Cento giuochi

[ArtVark]

Wow, what does a 16th-Century book smell like?

I really didn't notice any smell. Other than the sociology major at the desk next to me. Just kidding!! I have allergies and frequently find myself
olfactorially challenged. I didn't notice any particular smell.

I realize now that I should have spent more time looking at the boring publishing information at the front of the books. I got to see two copies at the
library. The first one I'm fairly sure did not have the orignal cover, was very yellowed, and sounded like it was in pain when I opened it. The other
book seemed to be in a lot better shape, and after a cursory glance to see that the contents were pretty much identical, I decided to use it for most
of my research.

The newer book used italic fonts for the questions, a regular block font for most of the text, and large ornate characters for the first letter of each chapter.
All appear to have been printed. I know that Guttenberg's printing methods had spread across much of Europe by the 16th Century, and that Venice (where
this book was printed) was one of the major printing centers. So I could believe that by 1580 (second printing), the printers had multiple type faces
available. I still don't know if this was a even later printing, however (which is why I regret that I did not spend more time on the front pages).

The paper itself looked fairly un-yellowed but was thick and warped from moisture damage. It was printed on thick stock paper. I am not a printing press
expert so I did not notice flaws between any letters, unusual serifs, or any smudges. Again, I am not an expert on typography, nor do I play one on TV.
I'm also faking the Italian expertise quite a bit. The book is definitely not an incunabulum (now I'm just showin' off -- I learned that word from Prisoner of
Trebekistan).

[ArtVark]

Some more stuff on the book.

Supposedly, the book contained advice for young people and it was written for Catherine de Medici. It was published in 1551 when Catherine de Medici was
32 years old -- not exactly a spring chicken for Renaisance times. Considering she married when she was 14, I don't know how much of the advice applied
to her. It is possible that the book could have been written for her children.

Some of the lists in the book had little descriptions that made it easier to figure things out. For example, a short sentence followed each of the rivers listed.
So two of the entries were (xxxx represents Italian words that I don't understand):

Arno -- xxxx xxxx de citta xxxxx xxxxx
Nillo -- xxx xxxxxxx Aegyptto xxxx xxxxx

The Arno is the River in Florence. The description says something about "the city." If this book was specifically written for a Medici, referring to Florence
just as "the city" makes sense. In the second example, the one recognizable word indicates that Nillo is probably the Nile.

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Now the comment that I made where I thought that the questions were not quite trivia questions is based on the following:

The questions have no answers listed anywhere, are unnumbered, and do not appear to be referenced anywhere. This seems to indicate that the questions
are rather open ended and trivia questions are not.

The following are some Italian words that I do know:

Quando == When
Quanto == How many
Dove == Where
Chi == Who
Cose == What
Come == How
Perche == Why

Now trivia questions tend to be who, what when, where, and how many. Non-trivia questions (like essay questions), tend to be what, how and why.
Most of the questions seem to be of the what, how and why variety. I don't think I saw any where or who questions.

So the preponderance of what, why and how questions also lead me to believe that there was no set correct answer for any of these questions.

Figuring out that these were questions was a little difficult due to the fact that perche means both WHY and BECAUSE in Italian and you can determine
things from context. I thought that there were a lot of sentences beginning with BECAUSE until I realized that the surrounding sentences were How's and
What's.

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The first part of each chapter seemed to be the advice column type of stuff. I came to this conclusion due to the fact that the words amore, honore, and
virtu would appear in the first part in many of the chapters. Also, in many cases the first part of the chapter would be devoid of any of the words
listed later in the chapter, but those words would appear in the text after the list.

Also, there appeared to be something low-key about the text in the first parts of the chapters. A lack of adverbs (like molto) and -issimo endings in the
text seem to me like an understated way of dropping hints. For example let's say someone wrote a letter to an advice column:

Dear Abby. Should I axe murder my brother? (Since we're talking about the Medici's here, that may not be too absurd a question).

I would expect the response to be something like: You should probably calm down and not do it.
rather than: NO! That's very, very bad. Absolutely the worst thing to do.

The second example here would have the "molto's" and issimo endings if it were written in Italian.


Anyway, this post was an explanation of some of the conclusions that I reached. I have no formal training in any of this so I may be totally off.

