In the Labyrinth

Plank'd and Research

One of the greatest pleasures is reading Sicilian folktales midday while drunk on a dense-full-bodied beer (16.2 percent) produced locally in Boulder. Like the beer, the stories are rowdy, naughty, mythic, and full of gullible and wise fools who make donkeys appear to shit gold, drive menial men to do self-destructive things and conspire to make foolish heroes into better men as they chase after fantastic brides. Is there any better Sunday to spend than drunk researching the new novel?

The Marginalia of Flowers

These lovely Medieval flowers are always swoon-worthy in the margins of various Book of Hours, sometimes in medical texts, sometimes in gardening books. I can never get enough of looking at these beautiful images and feeling inspired, mostly to embroider May Morris-style textiles. They are helpful when writing historical fiction, for they reveal the unique preoccupation with flowers, each of which has medical and social significance. It is just those small details that provide a certain weight and body to describe a place, an action taken, a letter written, or the evolution of a plot based on the underlying language of flowers.

Startling Moments from Basile That Still Ring True

I am having a wonderful time reading 16th-century Basile's splendid introductions to stories in his Tales of Tales. And while the tales are wicked-wonderful, these observations on the human condition have me enthralled -- I suspect because they remain surprisingly current. Plus ça change...

"...artisans leave their shops, merchants their trade, lawyers their cases, shopkeepers their businesses to go with open mouth to the barber shops and circle of gossipers to hear false news, invented notices, fabricated news sheets."   Basile describes this as a pleasant activity, listening to fabricated stories and tales and passing the time. But in this day and age, I went first to the current misuse of story, not to distract us entertainingly, but to politicize, weaponize, and invent to thwart one's public enemies. 

"We see crooked and judge straight, but it is so difficult to apply it that few human judgments hit the nail on the head... " Basile, IV, 9, The Crow. 16th c.

 

"Ingratitude, ladies, is a rusty nail which, hammered into the tree of courtesy, makes it dry up; it is a broken drain which wets and weakens the foundations of affection; it is soot which, falling into the cooking pot of friendship takes away fragrance and flavor." Basile "Cagliuso."

Notes, References From Janet Smarr's Italian Renaissance Tales

This is a terrific collection, short enough to read all the stories, ranging from tragic ("The Duchess of Malta") to naughty, lewd, and full of fools. These are selections taken from historical collections that span the 1300s to 1600s. Since my interest lies in the 1500s --most of these notes and references are from groups from those years. 

Luigi Da Porto(1485--1529) Sometimes, the writer's introduction to the story is more interesting than the story itself. He writes of being a young man, a soldier at arms who rode with an archer named Peregrino, a man much older than him, and who chastised the soldier for his misery in love.

"Do you always want to live melancholy because a cruel beauty with feigned demonstrations cares little for you? And though I often speak contrary to what I do because it is easier to advise than to follow it, I will tell you, my captain, not only is it unbecoming for you who are in the army to spend a long time in the prison of Love, but also so wretched are almost all ends to which Love leads that it is perilous to follow him. And in witness of this, if it should please you, I could tell you a story that happened in my city (Verona) ... in which you will hear how two noble lovers were led to a wretched and pitiful death." 

Peregrino then recounts one of the many famous versions of Romeo and Juliette. 

Giovan Francesco Straparola da Caravaggio (148-1558)  As part of his collection, he establishes a frame story for the storytelling that goes on within it -- a very Italian conceit, I think, as so many collectors and re-tellers of popular folktales and romantic stories, perhaps found it more engaging for a literate class even though it is seen a divertente (a pleasant diversion). A group of noblemen and women gather at the Venetian Palace of Ottaviano over thirteen nights during Carnivale to entertain each other with stories. (Straparola gives an extended introduction to the principals at this gathering, establishing that while the tales have their rugged and, at times, vulgar characteristics, they are elevated by the splendor of the palace surroundings and the status of the participants sharing the stories. ( p 159, the list of who is there)

