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Il Guerrin Meschino
''Il Guerrin Meschino'' ("Wretched Guerrin") is an Italian prose Romance (heroic literature), chivalric romance with some elements of Verisimilitude (literature), verisimilitude, written by the Italy, Italian ''cantastorie'', systematizer and translator from French Andrea da Barberino, who completed it about 1410. The text in eight chapter-length books circulated widely in manuscript before its first printing, in Padua, in 1473. It was a late contribution to the "Matter of France" that appealed to aristocratic audiences and their emulators among the upper bourgeoisie. In a departure from Andrea's other known romances, there are no discernible French or Franco-Venetian sources for this narrative, which unfolds instead in the manner of a Travel literature, travel account. It draws for its details on a variety of predecessors, such as, for the oracular Tree of the Sun and the Moon, the Alexander romances, and—outside the romance tradition—on Dante's ''Divine Comedy'', on the "na ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chivalry
Chivalry, or the chivalric code, is an informal and varying code of conduct developed in Europe between 1170 and 1220. It was associated with the medieval Christianity, Christian institution of knighthood; knights' and gentlemen's behaviours were governed by chivalrous social codes. The ideals of chivalry were popularized in medieval literature, particularly the literary cycles known as the Matter of France, relating to the legendary companions of Charlemagne and his men-at-arms, the paladins, and the Matter of Britain, informed by Geoffrey of Monmouth's ''Historia Regum Britanniae'', written in the 1130s, which popularized the legend of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table. All of these were taken as historically accurate until the beginnings of modern scholarship in the 19th century. The code of chivalry that developed in medieval Europe had its roots in earlier centuries. It arose in the Carolingian Empire from the idealisation of the cavalryman—involving mili ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quattrocento
The cultural and artistic events of Italy during the period 1400 to 1499 are collectively referred to as the Quattrocento (, , ) from the Italian word for the number 400, in turn from , which is Italian for the year 1400. The Quattrocento encompasses the artistic styles of the late Middle Ages (most notably International Gothic), the early Renaissance (beginning around 1425), and the start of the High Renaissance, generally asserted to begin between 1495 and 1500. Historical context After the decline of the Western Roman Empire in 476, economic disorder and disruption of trade spread across Europe. This was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages, which lasted roughly until the 11th century, when trade increased, population began to expand and the people regained their authority. In the late Middle Ages, the political structure of the European continent slowly coalesced from small, turbulent fiefdoms into larger, more stable nation states ruled by monarchies. In Italy, urban ce ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sibyl
The sibyls (, singular ) were prophetesses or oracles in Ancient Greece. The sibyls prophesied at holy sites. A sibyl at Delphi has been dated to as early as the eleventh century BC by PausaniasPausanias 10.12.1 when he described local traditions in his writings from the second century AD. At first, there appears to have been only a single sibyl. By the fourth century BC, there appear to have been at least three more, Phrygian, Erythraean, and Hellespontine. By the first century BC, there were at least ten sibyls, located in Greece, Italy, the Levant, and Asia Minor. History The English word ''sibyl'' ( or ) is from Middle English, via the Old French and the Latin from the ancient Greek (). Varro derived the name from an Aeolic ''sioboulla'', the equivalent of Attic ''theobule'' ("divine counsel"). This etymology is still widely accepted, although there have been alternative proposals in nineteenth-century philology suggesting Old Italic or Semitic derivation. The fi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apennines
The Apennines or Apennine Mountains (; grc-gre, links=no, Ἀπέννινα ὄρη or Ἀπέννινον ὄρος; la, Appenninus or – a singular with plural meaning;''Apenninus'' (Greek or ) has the form of an adjective, which would be segmented ''Apenn-inus'', often used with nouns such as ("mountain") or Greek (), but ''Apenninus'' is just as often used alone as a noun. The ancient Greeks and Romans typically but not always used "mountain" in the singular to mean one or a range; thus, "the Apennine mountain" refers to the entire chain and is translated "the Apennine mountains". The ending can vary also by gender depending on the noun modified. The Italian singular refers to one of the constituent chains rather than to a single mountain, and the Italian plural refers to multiple chains rather than to multiple mountains. it, Appennini ) are a mountain range consisting of parallel smaller chains extending along the length of peninsular Italy. In the northwest th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monte Sibilla
Monte Sibilla is a mountain of Marche, Italy. It is located in the southeast corner of the Sibillini Mountains National Park, a branch of the Central Italian Apennines. It is associated with the Italian version of the legend of Sebile Sebile, alternatively written as Sedile, Sebille, Sibilla, Sibyl, Sybilla, and other similar names, is a mythical medieval queen or princess who is frequently portrayed as a fairy or an enchantress in the Arthurian legends and Italian folklore. ... (Sibilla). Mountains of Marche Mountains of the Apennines {{Marche-geo-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grotto