[ArtVark]

Well my Italian expert tells me that 16th Century Italian is not that much different from modern Italian. So I'll give it a shot at translating (with Babel fish help,
when necessary).

Also, Catherine de Medici was the Queen Consort to France at the time that the book was published. I'm not sure how much time she spent in Florence then,
so my previous citta comments are not exactly true but probably are still generally correct.

Here's her picture. I'll tell you, she was no Maggie Gylhenhaal.

[melissa]

^^ True, but she'd probably have poisoned you for saying that.

[jzerocsk]

Well my Italian expert tells me that 16th Century Italian is not that much different from modern Italian.

I'm really surprised to hear that given how politically and linguistically fractured the peninsula was prior to the 20th century, especially as you get farther from Rome!

[ArtVark]

Well my Italian expert tells me that 16th Century Italian is not that much different from modern Italian.

I'm really surprised to hear that given how politically and linguistically fractured the peninsula was prior to the 20th century, especially as you get farther from Rome!

Let me rephrase that. Written 16th Century Italian is not that much different from modern written Italian.

A friend of mine brought up an interesting point. Given that this book was published during the Reformation in a Catholic area for a Catholic person (Catherine
de Medici -- a whole bunch of dead Hugenots can vouch for that), the lack of any religion in the book makes sense. During this time Protestants were busy
publishing Bibles in languages other than Latin, so it might have been safer in 16th Century Italy to not mention religion when writing in something other than
Latin.

[ArtVark]

Well I got my copies of chapter six in the mail and I'm working on translating it right now. The copy that I have is not that clear and so I am not sure how well it will scan. I may transcribe it as I go along.

It looks like the use of an 's' that looks like an 'f' was common in Italy at this time (I know that it was common in England). Also, some 'v''s appear instead of
'u's. It's hard to figure out why this is because normal 's' and 'u' characters appear. The sentences are long run-on's separated by '&' (ampersand characters),
so it may be easier to figure out if these sentences are broken up.

If you remember from my previous post, the chapters seemed to consist of some text, followed by a table of some sort, followed by text that looked like
it was related to the table, followed by a set of questions. Chapter six has a bunch of extra text after the last question, so I will probably break up my translation into five pieces.

I've also found spelling inconsistencies which are kind of interesting.

[ArtVark]

One more cool thing.

Because the pages were hard to photcopy, I sometimes got the text of following pages on some of my copies.

Chapter VII starts: Giovanni Donne...

It looks like a reference to John Donne. I checked dates and the poet, John Donne, was born in 1571 and thus
would be too late to be in this book. However, there was a Sir John Donne who was a diplomat probably
born in Picardy in the 1400's who could easily be this guy (he was a Welsh Yorkist who later served as a
diplomat to the French court).

If my curiosity gets any more aroused, I'm probably going to have to go back and get chapter 7, too.

[ArtVark]

GIVOCO DELLE FIVURE CELESTI VI.
Per effere fimile la chiarezza de voftri Occhi, fplendenti Madonne,
alle Mattutine, & lucide Stelle, & per effere voi il pu benigno effetto
che posfi for,,marfi dal Cielo, & cofe veramente altisfime, & celeftiali,
non poffo ragioneuolmente non dedicarui coi gli altri il Giuoco delle figure
de fegni, o uero degli Animali Celefti, Il quale quanto vi fi confaccia molto
meglio di me lo conofcete, ueggendo come della voftra gratia gli Huomini fi
marauiglino & u'ammirino, quanta bellezza, Leggiadria, Virtu, Honore, Letitia,
& Gloria in voi dalle Stelle pioue, che fi puo dire che fiate fole il fato,
& la buona, & la Ria Fortuna del Regno d'Amore e, fempre sfauillano &
fiammeggiano inguifa di ftelle, quando fi fcuoprono o ridono i voftri chiari
vifi, & coi dolcisfimi & viui rainei Cuori penetrando, per modi indificiolubili
a voi eternamene gli legano, voi fete forfe non men vaghe di qelle di a su,
dunque a noi fommamete care, & luninofe Stelle, colme d'ogni dolcezza amabili,
& Terrene, il bel Giuoco alla voftra altezza dedicato, & promeffo afcoltando,
d'accettare non u'increfca

Racolta

This is the verbatim text of part 1 as far as I can tell. Note that the double
commas are in the text and I believe that they are some sort of line break
since they appear at the end of a line, sort of like a dash nowadays. Also
the word formarsi makes sense in the context of this sentence.

