First Italian Reader: A Dual-Language Book

Beginning students of Italian language and literature will welcome this bilingual anthology edited especially for their needs. Ranging from the fourteenth to the twentieth centuries, it features the works of Dante, Boccaccio, Pirandello, and fifty-two others in both the original Italian and expert English translations on the facing pages. Selections include excerpts from poetry, fiction, history, and philosophy.

This is a "first reader" in the sense of its introduction to Italian literature from the 1300s to the 1920s. A solid background in Italian grammar is necessary for the fullest appreciation of the original text. The excerpts are unadulterated, not retold or simplified. Readers can sample the works of men renowned for other talents, such as Michelangelo and Galileo, and discover the original language of The Decameron, The Prince, and even Pinocchio. This self-contained anthology can be used with or without an instructor. It will thrill anyone seeking a fast-paced survey of a vital body of literature from one of the world's greatest cultural legacies.>

Edited and translated by Stanley Appelbaum.

Table of Contents for First Italian Reader: A Dual-Language Book

Introduction 1.

1. Storybook (ca. 1300): 3 stories
2. Dante (1265-1321): The Divine Comedy
3. Petrarca (1304-1374): 5 sonnets
4. Boccaccio (1313-1375): Decameron
5. Sacchetti (ca. 1330-1400): The Three Hundred Tales
6. The Little Flowers of Saint Francis (ca. 1390)
7. Ser Giovanni Fiorentino: Pecorone (ca. 1400)
8. Pulci (1432-1484): Morgante
9. Boiardo (1441-1494): Orlando in Love
10. Lorenzo de' Medici (1449-1492): 2 lyric poems
11. Poliziano (1454-1494): 2 lyric poems
12. Sannazaro (1455-1530): Arcadia
13. Machiavelli (1469-1527): The Prince
14. Bembo (1470-1547): The Asolo Discourses
15. Ariosto (1474-1533): The Frenzy of Orlando
16. Michelangelo (1475-1564): 2 sonnets
17. Castiglione (1478-1529): The Courtier
18. Guicciardini (1483-1540): Florentine Histories & History of Italy
19. Bandello (1484-1561): Stories
20. Da Porto (1485-1529): "History . . . of Two Noble Sweethearts"
21. Straparola (ca. 1490-ca. 1557): The Pleasant Nights
22. Cellini (1500-1571): Autobiography
23. Della Casa (1503-1556): Galateo
24. Cinzio (1504-1573): The Hundred Tales
25. Vasari (1511-1574): The Lives
26. Stampa (ca. 1523-1554): 3 sonnets
27. Tasso (1544-1595): Jerusalem Delivered
28. Bruno (1548-1600): Cause, Principle, and Unity
29. Galileo (1564-1642): The Assayer
30. Campanella (1568-1639): The City of the Sun
31. Marino (1569-1625): Adonis
32. Vico (1668-1744): The New Science 
33. Metastasio (1698-1782): 2 sonnets
34. Gozzi (1713-1786): 2 sonnets
35. Parini (1729-1799): sonnet
36. Alfieri (1749-1803): 3 sonnets
37. Monti (1754-1828): 2 sonnets
38. Foscolo (1778-1827): 5 sonnets
39. Manzoni (1785-1873): The Betrothed
40. Pellico (1789-1854): My Prisons
41. Leopardi (1798-1837): 2 lyric poems
42. De Sanctis (1817-1883): History of Italian Literature
43. Collodi (1826-1890): The Adventures of Pinocchio
44. Nievo (1831-1861): The Confessions of an Italian
45. Carducci (1835-1907): 2 lyric poems and a prose passage
46. Verga (1840-1922): Master Gesualdo
47. Boito (1842-1918): "The Black Chess Bishop"
48. Fogazzaro (1842-1911): Malombra
49. Pascoli (1855-1912): 3 lyric poems
50. Svero (1861-1928): Old Age
51. D'Annunzio (1863-1938): The Innocent One & verse
52. Croce (1866-1952): Breviary of Esthetics
53. Pirandello (1867-1936): The Late Mattia Pascal
54. Deledda (1871-1936): Reeds in the Wind
55. Saba (1883-1957): 4 lyric poems