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)

  Fair ladies, I cannot myself decide whether Nature is more at fault in furnishing a noble spirit with an inferior body, or Fortune in allotting an inferior calling to a body endowed with a noble spirit, as happened in the case of Cisti, our fellow citizen, and many other people of our own acquaintance. This Cisti was a man of exceedingly lofty spirit, and yet Fortune made him a baker. I would assuredly curse Nature and Fortune alike, if I did not know for a fact that Nature is very discerning, and that Fortune has a thousand eyes, even though fools represent her as blind. Indeed, it is my conviction that Nature and Fortune, being very shrewd, follow the practice so common among mortals, who, uncertain of what the future will bring, make provision for emergencies by burying their most precious possessions in the least imposing (and therefore least suspect) part of their houses, whence they bring them forth in the hour of their greatest need, their treasure having been more securely preserved in a humble hiding place than if it had been kept in a sumptuous chamber. In the same way, the two fair arbiters of the world’s affairs frequently hide their greatest treasure beneath the shadow of the humblest of trades, so that when the need arises for it to be brought forth, its splendour will be all the more apparent. This is amply borne out by a brief anecdote I should now like to relate, concerning an episode, in itself of no great importance, in which Cisti the Baker opened the eyes of Messer Geri Spina1 to the truth, and of which I was reminded by the tale we have just heard about Madonna Oretta, who was Messer Geri’s wife. I say, then, that when Pope Boniface,2 who held Messer Geri in the highest esteem, sent a delegation of his courtiers to Florence on urgent papal affairs, they took lodging under Messer Geri’s roof; and almost every morning, for one reason or another, it so happened that Messer Geri and the Pope’s emissaries were obliged by the nature of their business to walk past the Church of Santa Maria Ughi,3 beside which Cisti had his bakery, where he practised his calling in person.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  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 gates 4 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.’ On these and other matters they conversed for a while, until supper was served and Messer Torello invited them to take their places at table; and albeit the meal was impromptu, it was splendidly arranged and they dined exceedingly well.

• 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 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 The Decameron (1353)

  As with the seven young ladies, a key attribute of the three young men whose company they enlist is their intelligence, as seen in Pampinea’s remarks on first catching sight of the trio: ‘See how Fortune favours us right from the beginning, in setting before us three young men of courage and intelligence [discreti giovani e valorosi], who will readily act as our guides and servants if we are not too proud to accept them.’ The reference to Fortune is significant, coming immediately after the initial description of the three young men, in which the author lays special emphasis on the strength of their affection for three of the ladies present. Implicit within this description is the concept, central to the poetry of the dolce stil novo, of the ennobling effects of love, for the trio are characterized as young men in whom neither the horrors of the times nor the loss of friends or relatives nor concern for their own safety has dampened the flames of love, much less extinguished them completely. Thus, as in the Prologue, we once again find the deliberate juxtaposition of the Decameron’s three central themes: Love, Fortune, Intelligence.

