By Brendan Dooley“Vivo sol di speranza, non potendo mirar mio vivo sole.” [I live only by hope, not being able to see my bright sun]A cry of pain? Surely, a somewhat strange phrase to find on the back of a…
Author: wp_11035540
by Brendan Dooley When Giulio Gotti writes from Genoa to his brother Raffaello Gotti in Volterra in August 1598, he expresses many of his ideas in code, which is deciphered at destination for the convenience of the recipient. The practice…
by Brendan DooleyWho has not heard of Dracula, gothic classic of vampire lore par excellence? What about The Mystery of the Sea? The latter book by the same author received far less acclaim. To be sure, books were not this…
By Brendan DooleyBaccio Giovannini, the Florentine resident in Paris, writing on 10 June 1602, goes straight into detail:“My Most Serene Lord and Patron: After my last letter on the fourth, since so many purges and ointments and poultices did nothing…
By Brendan Dooley The date is Turin, 20 July 1589. To an unsuspecting reader the letter would seem to be referring to everyday private domestic matters: wife, children, rental incomes, a nephew, the local priest, a doctor, etc. The writer,…
By Andrea di Carlo and Brendan Dooley It was a busy week in Venice. According to the newsletter of 7 March 1592, celebrations were being held here in honor of the newly elected pope; meanwhile, a Veronese person was being…
By Brendan Dooley Mediceo del Principato, vol. 2861. Unpaginated, but bound tightly enough so as not to confuse the order of pages. Leafing through, we find the order of pages seems somewhat idiosyncratic. Why is “From Bruxelles the 20th…
By Brendan DooleyTrouble in Rome! The Rome newsletter of 23 October 1582 informs:“The Congregation responsible for the reform and intercalation of the year has heard from Naples about a serious error in the printed version, such that the pope having…
by Davide Limatola The appearance of handwritten news sheets known as avvisi in Italian, circulating through the chanceries and streets of European cities, even before the invention of printed newspapers, raises several important questions. One of these is what were…
Less than three months before the battle of Lepanto, famously won by the Holy League against the Turks on October 7, 1571 in the Gulf of Patras, passions in the Mediterranean are already running high. Bit by bit, the Venetian…