Fairy Tales Framed: Early Forewords, Afterwords, and Critical Words

6. Girolamo Bargagli, Dialogue on Games That Are Played during the Sienese Veglie (1572, written 1563)

55 6 Girolamo Bargagli, Dialogue on Games That Are Played during the Sienese Veglie (1572, written 1563) In his Dialogue on Games That Are Played during the Sienese Veglie (Dialogo de’ giuochi che nelle vegghie senesi si usano di fare), Girolamo Bargagli (1537–1586) imagines a conversation among the members of Siena’s renowned Academy of the Intronati (the Dazed) concerning the games that the academy played with their city’s upper-class women during evening gatherings, known as vegghie, or veglie. The veglie allowed the members of the Intronati, such as Bargagli, and their female companions to display their intelligence and wit while playing games, discussing literary issues, and telling tales. These entertaining gatherings attracted visitors from across Italy and became a source of civic pride. Written in 1563 and first published in 1572, the dialogue’s positive reception is attested to by the fact that it went through another seven printings by 1609. Bargagli’s interlocutors describe the rules for 130 different games before turning their attention to storytelling. The portion of the dialogue translated here is of particular interest to fairy-tale scholars because it contains the advice of Marcantonio Piccolomini, a founding member of the Intronati, regarding the type of tales his companions should tell during the veglie. Referred to in the dialogue by his academic nickname Il Sodo (The Tough One), Piccolomini articulates a brief literary typology that distinguishes the novella from both the history (istoria) and the favola, a category that included the literary fairy tale. Il Sodo urges the other men to tell novellas in the Boccaccian tradition and illustrates his various points with references to specific tales from the Decameron. He defines the novella as recounting a single action or event, possessing an “uncommon verisimilitude,” and providing the reader with a clear lesson. According to Il Sodo, the trouble with stories featuring enchantments, fairies, wizards, and magic objects is that they infuse the novella form with a content that is more appropriate for epic poems than 56 / Fairy Tales Framed for a genre that requires manifest utility. In a statement that recalls Boccaccio ’s thinking in parts of his Genealogy of the Pagan Gods, Il Sodo explains that magic figures and objects are acceptable in chivalric epics, because in works such as Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, they are interpreted allegorically. For this reason, Il Sodo deems the favola as appropriate only for “simple, young girls” and thus genders the genre as female. Because the Sienese women who participated in the veglie are never referred to in the dialogue as young girls (fanciullette), nor are they disparaged as “simple,” it would seem fairy tales such as those of Straparola were considered inappropriate for both the men and the women attending the veglie. Il Sodo suggests that those called upon to tell a tale would do best to carefully select a novella from Boccaccio’s Decameron that will complement the other tales that have been told that evening. Later in the dialogue, he will also approve of narrating certain favole, specifically episodes taken from Ariosto’s chivalric epic. With Il Sodo’s words, Bargagli’s dialogue creates a decorum for narrators at the veglie that declares the narrating of canonical literary texts as the most appropriate form of storytelling. Girolamo Bargagli, Dialogue on Games1 (1572) It is high time that we speak of storytelling, and speaking now on this subject , I say to you regarding novellas that it is necessary in the first place to note that the novella must contain only one action or event and not many, for then it would more rightly be called a history than a novella. And so in the novella of Federigo Alberighi, you see that the author does not go into detail about his origins, his life, and all of his actions, but only recounts how, when in love and spending money on sumptuous living, he consumed all of his wealth without making any gains in his love affair; then, when his lady came to his house, in order to honor her he gave her his falcon 1. Girolamo Bargagli, Dialogo de’ Giuochi che nelle vegghie sanesi si usano di fare (Siena: Luca Bonetti, 1572); rpt. 1982. Girolamo Bargagli, Dialogo de’ Giuochi che nelle vegghie sanesi si usano di fare (Siena: Luca Bonetti, 1572); rpt. 1982, ed. Patrizia D’Incalci Ermini and intro. Riccardo Bruscagli (Siena: Accademia Senese degli Intronati), 216–220. 2. Bargagli is here discussing Boccaccio’s ninth story of the...