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

  If there ever was a sincere, earnest, conscientious monk, it was Martin Luther. His sole motive was concern for his salvation. To this supreme object he sacrificed the fairest prospects of life. He was dead to the world and was willing to be buried out of the sight of men that he might win eternal life. His latter opponents who knew him in convent, have no charge to bring against his moral character except a certain pride and combativeness, and he himself complained of his temptations to anger and envy.124 It was not without significance that the order which he joined, bore the honored name of the greatest Latin father who, next to St. Paul, was to be Luther’s chief teacher of theology and religion; but it is an error to suppose that this order represented the anti-Pelagian or evangelical views of the North African father; on the contrary it was intensely catholic in doctrine, and given to excessive worship of the Virgin Mary, and obedience to the papal see which conferred upon it many special privileges. St. Augustin, after his conversion, spent several weeks with some friends in quiet seclusion on a country-seat near Tagaste, and after his election to the priesthood, at Hippo in 391, he established in a garden a sort of convent where with like-minded brethren and students he led an ascetic life of prayer, meditation and earnest, study of the Scriptures, yet engaged at the same time in all the public duties of a preacher, pastor and leader in the theological controversies and ecclesiastical affairs of his age. His example served as an inspiration and furnished a sort of authority to several monastic associations which arose in the thirteenth century. Pope Alexander IV. (1256) gave them the so-called rule of St. Augustin. They belonged to the mendicant monks, like the Dominicans, Franciscans and Carmelites. They laid great stress on preaching. In other respects they differed little from other monastic orders. In the beginning of the sixteenth century they numbered more than a hundred settlements in Germany. The Augustinian congregation in Saxony was founded in 1493, and presided over since 1503 by John von Staupitz, the Vicar-General for Germany, and Luther’s friend. The convent at Erfurt was the largest and most important next to that at Nürnberg. The monks were respected for their zeal in preaching, pastoral care, and theological study. They lived on alms, which they collected themselves in the town and surrounding country. Applicants were received as novices for a year of probation, during which they could reconsider their resolution; afterward they were bound by perpetual vows of celibacy, poverty and obedience to their superiors.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  THIRD STORY Three young men squander their fortunes, reducing themselves to penury. A nephew of theirs, left penniless, is on his way home when he falls in with an abbot, whom he discovers to be the daughter of the King of England. She later marries him and makes good all the losses suffered by his uncles, restoring them to positions of honour. The whole company, men and ladies alike, listened with admiration to the adventures of Rinaldo d’Asti, commending his piety and giving thanks to God and Saint Julian, who had come to his rescue in the hour of his greatest need. Nor, moreover, was the lady considered to have acted foolishly (even though nobody openly said so) for the way she had accepted the blessing that God had left on her doorstep. And while everyone was busy talking, with half- suppressed mirth, about the pleasant night the lady had spent, Pampinea, finding herself next to Filostrato and realizing rightly that it would be her turn to speak next, collected her thoughts together and started planning what to say. And upon receiving the queen’s command, she began, in a manner no less confident than it was lively, to speak as follows: Excellent ladies, if the ways of Fortune are carefully examined, it will be seen that the more one discusses her actions, the more remains to be said. Nor is this surprising, when you pause to consider that she controls all the affairs we unthinkingly call our own, and that consequently it is she who arranges and rearranges them after her own inscrutable fashion, constantly moving them now in one direction, now in another, then back again, without following any discernible plan. The truth of this assertion is clearly illustrated by everything that happens in the space of a single day, as well as being borne out by some of the previous stories. Nevertheless, since our queen has decreed that we should speak on this particular theme, I shall add to the tales already told a story of my own, from which my listeners will possibly derive some profit, and which in my opinion ought to prove entertaining. In our city there once lived a nobleman named Messer Tebaldo, who according to some people belonged to the Lamberti family, whilst others maintain he was an Agolanti, 1 perhaps for the simple reason that Tebaldo’s son later followed a profession with which the Agolanti family has always been associated and which it practises to this day. But leaving aside the question to which of the two families he belonged, I can tell you that he was one of the wealthiest nobles of his time, and that he had three sons, of whom the first was called Lamberto, the second Tebaldo, and the third Agolante. These three had grown into fine and mettlesome youths, the eldest being not yet eighteen, when Messer Tebaldo died very rich, and they inherited all of his lands, houses and movables.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Acknowledging defeat, Saladin and his companions dismounted, and after being welcomed by the gentlemen, they were gaily conveyed to the rooms which had been sumptuously prepared to receive them. They then divested themselves of their travelling attire, and, having taken a little refreshment, made their way to the banqueting hall, where everything was magnificently arranged. Having washed their hands, with all due pomp and ceremony they were ushered to their places at table, where they were plied with numerous dishes, each of them so exquisitely served that if the Emperor himself had been present, it would not have been possible to entertain him more handsomely. And even though Saladin and his two companions were mighty lords, accustomed to extraordinary acts of homage, they none the less marvelled at this one, which, considering the quality of the knight, whom they knew to be no prince, but a private citizen, seemed to them as magnificent as any they had ever seen. When the meal was over, the tables were cleared and they talked learnedly together until, at Messer Torello’s suggestion, it being very hot, all the gentlemen of Pavia went home to take their siesta, leaving him alone with his three visitors. And so that none of his treasures should remain hidden from their eyes, he escorted them into another room and sent for his excellent lady. She was a tall and very beautiful woman, and, decked in sumptuous robes, flanked by her two small children, who looked for all the world like angels, she came before them and charmingly paid her respects. No sooner did she appear than the gentlemen rose to their feet, greeted her with deference, and invited her to sit in their midst, making much ado over her enchanting little children. And after entering upon a pleasant conversation with the three visitors, in the course of which Messer Torello got up and left them alone together, she graciously inquired whence they had come and whither they were bound, whereupon the gentlemen gave her the answer they had already given to Messer Torello. The lady smiled, and said: ‘Then I see that my woman’s instinct may well have its uses, for I want to ask you a special favour, namely, that you will neither refuse nor despise the trifling gift that I shall cause to be brought to you. On the contrary, I beg you to accept it, but you must bear in mind that a woman’s heart is not so large as a man’s, and her gifts are correspondingly smaller. So I trust you will pay more heed to the donor’s good intentions than to the size of the gift.’ She then sent for two pairs of robes for each of the guests, one lined with silk and the other with fur, all of a quality more suited to a prince than to any merchant or private citizen. And these she presented to the gentlemen, along with three silken jackets and small-clothes, saying:

