The Friar of Novara – Angolo Firenzuola (1493-1546)
One of the most brilliant of the Renaissance scholars and poets, Angolo Firenzuola belonged to the group that scandalized even his contem-poraries by associating with the notorious Aretino. Bom near Pistoja in Tuscany, he became, like many a worldly writer of his time, a monk, and he may even have risen to the dignity of abbot. He lived for a time in Rome and then returned to his native Tuscany, to the city of Prato. His poetry is still admired by the critics, and his scholarly achievements are mentioned with respect. But the best of his stories, are read with pleasure. He laid no claims to originality, and most of his plots he borrowed. The Friar of Novara is none the less a sprightly story.
The present version in translated by Thomas Roscoe, and reprinted from his Italian Novelists, London, no date. The story has no title in the original.
The Friar of Novara
It was a privilege enjoyed by the relater of the tenth or last story of the day, in Boccaccio’s Decameron, occasionally to leave the beaten track, and enter upon any fresh subject which might be thought most agreeable; an example which, in the present instance, as I am the last in the series, I intend to follow. Proclaiming a truce, therefore, to our love adventures, which have occupied us nearly the whole of the day, I wish to amuse you with some account of a certain friar of Novara who flourished about twenty years ago.
