Masuccio Salernitano
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Masuccio Salernitano (1410–1475), born Tommaso Guardati, was an Italian poet. Born in
Salerno Salerno (, ; ; ) is an ancient city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Campania, southwestern Italy, and is the capital of the namesake province, being the second largest city in the region by number of inhabitants, after Naples. It is located ...
or
Sorrento Sorrento ( , ; ; ) is a City status in Italy, city and overlooking the Gulf of Naples, Bay of Naples in Southern Italy. A popular tourist destination, Sorrento is located on the Sorrentine Peninsula at the southern terminus of a main branch o ...
, he is best known today for ''Il Novellino'', a collection of 50 "novelle" or short stories, each prefaced by a letter of dedication to a famous person and with an epilogue containing the "moral" of the story. The stories have a strongly anti-clerical bent, which caused ''Il Novellino'' to be included in the first '' Index of Prohibited Books'' in 1557. The 33rd of these stories is the story of ''Mariotto and Ganozza'', which was apparently adapted by Luigi da Porto (1485–1529) first as ''Giulietta e Romeo'' and later as ''Historia novellamente ritrovata di due nobili amanti'' ("Newly retrieved story of two noble lovers"). These three stories, plus another later version by Matteo Bandello and the English translation by Arthur Brooke in the poem ''Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet'' (1562) appear to be the sources for Shakespeare's famous play ''
Romeo and Juliet ''The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet'', often shortened to ''Romeo and Juliet'', is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare about the romance between two young Italians from feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's ...
''.


References


"Shakespeare in Love"—The Italian Connection
by Nicholas A. Patricca


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Salernitano, Masuccio 1410 births 1475 deaths People from Salerno 15th-century Italian poets Italian male poets Italian novelists Romeo and Juliet