A lot of the 'f's are 's's and this is obvious in words like celeftiala, and it sure
looks like 'non poffo' makes more sense as 'non posso'.

The first part compares the lady's clear dazzling eyes with the early
evening stars. It talks about forming figures (once you see the
table in section 2, you'll know that this chapter is about constellations).
It then seems to say that he can't quite guarantee the
signs and animal symbols (I assume things like the Zodiac), and seems
to say something like "if you know more than I know" about the signs.
He then goes on to talk about things that people admire like beauty, grace,
virtue and honor but it's unclear to me how he made that leap.
He the goes on to say things about good, and the River of Fortune and
and the reign of love and the reader's wit, laugh, and sweetness that
penatrates hearts and then apparently dedicates this section to her.

This rough translation was done with help from Babel fish and some
rough guessing. It so far sounds like a lot of brown-nosing by a subject
of the queen.

I'll try to come up with a more complete translation later, but I think that
the next thing that I'll post will be section 2 of this chapter.

[ArtVark]

Raccolta gla & difpofta la diletteuole brigata,
come e folito di farfi da chi Giuoca in Cerchio,
il Signore del Guico difpefi di perfo ria in
perfona quefte Celefti Figure, & quelti Aftri
d'intorno.

Cynofura, Serpe d'Efculapio, Balnea,
Arturo, Pegafeo, Bridano,
Drago, Triangolo, Lepro,
Cephto, Ariete, Hydra,
Guardian dell'Orfe, Tauro, Coppa,
Curone d'Ariadne, Gemello, Coruo,
Hercole, Cancro, Centauro,
Lira, Leone, Can Sirio,
Cyngo, Vergine, Canicula,
Cafiopea, Libra, Naue
Perfeo, Scorpio, Argo,
Auriga, Sagittario, Lupo,
Efculapio, Capricorno, Altare,
Saetta, Acquario, Corona auftrale,
Aquila, Pefce, Pefce auftrale.
Delphino, Orione,

Okay. It doesn't take a Leonardo da Vinci to recognize that these
are constellations. The 12 Zodiac symbols are listed in the
middle column, and most of the others are recognizable.

The punctuation in the table is accurate (there is no comma after
Naue, and a period in the last entry in the third column).

Also note that section 1 ends with Racolta, and Section 2 starts
with Raccolta. I think that this is a spelling inconsistency.

I think that I'll call it a day at Rennaisance sleuthing. I will try
to continue this later this week.

[ArtVark]

Some more comments:

Raccolta means collection, and the "Racolta" signature at the bottom of section 1 seems to refer to the author.
There may be some sort of clever wordplay accounting for the spelling difference.

The modern word for constellation, costellazione, does not appear in the text so far, and as far as I can tell,
is not used later.

As far as I can tell, the text at the start of section 2 describes the following table as a groupings of stars that
some high-falutin' guys have come up with.

[ArtVark]

Quefti bei nomi delle figure Celefti difpenfati, il Celefte giuocco, per coral manicra fi guidi, Et fe cominciaffe
perauentura vno, che ha ueffe il nome del Cygno, Ant ica infegna, & fuedo della noftra familgia, egli Lueato in pie, & detto Cygno, pui di
poi dire tre Stelle, vno Stelle, quatro Stelle, & tate qnante ferrano le perfone in chercio ordinate, come pui la fera in piacere, rache fe
diceffe quatro Stelle, il quarto in ordine preffo di lui, fe foffe Arturo, ha da dire Arturo, poi s'egli diceffe due Stelle, il fecodo dietro a lui
in fchiere potrebbe filmilmente rifpontere il fuo nome, & pi dar ad altri col numero delle Stelle, occafione di gioucare; Bafti che fempre
il prouocaro fi lieui in piedi & dica il fuo nome, che poi dal numero delle Stelle, & per l'ordine de luoghi, fempre fi conofcera coluia
cui tocchi il dire, fe ne potriano achora molti prouocare, ad vntratto, quando fi voleffe rendere vn poco pui difficile, & intricato il Guicho,
il che laflo nel guiditio di quei Gentil'huomini, & di quelle difcrete Madonne, che lo manneggiaranno A me non poco fie che fi
paghino per chi errara fecondo l'ufato i pegni, de qualiacuni con quefte poche diamande honoreuolmente rifcuotere fi portranno.

