CUNY Academic Commons

This semester, we read the works of several Italian literary figures. Two figures that really stood out to me were Machiavelli and Boccaccio. It was very interesting reading “The Prince” and “The Decam […]

One of the images that Machiavelli places in our heads as fortune; which is that fortune is like a raging river, representing bad fortune

Early in “The Prince”, we see that Machiavelli believes that personal […]

Saint Angela of Foligno

Reading Angela da Foligno’s steps of penance was very interesting to me. It was very different to our previous readings, as this one felt the closest to god. It was very spiritual, and […]

Lady Fortune and Her Wheel: Fortune is often depicted as a woman with a blindfold, spinning a wheel to represent the different outcomes and possibilities being chosen out of chance.

Reading through the […]

In the canzoniere, we get to see the state of Petrarch’s mind many times, but there’s one metaphor for his state of mind that stands out to me. Canzone 189 portrays Petrarch’s state of mind as a ship at sea. The […]