A BARREL MAKER'S CAPRICES: A NEW TRANSLATION, NOTES, AND INTRODUCTION OF GIOVAN BATTISTA GELLI'S 'I CAPRICCI DEL BOTTAIO' (LATE RENAISSANCE LITERATURE, REFORMATION, COUNTERREFORMATION, ARISTOTELIANISM, FLORENTINE ACADEMY, ITALY)

Giovan Battista Gelli (1498-1563) was a Florentine scholar and member of the Florentine Academy whose patron was Cosimo I de' Medici, Duke of Tuscany. Although Gelli was a cobbler or hosier by profession, he devoted himself to attaining an education based on the classics and on Dante, whom he admired above all other authors. Because of his early association at the Orti Oricellai and later with the Academia degli Umidi, he rose to the presidency of the Florentine Academy. Gelli's first major literary and philosophical work was I Capricci del Bottaio (1548 A Barrel Maker's Caprices).;The Caprices is a book of ten dialogues that Giusto, a barrel maker, has with his Soul. The Soul instructs Giusto along various contemporary intellectual paths, primary of which is Aristotelianism with the added benefit of the Christian faith, which alone, above reason, philosophy, and science, can lead one to a content earthly life and afterlife. Gelli's work bears the influence of Aristotle, Cicero, Pliny, Tacitus, Dante, and Ficino.;The work was extremely popular throughout Europe. William Barker was the first and last to translate The Fearful Fansies of the Florentine Couper into English in 1568, published by Henry Bynneman. Tho. Purftoot reissued the translation in 1599. The work is important because of its polemical nature in addressing contemporary problems in Sixteenth Century Florence during the counter-Reformation. Through Gelli's character, Giusto, the reader is able to apprehend this and other historically important events as chronicled through a simple tradesman. Because of the growing interest in Sixteenth century studies, this translation makes available to those who are unfamiliar with Italian, the richness of Gelli's work, and is a primary source for contemporary thought.