Augustine’s works, he would change his mind. Luther preferred Augustine, as he said, with the knowledge of one tongue to Jerome with his knowledge of five.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Hence I consider it far preferable to give it away now, just as I have always given away and spent my treasures, than to cling to it until such time as Nature deprives me of it against my will. ‘Even if one were to give away a hundred years, it would not amount to much of a gift; and surely it is a much more trivial matter to give away the six or eight years of my life that still remain to me. Take it then, if you want it, I do implore you; for during all the years I have lived here, I have never yet found anyone who wanted it, and if you do not take it, now that you have asked for it, I doubt whether I shall ever find anyone else. But even if I should happen to do so, I realize that the longer I keep it, the less valuable it becomes. Take it therefore, I beg you, before it loses its worth entirely.’ ‘God forbid,’ said Mithridanes, feeling deeply ashamed, ‘that I should even contemplate taking so precious a thing as your life, as until just now I was thinking of doing, let alone that I should actually deprive you of it. Far from wanting to shorten its years, I would gladly augment them with some of my own, if such a thing were possible.’ ‘Supposing it were,’ Nathan promptly replied, ‘would you really oblige me to accept them, and thus serve you as I have never served another living soul, by taking something of yours, when I have never before taken anything from anyone?’ ‘Yes,’ said Mithridanes, without a moment’s hesitation. ‘Then do as I suggest,’ said Nathan. ‘You remain here in my house, young as you are, and assume the name of Nathan, whilst I go to live in yours, and henceforth call myself Mithridanes.’ To which Mithridanes replied: ‘If I were able to comport myself so impeccably as you do now, and as you have always done in the past, I should accept your offer without a second thought; but because I feel quite certain that my deeds would only diminish the fame of Nathan, and because I have no intention of impairing another’s name for that to which I cannot myself aspire, I am obliged to refuse it.’ After conversing agreeably together on these and many other matters, they returned as Nathan wished to the palace, where for several days on end he entertained Mithridanes in sumptuous style, giving him every encouragement to persevere in his great and noble resolve. And when Mithridanes wanted to return home with his companions, Nathan let him go, having made it abundantly clear that his liberality could never be surpassed.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  Then she ardently addressed the entire audience, making each person there feel as if she or he had the most intimate connection with her of all. She presented the persona they had come to see: the sensual, independent, liberated woman she’d invented in editing her Diary. She embodied the myth that her readers had embraced as a goddess of love, intimacy, kindness, generosity, romantic idealism, surrealist imagination, and sexual abandon. I saw her that night in all her glory as the consummate woman artist: a practitioner of performance art before it had a name, a visionary of life itself as imaginative theater. I had seen packed auditoriums in a frenzy of adoration, and with this smaller group she likewise played her artist/goddess role to the hilt, quoting herself in her French lullaby rhythm, dropping the names of political friends such as Eugene McCarthy and literary associates such as Rebecca West and Lawrence Durrell, encouraging the women before her to value their individuality, throw off their inheritance of guilt, and live their dreams as she had! My students eagerly asked questions about her diary writing, which she answered with practiced phrases: “I write to taste life twice,” and “It is a thousand years of womanhood I am recording, a thousand women.” Some of the young women from my class made passionate personal testimonials to the liberating impact of having read her Diary. One twenty-year-old proclaimed, “You are the mother of us all!” Everyone present looked dazzled, as if they had been touched in a tent revival and received a genuine miracle. Everyone except Clara, that is. She’d been leaning against the wall distancing herself from my students. Now Clara came forward, flipping a hand upward for Anaïs to spot her. Seeing how beautiful Clara was with her corona of fiery curls, Anaïs offered her most appreciative smile, but Clara did not return it. She said, “At the end of the second volume of your Diary, you tell us you left Paris because your husband was recalled to the US. But until then there was no mention of you having had a husband. Why is that?” “My publisher—” Anaïs began, but Clara interrupted her. “Nowhere do you tell us how you got money for your free life. Yet economic self-sufficiency is the first requirement for woman’s freedom, wouldn’t you agree?” Anaïs straightened to her full 5’5” height. Her singsong French accent became more pronounced when she answered, “Economic self-sufficiency is essential for woman, but it is not the only ingredient necessary for her freedom. Americans, in particular, are oppressed by the punishing assumptions of Puritanism.” She looked into receptive faces as she spoke, settling on Don’s. “America’s sexual Puritanism must also be examined and dispensed with.” There was a murmur of assent in the room.