One special note. The word qnante makes more sense as quante. Could one of the typesetters put one of these new-fangled
Guttenberg style letters upside down by mistake?

[ArtVark]

Come per gli offeruatori delle stelle in Cielo s' apprendeffero tante, figure et tante uarietadi.
Se il fato e, o quello ch' egli fia.
Se i Cieli inchinano i noftri animi, o gli sforzano.
Se pende da fe steffo, o pur dalla diuina prouidenza il fato.
Se gli Occhi della dofa amata fono una bellezza, & dolcezza fatale, a cuori de gli Amanti.
Se fi porta (come fi dice in prouerbio) la morte in fronte.
Se fi puo fuggire per alcun modo il fato.
Come infondono le Virtu, & gli influs fi nelle cofe infeiori, per tata distaza cofi effiacecemente le Stelle.
Se poffono effer cagione di male, o maligne per alcun modo le Stelle.
Se le Donne per cagion delle Stelle fono benigne & crudeli.

This is the stuff that can potentially be viewed as trivia questions. This text was in Italics.

Come fi dice in prouerbio roughly translates to "How do you say the proverb" These may be more like riddles, possibly.

[ArtVark]

So che non macheranno di quegli che dirano, che parlando alle Donne, io douea proporre anchora
dubbi, che poteffono da loro effere intefi, a quefti tali rifpondo, che col fuo ingegno mifurano poco
prudentemente le forze altrui, & che fanno gran torto al feffo Femminile, fe tra loro non credono
ritrouarfene delle moto ingeniofe, & intendenti, & atte a fciogliere altre difficultadi che hora per
me proporre fe le posfino, & veramente mi farei ingegnato di domadare cofe molto piu facili,
& piaceuoli, fe alla congitione, & al difcorfo di tutti gli altri no le laueffi lafciate, & che i Guiochi
di fua Natura come il prefente non l'haueffero richiefto, queitali, feranno fempre liberi in dimandarle,
& non dimandarle, ne gli vieto che esfi trouino cofe che al fuo gufto piu fi confaccino anzimi fare
fempre car, ch'esfico maggiore fuo conteto, il mio Guioco delle noftre Figure Celfti, che volentieri
u' habbiamo Eccelfe Donne offerto, certi che per voi fi debba cortefemente con gli altri
poffedere: Qui e finito il Guico delle Figure Celefti. Et quello delle Parche incomincia.

This finishes chapter 6 of the book. I've now transcribed the entire "Game of Celestial Figures"
section. I'll get back to translating this later. In the meantime, if anyone else wants to take a shot,
go right ahead.

[Ken Jennings]

Cool stuff. Anybody here speak Italian, before I start hitting Babelfish?

[ArtVark]

Come per gli offeruatori delle stelle in Cielo s' apprendeffero tante, figure et tante uarietadi.
Se il fato e, o quello ch' egli fia.
Se i Cieli inchinano i noftri animi, o gli sforzano.
Se pende da fe steffo, o pur dalla diuina prouidenza il fato.
Se gli Occhi della dofa amata fono una bellezza, & dolcezza fatale, a cuori de gli Amanti.
Se fi porta (come fi dice in prouerbio) la morte in fronte.
Se fi puo fuggire per alcun modo il fato.
Come infondono le Virtu, & gli influs fi nelle cofe infeiori, per tata distaza cofi effiacecemente le Stelle.
Se poffono effer cagione di male, o maligne per alcun modo le Stelle.
Se le Donne per cagion delle Stelle fono benigne & crudeli.

This is the stuff that can potentially be viewed as trivia questions. This text was in Italics.

Come fi dice in prouerbio roughly translates to "How do you say the proverb" These may be more like riddles, possibly.

