All the Pain Money Can Buy: The Life of Christina Onassis Book

This book is marvelous fun.

Look at the terrible things Circe (the temptress) made her captives do:
"With her wiles and charming words not only did she entice many who reached her shore to join in her wantonness: some she pushed into robbery and piracy; others she induced with her tricks to cast all honor aside and take up commerce and trading; many she made arrogant because they loved her inordinately." (p. 75)
GASP! She turned respectable men into merchants?? Oh the horror!

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So I've read parts of this book: although I think readers looking for Decameron-esque stories will be disappointed, Famous Women is still interesting in its own right. Essentially, it's an encyclopedia of famous (and infamous) women: the audience is meant to draw a moral lesson from their example. However, the modern reader will be further entertained by the amusing attitudes and anachronisms, as I hope my quote demonstrates.

To broaden his scope, Boccaccio included ancient goddesses along with contemporary women. His inclusion of purely legendary material allows him to trace the invention of writing, painting, and agriculture to a single woman. He follows the theory of 'euhemerism,' writing that mythical figures were once real individuals so revered in their lifetime, they later became worshiped as gods:
"Since all these people were blinded by the blackest ignorance, they declared this woman to be an immortal goddess, although they knew she had been born of a mortal woman." (p. 19-20)
Famous Women is also amusing for its blatant inconsistencies. Boccaccio tends to extract whatever moral lesson is convenient, regardless whether it clashes with earlier conclusions. In one story (p.92) he writes how a Vestal Virgin gave birth to Romulus and Remus, for which she was put to death; this gives him an opportunity to criticize families who force their daughters into covenants. But in a different story (p.82) (where he recalls Queen Dido's alleged suicide to protect her virginity), he criticizes women who do not remain chaste.

Overall, it's an entertaining kaleidoscope of legend and chronicle, of moralizing and classicizing sensibility. This book was widely read in its time; a French translation, Des Cleres Et Nobles Femmes, was Christine de Pizan's primary source for The City of Ladies.

And don't forget the many beautiful illuminations made of this book:


The Goddess Isis, also called Io, sailing towards Egypt