Famous Women by Giovanni Boccaccio

Famous Women Reviews

• 
  Lena

  This book is marvelous fun.
  
  Look at the terrible things Circe (the temptress) made her captives do:
  

  "With her wiles and charming words not only did she entice many who reached her shore to join in her wantonness: some she pushed into robbery and piracy; others she induced with her tricks to cast all honor aside and take up commerce and trading; many she made arrogant because they loved her inordinately." (p. 75)

  
  GASP! She turned respectable men into merchants?? Oh the horror!
  
  ------------------------------------------------
  
  So I've read parts of this book: although I think readers looking for
  Decameron-esque stories will be disappointed, Famous Women is still interesting in its own right. Essentially, it's an encyclopedia of famous (and infamous) women: the audience is meant to draw a moral lesson from their example. However, the modern reader will be further entertained by the amusing attitudes and anachronisms, as I hope my quote demonstrates.
  
  To broaden his scope, Boccaccio included ancient goddesses along with contemporary women. His inclusion of purely legendary material allows him to trace the invention of writing, painting, and agriculture to a single woman. He follows the theory of 'euhemerism,' writing that mythical figures were once real individuals so revered in their lifetime, they later became worshiped as gods:
  

  "Since all these people were blinded by the blackest ignorance, they declared this woman to be an immortal goddess, although they knew she had been born of a mortal woman." (p. 19-20)

  
  Famous Women is also amusing for its blatant inconsistencies. Boccaccio tends to extract whatever moral lesson is convenient, regardless whether it clashes with earlier conclusions. In one story (p.92) he writes how a Vestal Virgin gave birth to Romulus and Remus, for which she was put to death; this gives him an opportunity to criticize families who force their daughters into covenants. But in a different story (p.82) (where he recalls Queen Dido's alleged suicide to protect her virginity), he criticizes women who do not remain chaste.
  
  Overall, it's an entertaining kaleidoscope of legend and chronicle, of moralizing and classicizing sensibility. This book was widely read in its time; a French translation, Des Cleres Et Nobles Femmes, was Christine de Pizan's primary source for
  The City of Ladies.
  
  And don't forget the many beautiful illuminations made of this book:
  
  
  The Goddess Isis, also called Io, sailing towards Egypt
• 
  Jared Geraghty

  To begin, I got a headache reading this which I believe sums up my experience with this book perfectly.
  It’s just, not a fun read. I winced at the sexism that just saturated the book, and I know that it’s to be expected from the time it was written, but I just couldn’t believe the things Boccaccio said.
  Honestly, to be famous in his eyes you must either be a virgin, devoted to god, “manly” so you can rise above the “inferior” sex (at which I cringed so hard) or give in to the “womanly” sins of lust and greed.
  Needless to say, I did not like this book at all, but I did learn some new names that I may like to research from other, not sexist, sources, like Circe and Arsïnoe. I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone, but it felt great to finish it after the great torture I put myself through in reading it!
• 
  Kelsi

  I had to read this for a class and throughout the book was looking for what society thought women should be at the time. This book was written by a man and so it was obviously biased. After just reading
  Cleopatra: A Lifeby
  Stacy Schiff, the chapter on Cleopatra was a nice comparison. Her story has been distorted and in Boccacio's world she was a whore, a temptress, and a sly, awful woman. One of the main morals I picked up on was it is better to die than be an impure woman. Oh how the times have changed! Not the easiest book to read, but Boccaccio at least tries to give women some justice, thus making it a thought provoking, sometimes funny read.
• 
  Jessie

  While I was not sure what I had expected of this book, it still disappointed me a bit. It was quite repetitive and fairly dry at times. Nevertheless it was an interesting historical source to read and I have learned about lots of historical women (both mythical and real) that I had never heard of before. Additionally I applaud any translator who keeps the original Latin text next to their translation. I enjoyed being able to compare and look at some of the translators choices. I Would recommend it if you are very much into the history of the discourse on women, though I would not recommend it to most, as I feel there are many more interesting titles on the subject to read.
• 
  Hope

  Primarily of interest to historians and scholars of the Renaissance. The moralizing about chaste women gets old pretty quickly.
• 
  Yann

  
  http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1...
  
  http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1...
• 
  Marcos Augusto

  Contains the lives of one hundred and six women in myth and history, ranging from Eve to Boccaccio’s contemporary, Queen Giovanna I of Naples. It is the first collection of women’s biographies ever written. In it Boccaccio decried the practice of sending women without vocation to nunneries. He intended the book to provide female readers with models of female lives fully lived. One of the many Latin works the author produced after his meeting with Petrarch, it was modeled on Petrarch's De Viris Illustribus.
• 
  Stefani

  What's not to adore about 14th century misogyny? So good.
  
  Will say it was fun to read Isotta Nogarola before reading Boccaccio's description of Eve and thinking how Isotta would've destroyed him in a debate on female fame.
• 
  Renee

  Renaissance misogyny. No thanks. I think I will restory this book now by finding pictures and realistic accounts of famous women and paste them into the pages.
• 
  Roua Hwamdeh

  For good or evil, as wife, mother. Or whore, these women have the splendid of clarity; Their individual destinies are sharply defined
• 
  Lulu

  1361/2
  
  De Mulieribus Claris is notable as the first collection devoted exclusively to biographies of women in Western literature.
• 
  Lynn

  Interesting read. Boccaccio's misogyny can be a bit galling at times, but it's still worth reading for entertainment, not information.
• 
  Anna

  Did not like the author's portrayal of women. But it was an interesting look at the views of the times.
• 
  Marielle Cruz

  interesting