Tag Archives: Constance Markey

Doctor in exile

October 14, 2021

Constance Markey Chicago, Illinois, United States   Portrait of Carlo Levi. By Carl Van Vechten, photographer (created/published: 1947 June 4) (Wikipedia.org) In August of 1935, a handcuffed Dr. Carlo Levi, (1902-1975), author of Cristo si è fermato a Eboli, (Christ Stopped at Eboli) arrived in the miserable southern Italian village of Gagliano (actually, Aliano).1 He […]

Giovanni Boccaccio on pandemics past and present

November 4, 2020

Constance Markey Chicago, IL   The plague of Florence, 1348; an episode in the Decameron by Boccaccio. Etching by L. Sabatelli the elder after G. Boccaccio. Credit: Wellcome Collection. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)) Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) is universally celebrated for his masterpiece The Decameron, an appealing assemblage of one hundred loosely connected novellas, […]