Writings on the Sober Life: The Art and Grace of Living Long

by Hiroko Fudemoto (Translator)

Overview

Alvise Cornaro (c.1484–1566) was the son of a Paduan innkeeper with presumed ties to the patrician Cornaro family of Venice. Highly ambitious, he acquired a name for himself as a businessman, architect, and patron of the arts. Critically ill around age 40 – likely with diabetes and gout – he resolved to abandon his intemperate lifestyle. The strict rules regarding food and drink that he adopted and which led to his recovery are outlined in his most famous treatise, the Vita Sobria (1558). The work, which featured prescriptions for living to 100 years – stressing healthy lifestyle, proper diet, and avoidance of excess –became an international success.

This edition offers the most comprehensive and faithful version of this early modern classic ever available in English, and includes Cornaro’s Aggionta (“Addition”), translated here for the first time. An introductory essay by the late Marisa Milani offers biographical background and analysis and discusses the work’s publication history. The volume also presents letters by Cornaro’s contemporaries commenting on the treatise as well as his Eulogy, now viewed as having been written by Cornaro himself. A foreword by award-winning health journalist Greg Critser speaks to the continuing relevance of Cornaro’s fascinating and seminal work.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442668355
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press
Publication date:	02/24/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Hiroko Fudemoto is a translator based in Los Angeles.

Table of Contents

Notes on the Translation

‘Introduction’ by Marisa Milani

Letter to Bishop Musso by Bernardino Tomitano

Cornaro’s Treatise on the Sober Life

Addition to the Sober Life

Brief Compendium

Letter to Daniele Barbaro

Loving Exhortation

Glossary

Notes to Cornaro (pp.1-64)

Eulogy

Sperone Speroni: Letter Against Sobriety

Sperone Speroni: Letter In Favour of the Sober Life

Selected Letters

Letter by Alvise Giacomo Cornaro Piscopia

Notes on the Texts (pp. 81-127)

Essay by Marisa Milani:

‘How to Attain Immortality Living One Hundred Years,

Or the Fortune of the Vita Sobria in the Anglo-Saxon World’

Notes to Essay ‘Immortality…’

Bibliography

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Students of the early modern period, literary scholars, anthropologists, and historians will be eager to have a taste of Writings on the Sober Life. This excellently executed volume will introduce them to Alvise Cornaro, a figure moving among the important members of Paduan and Venetian academic and courtly life. The general reader who is interested in folklore and foodways will also find Cornaro’s Writings on the Sober Life satisfying, for it offers a glimpse into an early modern common-sense approach to bringing order to the chaotic life most of us lead most of the time.”

Dennis Looney

“Students of the early modern period, literary scholars, anthropologists, and historians will be eager to have a taste of Writings on the Sober Life. This excellently executed volume will introduce them to Alvise Cornaro, a figure moving among the important members of Paduan and Venetian academic and courtly life. The general reader who is interested in folklore and foodways will also find Cornaro’s Writings on the Sober Life satisfying, for it offers a glimpse into an early modern common-sense approach to bringing order to the chaotic life most of us lead most of the time.”

Editorial Reviews

‘The volume provides a useful service by making these materials available in English.’

Renaissance Quarterly vol 68:04:2015 - Linda L. Carroll