Online Encyclopedia

MATTEO BANDELLO (1480-1562)

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Originally appearing in Volume V03, Page 311 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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MATTEO

BANDELLO (1480-1562)  ,
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Italian novelist, was born at Castelnuovo, near Tortona, about the
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year 1480 . He received a very careful
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education, and entered the church, though he does not seem to have prosecuted his theological course with
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great zeal . For many years he resided at Mantua, and superintended the education of the celebrated Lucrezia Gonzaga, in whose honour he composed a long poem . The decisive
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battle of Pavia, which gave
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Lombardy into the hands of the emperor, compelled Bandellb to fly; his house at Milan was burnt and his
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property confiscated . He took
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refuge with Cesare Fregoso, an Italian general in the French service, whom he accompanied into France . In 1550 he was raised to the bishopric of
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Agen, a
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town in whichhe resided for many years before his
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death in 1562 . Bandello wrote a number of poems, but his fame rests entirely upon his extensive collection of Novelle, or tales (1554, 1573), which have been extremely popular . They belong to that
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species of literature of which Boccaccio's Decameron and the queen of Navarre's Heptameron are, perhaps, the best known examples . The
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common origin of them all is to be found in the old French fabliaux, though some well-known tales are evidently Eastern, and others classical . Bandello's novels are esteemed the best of those written in imitation of the Decameron, though Italian critics find fault with them for negligence and inelegance of style . They have little value from a purely
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literary point of view, and many of them are disfigured by the grossest obscenity . Historically, however, they are of no little
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interest, not only from the insight into the social
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life of the period which they afford, but from the important influence they exercised on the Elizabethan drama .

The stories on which

Shakespeare based several of his plays were supplied by Bandello, probably through Belleforest or Paynter .

End of Article: MATTEO BANDELLO (1480-1562)
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