Italian Literature

Question 1

Medieval Italian author of the Decameron, a collection of 100 tales told by people on the run from the Black Death. He is also known for his On Famous Women, a collection of 106 biographies of famous historical women, and his tragic semi-autobiographical novel (Fiametta was a fictionalization of his own muse) The Elegy of Lady Fiametta.

Answer 1

Giovanni Boccaccio

Question 2

Italian author of abstract, postmodern novels such as If on a Winter’s Night a travel (featuring the fictional country of Cimmeria), Invisible Cities about 55 fictional cities described in a conversation between Kublai Khan and Marco Polo, the collection Cosmicomics, and The Path to the Nest of Spiders.

Answer 2

Italo Calvino

Question 3

Author of Name of the Rose, in which Adso of Melk and William of Baskerville attend a monastery to solve a religious dispute and William of Ockham makes an appearance. He also wrote about how Belbo, Casaubon, and Diotallevi create a conspiracy theory called “The Plan” that even real conspiracy theorists believe in Foucalt’s Pendulum. He is also known for the novel The Island of the Day Before, in which Roberto della Griva copes with marooning on an island on the international date line by blaming a twin brother.

Answer 3

Umberto Eco

Question 4

Writer of the collection about courtly love La Vita Nuovo, who also penned The Divine Comedy.

Answer 4

Dante Alighieri

Question 5

Author who wrote a large collection of love poems dedicated to his mysterious love Laura in Il Canzoniere, about Scipio Africanus in Africa, and about climbing a mountain for fun in The Ascent of Mont Ventoux. He also wrote On Illustrious Men, a collection of biographies similar to Parallel Lives by Plutarch.

Answer 5

Petrarch

Question 6

This playwright wrote “Six Characters in Search of an Author” in which the title incomplete characters arrive at a rehearsal of the play Mixing It Up. He also wrote The Late Mattia Pascal, a novel about the fortunes and failures of the title characters, and Henry IV, about an injured Italian nobleman who believes himself to be Holy Roman Emperor while doctors try to cure him.

Answer 6

Luigi Pirandell