I have begun work on the annotation of Book Thirteen, choosing to gloss first those chapters that deal with Queen Joan of Naples, the spicy intrigues that occurred around the murder of her husband Andrea of Hungary (exciting also because they cause Villani to explode into unprecedented fits of moral outrage). More generally, I will annotate the succeeding chapters dealing with the episode, and Villani’s treatment of the reaction of the Hungarian royalty to these events.

I am looking forward to highlighting the connections between Villani’s portrayal of these events and Boccaccio’s representation of Queen Joan in his De Mulieribus Claris of 1362. Joan has a prominent place in this group of illustrious women, being the end point in the series of 104 biographies.

One question, and this for the technical staff…can the annotations include weblinks to other documents? I hope the answer will be yes.

In the meantime - - and this is for everyone - - I am trying to locate the e-text of De Mulieribus Claris in English, Italian and Latin. If anyone happens to know reliable etexts and where they reside, please let me know. - - Rala