Father Scarpacifico, Duped Only Once by Three Rogues, Dupes Them Back Three Times and Lives Happily Ever After With His Nina. One of the best trickster tales in the book, when a trio of rogues succeeds in tricking Scapacifico, his revenge tricks are outrageous and dangerous to the rogues. (Note to self -- What is the joke in trying to trick Scarpacifico into believing his mule is an ass? This must be a common ploy elsewhere, but how is it funny? ) He, in turn, manages to convince them that his goat understands when the priest tells it to take home the food he has purchased and tells Nina to cook a feast. He invites the rogues home for the meal, which Nina cooks (understanding the ruse.) The rogues pay a small fortune to buy the goat, and of course, it doesn't go as they thought, and their wives mock them. The priest then pretends to "kill"  Nina (a bladder of blood under her dress) and "revives" her from death by placing a pipe between her buttocks and pretending to blow her back to life. Rogues purchase the line and then manage to kill their wives. Several more deceptions occur, which kill all of the rogues. The cleverness of the trickster, the setups, the stupidity, and usually greed of the dupes all make it darkly funny. 

The King's Son, who is Born as a Pig, Marries Three Times, Eventually Puts Off His Pig Skin, and is A Handsome Young Man: pg 168 (cf Three Sisters -- Battista and Swine Herder transformed into a Boar.) It is a fascinating rite of passage tale for the prince. Three marriages, each with a flaw: the two sister-brides are not interested in love or the prince due to his hideous form as a pig (he shits the bed regularly for one thing), but they agree to the marriages for the prestige and wealth of aristocracy. The first two plot to kill him, but he can hear their thoughts, so he kills them with his tusks. The third daughter is kind and loving and indulges all his piggishness; she does not secretly harbor violent ideas in her thoughts. The Pig King tests her, and when he is sure of her faithfulness, he finally reveals his true self and removes the skin. He is pretty handsome as a human, and in short order, the bride becomes pregnant. The Queen is astonished, and the bride finally reveals her husband's secret disguise. The Queen then arranges to spy on him and see this for herself, and when she does, she removes and destroys the skin (think Monkey Girl et al.,) and the young prince is ready to take his place as a man, a husband, and a father.  The fairies play a role here, too -- putting on the spell, helping take off the attack. They show up whenever there is a need for a change in the status quo -- alternating between creating conflict and assisting when the time is right to resolve it. 

The Menacing Virgins: The Commodification of Marriage and Birth II

    Here is an interesting perspective on the complexities of transforming a virtuous maiden into a chaste but sexually productive matron. "How does a maiden shift from bride to matron and" pay the marital debt?" Cristelle Baskins asks in her article "Il Trionfo della Pudicizia" (The Triumph of Modesty), a fascinating study of the economic exchanges negotiated before and after marriage. Baskins also examines the type of goods provided in the exchange that sought to educate the couple on their marital proper roles and reinforce the marriage bond through art.

    "In those negotiations concerning marital chastity, Elizabeth Cohen reminds us, the language of debt, payment, and exchange makes virginity a commodity. Fifteenth and sixteenth wedding furniture, including elaborately painted and historiated lettucci (beds), cassoni (dowry chests), and spalliere (wains-coating), is a domestic commodity employed in conspicuous consumption; it also offers an opportunity to examine Renaissance marriage ideology through the visual imagery geared for the primary spectatorship of brides and grooms." (118)

   Among the upper classes, it was expected that husbands would demonstrate their status and wealth by purchasing elaborately painted wedding furniture, commissioning religious paintings and sculptures, and deshi da parto (birthing trays), which were also painted and given as a gift for a new mother. It would also launch the future husband as a cultured man, purchasing expensive art. The subject matter of the art would have been carefully selected to reflect both the couples' status and "aimed to elucidate using example and perhaps even more concretely to inspire the conception of children and thus the expansion of the patriline. The most popular choice of art, it seems, was a reproduction of the Triumph of Modesty, a poem cycle written by Francesco Petrarca in the 1340s -- describing Cupid/Love being vanquished by Laura/Chastity and often appeared in horizontal panels on a cassoni.  

