A hedonistic mood in Florence with Antonfrancesco grazzini il lasca’s “le cene”

Abstract

In the vast panorama of 16th-century Italian collections of novellas, Grazzini’s “Le cene” stands out for its extraordinary hedonistic mood. The narrative is set in Florence in the winter at the end of Carnival, when the time is set aside for merriment and fun. And one of the amusements consists precisely in the telling of novellas, which brings delight to both the tellers and the listeners, and therefore to potential readers. The framed narrative situation also corresponds with the subject matter of most of the novellas narrated, as the narration is intended to bring pleasure, to provoke laughter, to the exclusion of the lecturing tone present in many other authors. The formation of the narrating company is not dictated by any tragic events, but is merely a coincidence of circumstances whereby they find themselves shut out of the bad winter weather in the warm parlour of the landlady on the first evening of the telling. Subsequent gatherings, however, are the result of the desire of the company to continue in time the pleasure of good and entertaining story telling which brings laughter and merriment on winter evenings.