Here' s my attempt at translating this section:

As for the offering of stars in the sky, there are many figures and varieties to learn.
As the Fates have it, this is how it is.
The skies interest our mind or at least strain it.
It hangs from above, by divine providence of Fate.
The are like the eyes of a lover's beauty and fatal sweetness to the hearts of lovers.
They are like doors (as it is said in the proverb) to the minds of the dead.
If you can in some way escape the Fated one.
As they instill virtue and insult the inferior things, the stars have an effect on all.
Can the stars be bad or cause bad things in some way.
To people, the stars are benign and cruel.

This translation is my rewording of Babelfish output with some guesses. The line that
I translated as "They are like doors (as it is said in proverb) to the minds of the dead"
Babelfish translated as "If door (as it is said in proverb) dead women in forehead."
Italian uses the feminine form to speak formally of groups of people so many of the
times that Babelfish came up with women, I assumed people in general.

So nothing in here seems like a trivia type question ("How many stars are there in Orion's belt"
would have made me happy). There is a vaguely astrological tone to a lot of what was written
(which makes sense at the time), and nothing was really a question.

I'm going to translate section III next, because that seems to get into the features of constellations
(one section reads "three stars, one star, four stars" I can see that without Babelfish).

ETA: I think that I may have mistranslated due to my 21st Century mindset. The "forehead"
reference I thought referred to the mind, but probably in the 1500's people thought that human
thought was in the heart (William Harvey did not figure out the heart's function until the late 1500's
early 1600's). So I'm really not sure what that forehead reference was.

[ArtVark]

I talked about Cento Guiocco to some friends today. The same guy who came up with the idea
that Catholics during Reformation times may have frowned on religious references in non-Latin
texts said that the head always had some significance even before people realized the significance
of our brains. Athena spouted out of Zeus's head, and since constellations have always been
mixed with Greek mythology, the forehead comment may have be some sort of reference to that.

I also mentioned how some of the texts seemed to border on astrology, and I later mentioned that
John Donne was quoted but this guy could not be the poet who was born forty years after the book
was published. "Not unless their astrology was real good," someone commented.

[Sequin]

Wow, what does a 16th-Century book smell like?

A friend (and quizzing opponent) of mine is an archivist at the British Library and told me at the recent British Championships that she was trying to persuade her bosses to let her undertake a project on early quiz books, so I pointed out this thread to her. In an email from her, she said this:

I loved the guy who asked what a 16th cent. book smells like - it shouldn't smell of anything, except perhaps a slight dustiness and the faintest whiff of leather dressing on the binding. Except when the book's had to be treated for mould, or potential mould, when you can detect a smell of medicated lozenges, as the mould killer has a lot of thymol in it.

[Ken Jennings]

I'm going to suggest Cento Givochi to my book club next month. It might be hard for everyone to find a copy, but I think it'll be worth it when we can all sit around and play 16th-century parlor games at our meeting. I'll make antipasti.

[Le Master]

Wow, what does a 16th-Century book smell like?

A friend (and quizzing opponent) of mine is an archivist at the British Library and told me at the recent British Championships that she was trying to persuade her bosses to let her undertake a project on early quiz books, so I pointed out this thread to her. In an email from her, she said this:

I loved the guy who asked what a 16th cent. book smells like - it shouldn't smell of anything, except perhaps a slight dustiness and the faintest whiff of leather dressing on the binding. Except when the book's had to be treated for mould, or potential mould, when you can detect a smell of medicated lozenges, as the mould killer has a lot of thymol in it.

Something on Gizmodo today made me think back to this old thread.

http://gizmodo.com/5900286/why-old-book ... book-smell

Why Do Old Books Smell? [YouTube]

There's nothing quite as pungent as walking into a book store specializing in old tomes. But why do they produce such a strong and unique smell as they age? Basically every book is an organic chemical reaction just waiting to happen.

Books printed in the 19th and 20th centuries are particularly prone to breaking down because of the chemicals used in the paper pulp and the acidic inks on the pages. As soon as they come off the printing press the various chemicals start to react, giving off potent vapors, and the process is expedited when books are exposed to light and moisture. Oddly enough the manuscripts created by the earliest-known printers will survive even longer than the books printed today since the paper they used contained far fewer chemicals. So maybe Harper Collins can still learn something from old Gutenberg?