Questions tagged [italian-language]

Questions regarding literature originally written in Italian, regardless of whether they were written or published in Italy or elsewhere.

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Do the young women and men of the Decameron represent the Virtues and sections of the soul?

The Wikipedia page on the Decameron claims that: Many details of the Decameron are infused with a medieval sense of numerological and mystical significance.[9] For example, it is widely believed[by ...
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In Foucault's Pendulum, by what method does the translation choose to keep or translate Italian?

Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco was originally written in Italian. Most of the book was translated to English, except for the parts that weren't in Italian to begin with. I understand that ...
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8 votes
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What do the names of the Decameron characters signify?

The Wikipedia page for the Decameron claims (without citations) that: Boccaccio himself notes that the names he gives for these ten characters are in fact pseudonyms chosen as "appropriate to ...
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Who are these crescent saints?

In the Decameron Day 2 Story 7, the protagonist is a princess of "Babylon" who has numerous sexual misadventures after getting shipwrecked on the way to be married. She is, I believe, ...
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Necessity or benefits of reading Livy before Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy?

Niccolò Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy, written between 1513 and 1519, are not as famous as The Prince, but possibly his best work. Its Italian title, Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio, ...
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Cappello, Cepparello, Ciapperello, Ciappelletto - what's it all about?

Day 1 Story 1 of the Decameron is about a very bad man who makes a false confession just before his death and ends up being lauded as a saint. This man goes by many closely related names, but I don't ...
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Where did Boccaccio refer to Dante's Comedia or Commedia as the Divine Comedy?

The English Wikipedia article about Dante's Divine Comedy contains the following paragraph, which contains a statement that has no source (emphasis mine): The work was originally simply titled ...
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How much of the English history in this Decameron story has any basis in fact?

Day 2 Story 3 of the Decameron is a story which deeply involves the English royal family. I don't know how much contact there was between England and Italy in the 14th century, or how much care an ...
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