Medieval Conduct Literature: An Anthology of Vernacular Guides to Behaviour for Youths, with English Translations ed. by Mark D. Johnston (review)

REVIEWS 273 De Maria’s study focuses on the important aspects of the artistic, commercial , and familial activities of naturalized citizen families, and analyzes their artistic and architectural commissions as an expression of their social identity in relation to Venice’s native population. This book is magnificent, and rich in new material; there is detailed information on the families Ragazzoni, Balbiani, Cornovì della Vecchia, Dal Basso, Turloni, D’Anna, Torniello, Di Mutti, and Cuccina that sheds light on a significant sector in Venetian artistic patronage, and better contextualizes their homes, those beautiful Venetian palaces, but also the works of artists such as Titian, Veronese, Montemazzano, Tintoretto. In the introduction the author writes, “Becoming Venetian expands both the body of accessible primary source material and also interpretative possibilities of early modern Venetian painting and architecture” (xi). This statement is certainly correct. This book is clearly written, magnificently illustrated, and offers invaluable sources and material for further studies in Venetian artistic history. ROSSELLA PESCATORI, Italian, El Camino College Medieval Conduct Literature: An Anthology of Vernacular Guides to Behaviour for Youths, with English Translations, ed. Mark D. Johnston (Toronto : University of Toronto Press 2009) xxxiii + 320 pp. In the anthology Medieval Conduct Literature, Mark D. Johnston offers twelve examples from six different medieval literary traditions of didactic works designed to shape the behavior of a specific recipient, as the latter approaches or more fully assumes a role of greater social responsibility. Each pair of texts, introduced by its own critic, appears in a two-column arrangement: on the left is the vernacular original; on the right, a translation into modern English. The literary traditions represented are the French, the Occitan, the German, the Italian, the Castilian, and the English, and together they span three centuries, the earliest from the end of the thirteenth century, and the latest from the beginning of the sixteenth century, as well as a variety of social classes from royal heirs to nascent bourgeois. Each pair, moreover, presented in whole or in part, addresses both halves of its audience, one text written for boys or young men, and the other destined for girls or young women, proceeding respectively from an appropriate paternal or maternal authority figure. In her general introduction to the volume, Roberta L. Krueger establishes the precedence of Occidental behavior literature, a genre that comprises such distinct examples as mirrors for princes, manuals of chivalry, arts of love, books of courtesy, books of table manners, and even monastic rules, all of which belong together by virtue of their common aim: to regulate conduct (xi, xii). As Krueger further explains, while the variations of this collection offer numerous insights into medieval society, they are subject to one capital admonition: “It is important not to read didactic treatises as snapshots or accurate reflections of medieval society or to assume that their prescriptions for ideal behavior were faithfully enacted by their readers. The books convey how their moralist narrators wished social life be organized and ordered…” (xxviii). In the first chapter, Kathleen Ashley presents the French Enseignemenz a Philippe and the Enseignement a Ysabel, two treatises of Louis IX to his son, the future Philip III of France, and to his daughter Isabelle, future Queen of Navarre. Appearing some time before the canonization of Saint Louis in 1297, REVIEWS 274 these letters “are examples of a well-established medieval didactic genre, the mirror for princes” (5). In his letter to his son, King Louis begins by recognizing that the prince will most readily accept counsel from his father and therefore proceeds to advise him on numerous topics, from the proper devotion to God and the Church (and consequent respect for clerics) to the necessity of appointing good officers of the realm and general praiseworthy kingly comportment . The king’s letter to the princess begins similarly, urging right religious relationships, as well as personal modesty and the careful administration of the ladies of her household. The second chapter, written by Johnston, considers the chivalric branch of the genre with its Enssenhamen de L’escudier and Essenhamen de la donzela, both written by Amanieu de Sescás between 1278 and 1295 (23). The Enssenhamen de L’escudier depicts Amanieu in dialogue with...