Bandello

Bandello, MATTEO, an Italian writer of novelle or tales, was born about 1480 at Castelnovo in Piedmont. In early life he became a Dominican monk at Milan, but soon abandoned this vocation. After the battle of Pavia (1525) he was driven from Milan by the Spaniards, and settling in France, was in 1550 made Bishop of Agen. He died in 1562. Bandello's tales, 214 in number (4 vols. 1554-73; best ed. Milan, 1814), rank next to those of Boccaccio in Italy, and furnished themes to Shakespeare, Massinger, and other dramatists. They are distinguished by unaffected simplicity of style, finency and vividness of narrative, and a harmonious brevity of periods. Often, however, they are very impure.