Angelo Beolco (il Ruzante), La prima oratione.
Edited by Linda L. Carroll

MHRA Critical Texts Vol. 16
ISBN 978-0-947623-79-1
9 March 2009
pp. 168
Pbk £12.99 / $24.99 / €19.99

This volume presents a full transcription of the three extant manuscripts of Angelo Beolco's Prima oratione, delivered to Cardinal Marco Cornaro in 1521 at his villa in Asolo subsequent to his entrance as bishop of Padua.

Praising the new bishop on his accomplishment, the peasant orator expounds boisterously on the agricultural riches of the Paduan countryside and concludes with a request that the bishop enact a series of laws that will improve the lives of his fellow peasants, including allowing both men and women to take four spouses. Masked by the humour, however, are serious considerations on contemporary issues.

Accompanying the transcription is an extensive historical-literary introduction and notes.

Linda L. Carroll is Professor of Italian at Tulane University.

"This volume is undoubtedly a welcome addition to our knowledge and understanding of the most remarkable author-actor of the Italian Renaissance. This is especially so textually, in its bringing a significant and neglected work—in terms of theatre and ideas—to an anglophone audience, and in its raising provocative questions about the degree of daring and the limits of the polemical in Ruzante."

Ronnie Ferguson, Modern Language Review, 105:2 (2010), 576-9.

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Angelo Beolco (il Ruzante), La prima oratione. Edited by Linda L. Carroll

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Angelo Beolco (il Ruzante), La prima oratione.
Edited by Linda L. Carroll