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

  By the general consent of Protestants, Jerome Savonarola is numbered among the precursors of the Reformation,—the view taken by Ranke. He was not an advocate of its distinguishing tenet of justification by faith. The Roman church was for him the mother of all other churches and the pope its head. In his Triumph of the Cross, he distinctly asserts the seven sacraments as an appointment of Christ and that Christ is "wholly and essentially present in each of the eucharistic elements." Nevertheless, he was an innovator and his exaltation of divine grace accords with the teaching of the Reformation. Here all Protestants would have fellowship with him as when he said:1214 — It is untrue that God’s grace is obtained by pre-existing works of merit as though works and deserts were the cause of predestination. On the contrary, these are the result of predestination. Tell me, Peter; tell me, O Magdalene, wherefore are ye in paradise? Confess that not by your own merits have ye obtained salvation, but by the goodness of God. Passages abound in his Meditations like this one. "Not by their own deservings, O Lord, or by their own works have they been saved, lest any man should be able to boast, but because it seemed good in Thy sight." Speaking of Savonarola’s Exposition of the Psalms, Luther said that, although some clay still stuck to Savonarola’s theology, it is a pure and beautiful example of what is to be believed, trusted and hoped from God’s mercy and how we come to despair of works. And the whole-souled German Reformer exclaimed, "Christ canonizes Savonarola through us even though popes and papists burst to pieces over it."1215 The sculptor has given him a place at the feet of Luther and at the side of Wyclif and Huss in the monument of the Reformation at Worms. When Catholics, who heard that this was proposed, wrote to show the impropriety of including the Florentine Dominican in such company, Rietschel consulted Hase on the subject. The venerable Church historian replied, "It makes no difference whether they counted Savonarola a heretic or a saint, he was in either case a precursor of the Reformation and so Luther recognized him."1216

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

  But other contemporary reports give the whole sentence, though in different order of the words. See the comparative table of Burkhardt, I.c. pp. 525–529. A German report (reprinted in the Erl. -Frkf. ed., vol. LXIV. p. 383) gives as the last words of Luther (in reply to Eck): "Gott kumm mir zu Hilf! Amen. Da bin ich." The words "Da bin ich" (Here I am) are found also in another source. Mathesius reports the full sentence as coming from the lips of Luther in 1540. In a German contemporary print and on a fly-leaf in the University library of Heidelberg (according to Köstlin), the sentence appears in this order: "Ich kann nicht anders; hier steh’ ich; Gott helfe mir." In the first edition of Luther’s Latin works, published 1546, the words appear in the present order: "Hier steh’ ich," etc. In this form they have passed into general currency. Köstlin concludes that the only question is about the order of words, and whether they were spoken at the close of his main declaration, or a little afterwards at the close of the Diet. I have adopted the latter view, which agrees with the contemporary German report above quoted. Kolde, in his monograph on Luther at Worms (p. 60), agrees substantially with Köstlin, and says: "Wir wissen nicht mehr, in welchem Zusammenhang diese Worte gesprochen worden sind, auch können sie vielleicht etwas anders gelautet haben; bei der herrschenden Unruhe hat der eine Berichterstatter den Ausspruch so, der andere ihn so verstanden; sicherlich drückten sie zu gleicher Zeit seine felsenfeste Überzeugung von der Wahrheit seines in sich gewissen Glaubens aus, wie das Bewusstsein, dass hier nur Gott helfen könne." § 56. Reflections on Luther’s Testimony at Worms. Luther’s testimony before the Diet is an event of world-historical importance and far-reaching effect. It opened an intellectual conflict which is still going on in the civilized world. He stood there as the fearless champion of the supremacy of the word of God over the traditions of men, and of the liberty of conscience over the tyranny of authority. For this liberty, all Protestant Christians, who enjoy the fruit of his courage, owe him a debt of gratitude. His recantation could not, any more than his martyrdom, have stopped the Reformation; but it would have retarded its progress, and indefinitely prolonged the oppressive rule of popery. When tradition becomes a wall against freedom, when authority degenerates into tyranny, the very blessing is turned into a curse, and history is threatened with stagnation and death.382 At such rare junctures, Providence raises those pioneers of progress, who have the intellectual and moral courage to break through the restraints at the risk of their lives, and to open new paths for the onward march of history. This consideration furnishes the key for the proper appreciation of Luther’s determined stand at this historical crisis.