    "A fifteenth-century Florentine bride would have viewed Petrachan Trionfi on painted wedding furniture with a particular set of expectations and associations; her temporary triumph in the form of a bridal procession prefaced the conquest of her virginity and her transformation into a sexually active spouse...the Petrachan Trionfi trace a development from physical, sexual love to the renunciation of Cupid...For them (the brides), the state of innocence must be overcome but only by a chastened, disciplined conjugal love, not by the irresponsible, unpredictable passion inspired by Cupid." The art on the furniture was meant to "conceal the lack of fit between occasion and subject and thus, to blur the distinction between compliment and coercion...the pictures must simultaneously encourage the bride to abandon her fiercely maintained chastity to the needs of the patriline and yet, renounce illicit, physical passion."

But, to make sure the bride could be gently enticed, there was also an abundance of cassoni which, while it showed marriage events on the outside (and sometimes martial battles,) under the lid were erotic paintings of men and women nude doing the things married couples generally do when trying to create the next generation. More on the cassoni coming up with the next post (along with more on the art of the battle between Cupid and Chastity, cassoni, and birthing trays. 

"Il Trionfo della Pudicizia: Menacing Virgins in the Italian Renaissance Domestic Painting" by Christelle L. Baskins in Refiguring Woman: Perspectives on Gender and the Italian Renaissance, by Marilyn Migiel (Editor), Juliana Schiesari (Editor)

The Menacing Virgins: Chastity Before and After Marriage, I

    Menacing Virgins (ed. Kathleen Coyne Kelly and Marina Leslie) is a beautiful collection of essays on 16th-century attitudes and traditions regarding female chastity and conjugal sex before and after marriage. These customs are inscribed by two other considerations: the honor of the household and virginity as a form of commodity that engenders an exchange of goods, debt, and payments. The bride should exhibit the virtues of her status: vagine, onesta, casta, virginity, honesty, and social class.  When marital sex becomes a requirement of marriage, purity should be expressed through public modesty and private sexual restraint. In this first half of the essay, Cristelle L. Baskins examines (mostly male) attitudes toward female sexuality in the Renaissance. (*note to self, compare these attitudes to the women writers of the period.)

    Research Notes from "Il Trionfo della Pudicizia: Menacing Virgins in Italian Renaissance Paintings" by Christelle L. Baskins: 

    Quotes from the 14th to the 16th century, written by men on the proper behavior for women, reveal a concern should the wife fail to behave illegally, she would, in effect, betray her husband's honor and that of her children. And probably, financial concerns as marriages saw exchanges of money and goods before weddings, brides contributing dowries (paid out over time only if the union remained a moral activity), husbands providing housing, and copious amounts of art and wedding furniture. (*note to self -- look up more information on the "Desco da Parto" birthing trays given as a wedding gift for the bride.)  

    Paolo da Certaldo: compares a woman's virtue to a beautiful flower and a husband's crown." (14th C). Francesco da Barbaro tells wives to "at least seem to be chaste in that sort of temperance from which chastity is derived...lust and unseemly desire are harmful to their dignity and to their husbands even when they say nothing about it." ("On Wifely Duties" 1416) (117).  Leon Battista Alberti: "Nothing is so important for yourself, so acceptable to God, so pleasing to me, and precious in the sight of your children as your virtue. The woman's character is the jewel of her family...per purity has always far outweighed her beauty. (Delle Famiglia, 1440) (117) Baldassare Castiglione's dialogue, "Il Cortegiano" (1528), ponders the construction of exemplary female virtue in the service of men. In the dialogues debating women's chastity, Giuliano de Medici challenges a misogynist Gasparo: "But if you acknowledge the truth, you surely know that of our authority, we men have arrogated to ourselves a license, whereby we insist that in us the same sins are most trivial and sometimes deserve praise which in women cannot be sufficiently punished unless by a shameful death or at least perpetual infamy." (117)

    By the middle of the 16th century, the ambivalent attitude toward female sexuality intensified as "every gesture towards purity of the text or the body risks further contamination and pollution. Virginity emerges in Renaissance discourse, then, as a site for the exercise of misogynistic assumptions about women's limited capacity for sexual restraint. "  Francesco da Barbaro echoes an ongoing need to contain his wife's sexuality by requiring that even in her thoughts "...see that you never want another man to share this bed but me." 118)