A grotto is a natural or artificial cave used by humans in both modern times and antiquity, and historically or prehistorically. Naturally occurring grottoes are often small caves near water that are usually flooded or often flooded at high tide. Sometimes, artificial grottoes are used as garden features. The '' Grotta Azzurra'' at Capri and the grotto at Tiberius' Villa Jovis in the Bay of Naples are examples of popular natural seashore grottoes. Whether in tidal water or high up in hills, grottoes are generally made up of limestone geology, where the acidity of standing water has dissolved the carbonates in the rock matrix as it passes through what were originally small fissures. Etymology The word ''grotto'' comes from Italian ''grotta'', Vulgar Latin ''grupta'', and Latin ''crypta'' ("a crypt"). It is also related by a historical accident to the word ''grotesque''. In the late 15th century, Romans accidentally unearthed Nero's ''Domus Aurea'' on the Palatine Hill, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monte Vettore
Monte Vettore (from Latin ''Vector'', "carrier", "leader") is a mountain of the Umbro-marchigiano Apennine Mountains in Italy. It is the highest peak of the Sibillini massif. It is located in Ascoli piceno, Marche, Italy. Geography The southwestern side of Sibillini massif, including the Vettore peak, is in Sibillini Mountains National Park. Below the summit of Vettore lies a small glacial lake in a small enclosed valley between Redeemer Peak. History The local medieval tradition was that the Apennine Sibyl, a mysterious prophetess not counted among the Sibyls of Classical Antiquity, was condemned by God to dwell in a mountain cavern and await Judgement Day, having rebelled at the news that she had ''not'' been chosen Mother of God, but that some humble Judaean virgin had been favored. The peak of Monte Vettore, surrounded by reddish cliffs was recognized as the crown of ''Regina Sibilla.'' Less stringently Christian legend set her in an underworld paradise entered thr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bowdlerize
Expurgation, also known as bowdlerization, is a form of censorship that involves purging anything deemed noxious or offensive from an artistic work or other type of writing or media. The term ''bowdlerization'' is a pejorative term for the practice, particularly the expurgation of lewd material from books. The term derives from Thomas Bowdler's 1818 edition of William Shakespeare's plays, which he reworked in ways that he felt were more suitable for women and children. He similarly edited Edward Gibbon's '' Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire''. A ''fig-leaf edition'' is such a bowdlerized text, deriving from the practice of covering the genitals of nudes in classical and Renaissance statues and paintings with fig leaves. Examples Religious * In 1264, Pope Clement IV ordered the Jews of Aragon to submit their books to Dominican censors for expurgation. Sexual * " The Crabfish" (known also as "The Sea Crabb"), an English folk song dating back to the mid-1800s about a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Purgatory
Purgatory (, borrowed into English via Anglo-Norman and Old French) is, according to the belief of some Christian denominations (mostly Catholic), an intermediate state after physical death for expiatory purification. The process of purgatory is the final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned. Tradition, by reference to certain texts of scripture, sees the process as involving a cleansing fire. Some forms of Western Christianity, particularly within Protestantism, deny its existence. Other strands of Western Christianity see purgatory as a place, perhaps filled with fire. Some concepts of Gehenna in Judaism resemble those of purgatory. The word "purgatory" has come to refer to a wide range of historical and modern conceptions of postmortem suffering short of everlasting damnation. English-speakers also use the word in a non-specific sense to mean any place or condition of suffering or torment, especially one that is tempor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north; and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives; its Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand, Myanmar, and Indonesia. Modern humans arrived on the Indian subcontinent from Africa no later than 55,000 years ago., "Y-Chromosome and Mt-DNA data support the colonization of South Asia by modern humans originating in Africa. ... Coalescence dates for most non-European populations average to between 73–55 ka.", "Modern human beings—''Homo sapiens''—originated in Africa. Then, int ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prester John
Prester John ( la, Presbyter Ioannes) was a legendary Christian patriarch, presbyter, and king. Stories popular in Europe in the 12th to the 17th centuries told of a Nestorian patriarch and king who was said to rule over a Christian nation lost amid the pagans and Muslims in the Orient. The accounts were often embellished with various tropes of medieval popular fantasy, depicting Prester John as a descendant of the Three Magi, ruling a kingdom full of riches, marvels, and strange creatures. At first, Prester John was imagined to reside in India. Tales of the Nestorian Christians' evangelistic success there and of Thomas the Apostle's subcontinental travels as documented in works like the ''Acts of Thomas'' probably provided the first seeds of the legend. After the coming of the Mongols to the Western world, accounts placed the king in Central Asia, and eventually Portuguese explorers came to believe that the term was a reference to Ethiopia, by which time it had been an isolated C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
