Masuccio Salernitano


Masuccio Salernitano

 

(pen name of Tommaso Guardati). Born circa 1420 in Salerno; died there circa 1475. Italian author.

Masuccio Salernitano’s collection Novellino (published 1476) is one of the most important works of Renaissance prose. His model for it was Boccaccio’s Decameron; however, he was inferior to Boccaccio in the art of depicting characters. His short stories are realistic and anticlerical, for which they were condemned by the church.

WORKS

Il novellino. Edited by G. Petrocchi. Florence, 1957.
In Russian translation:
Novellino. Translated by S. S. Mokul’skii, with an introduction by A. K. Dzhivelegov. Moscow-Leningrad, 1931.

REFERENCES

Ovett, A. Ital’ianskaia literatura. Moscow, 1922.
Petrocchi, G. M. Guardati e la narrativa napoletana del Quattrocento. Florence, 1953.

R. I. KHLODOVSKII