The Story of Lionbruno: Historia Di Lionbruno - Hardcover

Cirino

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0919486401 ISBN 13: 9780919486409

Publisher: Toronto Public Library, 1976

Synopsis

The Historia di Lionbruno was composed late in the 1300's by an author, since identified as an otherwise obscure Cirino of Ancona. It became one of the most popular of the cantari, stories in rhymed octaves recited from one end of Italy to the other by cantastorie, not storytellers but storysingers, to a simple tune accompanied by a lute. The tales were written for adult audiences and had such wide appeal to all classes that they were among the first secular works in the vernacular to be printed when the art reached Italy about 1465. The edition of Lionbru no in the Osborne Collection is the earliest known and is the only printed version in the Venetian dialect; all others are in Tuscan. The story went through innumerable editions. One of its claims to distinction is that it is the first appearance in print of the Cloak of Darkness and of what are generally known as the Seven-League Boots, a name bestowed on them in a later fairy tale. The invocation to God and the religious element throughout the poem are typical of mediaeval poetry. The opening episode is common in the folktale: the fisherman's bargain with the devil, who as usual is cheated of his prey. Then follows the story of a mortal's union with an immortal spouse, best known through the much earlier tale of Cupid and Psyche by Apuleius. Here, as in many mediaeval versions, the sexes are reversed, and it is a supernatural lady, Madonna Aquilina (her name means young eagle), who bears away a boy to her enchanted land. The prowess of the youth, his training in arms, his triumph at the tournament in Granada, and the boasting contest are borrowed from French romances of chivalry. Like the heroine of Beauty and the Beast, he longs to visit his family, and the familiar theme of the taboo imposes a limit on his absence and prohibits him from mentioning his bride. His tribulations in rejoining the radiant lady he has disobeyed involve the episode of the robbers and the magic objects over which they quarrel...

About this edition

• Publisher: Toronto Public Library
• Publication date: 1976
• ISBN 10: 0919486401
• ISBN 13: 9780919486409
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 40