Exploring Sixteenth-Century Italy Through the Poems of Giulio Cesare Croce

1. Auflage 2026
ISBN: 978-1-032-94859-1
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 298 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm

Reihe: Routledge Research in Early Modern History

This volume translates the poems of Giulio Cesare Croce: a sixteenth-century street poet and singer who plied his trade on the bustling streets of Bologna. Though widely popular in his time, Croce’s work has been largely neglected by modern scholarship, and his poems remain largely untranslated into English—despite their frequent reference by Italian academics who recognize their value as vivid windows into Early Modern life.

This collection remedies this absence by providing the first English translation for many of Croce’s poems, bringing out (rather than obscuring) their uncouth and bawdy nature. It argues for the use of Croce’s poems within historical inquiry, demonstrating their unique contribution to our understanding of Early Modern Italy. His poems illuminate a genre often forgotten due to its oral and ephemeral nature and reveal the lived experiences of the pre-modern non-elite, displaying the flavor and character of their daily lives.

Organized into four thematic chapters, the translated poems are accompanied by contextual introductions that explore various dimensions of pre-modern life. Explanatory footnotes further situate Croce’s works within their literary and historical context, making the collection accessible to scholars, students, and general readers interested in Early Modern Italian history and popular literature.

Zielgruppe

Academic, Postgraduate, and Undergraduate Advanced

Autoren/Hrsg.

Breda, Lena

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Mentalitäts- und Sozialgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Weltgeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Croce’s Bologna

Introduction

1: City Life: the Good, the Bad, and the In-Between The Most Pleasing Mascherate A Praise and Condemnation of Prison The Lamentation of the Paupers who Rent a Home The Lamentation of the Drunks Predictions and a Stupendous and Marvelous Almanac About the Present Year

2: Dalla Campagna alla Città: The Margins of Urban and Rural Life in Early Modern Italy

Debate between Wheat Bread and Bean Bread for Superiority

The Lamentation of the Bandits

The Lamentation of the Harvesters

3: Fame, Freddo: Calamities in Early Modern Italy

The Most Solemn Triumph of Abundance

Lamentation For the Poverty Caused by the Extreme Cold

Banquet of the Ill-Fed

The Despair of the Failed Carnival

4: The Comedy and Contradictions of Hierarchy

Description of the Life of Giulio Cesare Croce

The Cleverest Tricks of Bertoldo

The Greatness of Poverty

The Song of the Porcellina

Appendix Currencies Original Texts

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Lena Breda is a doctoral student in history at the University of Oxford. Lena was a 2021 Fulbright Scholar to Bologna, Italy and received her Masters in Early Modern History from the University of Cambridge in 2022. She received a B.A. in History with a Minor in Italian Language and Culture from the University of Chicago in 2020. Lena studies Early Modern Italy with a focus on inequality, urban life, famine, and political communication across socioeconomic strata.