The juggler of Bologna
The Juggler of Bologna is a historical novella by the Austrian writer Franz Karl Ginzkey , first published in 1916.
After “Der von der Vogelweide” and Der Wiesenzaun , it is the author's third major historical narrative that was completed before the beginning of the First World War . However, it could only appear during the war. The focus is on the figure of the Italian scholar Boncompagno da Signa , who lived around 1200 and was a professor in Bologna . Ginzkey encountered this figure while researching the Walter von der Vogelweide novel, in which he was originally supposed to be a minor character. But then he decided to make the unusual person Boncompagnos the main character of his own work. While the novella was being written, Ginzkey personally traveled to Bologna to get an impression of the location.
The Juggler of Bologna is one of the most cheerful works of Ginzkey, which happily manages without the melancholy that is otherwise always latent in the author. In him the description of the atmosphere of student life in medieval Bologna is better than in his other historical stories.
Ginzkey originally wanted to prefix the novella with the following lines:
"Mr. Boncompagno, when I discovered
you I took you as very welcome prey;
what stood out most to you was the effect;
Effect, I think, everyone is still fooling today. "
The historical novella was therefore also used by contemporaries as an allusion to phenomena in literary life at the time of Ginzkey, in which, as in Boncompagno, the focus is on novelty and external form.
content
The focus of the action is the master and doctor of rhetoric Boncompagno, who comes to the university city of Bologna . There he meets the long-established professors, whose most respected Aldobrandinus is, and whom Boncompagno, who already has a dubious reputation, treats with great distrust. This is because he cultivates a completely unconventional style, speaks entertaining and generally understandable, and aims with his rhetoric at the practical applicability of science for life. With a superior spirit, he repeatedly uses the stylistic devices of irony and satire. All of this brings a breath of fresh air into the dusty life of scholars and makes Boncompagno a celebrated hero of the numerous international students in Bologna within a very short time. Boncompagno does not shy away from embarrassing and ridiculing his enemies through Eulenspiegeleien .
The daughter of a seriously ill local scholar, Betisia Gozzadini, is an inquisitive and keen student of her father. When she hears about Boncompagno, she is impressed and curious, like so many of her generation. She disguises herself as a young man and attends his lectures, which do not fail to impress her. She succeeds in being accepted by Boncompagno as an assistant and personal student, through which she learns the spirit and character of the professor up close. Her relationship with her neighbor Lorenzo, the honest soldier and city governor, whom she had trusted from early childhood, takes a back seat, as she is impressed by her studies and Boncompagno.
Only gradually does Betisia recognize Boncompagno's dubious character, who is always concerned with external success, but never with the internal truth of everything that happens. When Boncompagno met Betisia as a woman, he fell in love with her and wanted to win her over with confidence. He calls in Betisia in her guise as Boncompagno's assistant in order to realize his intention with his help. He wants to proceed entirely according to the letter of a love letter he wrote and at the same time prove that what he wrote there actually works infallibly. This hits Betisia deeply in her honor and she turns away from her former idol for good. Since she is also very witty herself, she decides to take revenge on Boncompagno, in his manner, with a prank. In the end he sees through that his assistant Lionetto is none other than Betisia, but she is saved from a precarious situation by Lorenzo, who finally forces Boncompagno to leave the city. This has to admit defeat. When he leaves, he does not do so without playing one last spectacular trick on the whole city. Betisia became the first female doctor and married Lorenzo. She later heard from Boncompagno that his spell had apparently been broken. He traveled unsteadily through the country and ended up in a poor house.
In addition to this main plot, the mediaeval student life of Bologna is portrayed very clearly and entertainingly in numerous colorful scenes. Among them is a group of students from all over the world who have come together for a "round table", indulging in the sumptuous delights of the city, inventing mortadella on the side and enthusiastically patting and adoring a stout young lady. One of these students is Zeiserlberger, who comes from Vienna. Other minor characters are a greedy antiquarian who sells textbooks to the students that his underage poor niece has to write incessantly with her delicate fingers, but is finally freed by the students described above and becomes Queen of May of Bologna.
expenditure
- The juggler of Bologna . Staackmann, Leipzig 1916.
- The juggler of Bologna . German Book Association, Berlin no year (around 1928).
- Selected works in four volumes. Vol. 4 novels. Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna 1960.
- The juggler of Bologna . Staackmann, Munich 1974.
literature
- Wilhelm Olbrich (ed.): The novelist . The content of German novels and short stories from baroque to naturalism. Part I: Alexis – Hermann Kurz. Anton Hiersemann, Stuttgart 1950, p. 176.
- Helene Hofmann: Franz Karl Ginzkey. The poet's life and work. Univ. Diss., Vienna 1923.
- Robert Hohlbaum : Franz Karl Ginzkey. His life and work. Staackmann, Leipzig 1921. pp. 41-44.