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

  Barbarossa was a man of middle size, bright countenance, fair complexion, yellow hair and reddish beard, a kind friend and placable enemy, strictly just, though often too severe, liberal in almsgiving, attentive to his religious duties, happy in his second marriage, of the noblest type of mediaeval chivalry, the greatest sovereign of the twelfth century, a hero in fact and a hero in romance.148 He came into Italy with the sword of Germany in one hand and the Justinian code in the other, but failed in subduing the political independence of the Lombard cities, and in his contest with the spiritual power of Alexander. The German imagination has cherished his memory in song and story, placing him next in rank to Charles the Great among the Roman emperors, exaggerating his virtues, condoning his faults, which were those of his age, and hoping for his return to restore the unity and power of Germany. § 31. Thomas Becket and Henry II of England. For the extensive Becket literature, see Robertson, in "The Contemporary Review," 1866, I. (Jan.) 270–278, and Ulysse Chevalier, in his Répertoire des sources historiques du Moyen Age (Paris, 1886), s. v. "Thomas," fol. 2207–2209. I. Sources: — *Materials for the History of Thomas `a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. Edited by James Craigie Robertson (Canon of Canterbury, d. 1882) and J. Brigstocke Sheppard, LL. D. London, 1875–1885, 7 vols. This magnificent work is part of a series of Rerum Britannic. Medii Aevi Scriptores, or "Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages," published under direction of the Master of the Rolls and popularly known as the "Rolls Series." It embraces all the important contemporary materials for the history of Thomas. Vols. I.-IV. contain the contemporary Vitae (by William of Canterbury, Benedict of Peterborough, Edward Grim, Roger of Pontigny, William Fitz-Stephen, John of Salisbury, Alan of Tewkesbury, and Herbert of Bosham, etc.); vols. V.-VII., the Epistolae, i.e. the whole correspondence relating to Thomas. This collection is much more accurate, complete, and better arranged (especially in the Epistles) than the older collection of Dr. Giles (Sanctus Thomas Cantuariensis, London, 1845–1846, 8 vols., reprinted in Migne’s Patrologia, Tom. 190), and the Quadrilogus or Historia Quadripartita (Lives by four contemporary writers, composed by order of Pope Gregory XI., first published, 1495, then by L. Christian Lupus or Wolf, Brussels, 1682, and Venice, 1728). Thómas Saga Erkibyskups. A Life of Archb. Th. Becket in Icelandic, with Engl. transl., notes, and glossary, ed. by Eiríkr Magnússon. London, 1875, and 1883, 2 vols. Part of the "Chronicles and Memorials," above quoted. Garnier of Pont Sainte-Maxence: La Vie de St. Thomas le martir. A metrical life, in old French, written between 1172 and 1174, published by Hippeau, and more recently by Professor Bekker, Berlin, 1844, and Paris, 1859. The Life And Martyrdom Of Thomas Becket by Robert of Gloucester. Ed. By W. H. Black. London, 1845 (p. 141). A Biography In Alexandrine verse, written in the thirteenth century. II.