Federigo and his Falcon

Terry Jones introduces another tasty Renaissance tale.

The 100 stories which make up Giovanni Boccaccio’s humane and comic masterpiece come from all over the world. This Renaissance work is considered a landmark in the history of literature.

The stories are vividly reset by Boccaccio among the flourishing merchant classes in the cities of fourteenth-century Italy. But their witty, satirical, bawdy voice sounds utterly modern, and their subjects - love, fate, sex, religion, morality - are universal.

“Lovers who, after many disasters, finally find happiness.”

Courtly Federigo spends every last groat trying to win the affections of the beautiful Monna. But there is only one thing of his that she wants. And it has feathers.

Federigo degli Alberighi ..... John Finnemore
Monna ..... Ingrid Oliver
Elena ..... Carrie Quinlan
Beppo ..... Shaun Mason
Niccolo ..... Adam Thomas Wright

Adapted by Robin Brooks
Music arranged and performed by Robert Hollingworth and Paula Chateauneuf

Lyric translations by Silvia Reseghetti

Script Consultant: Guyda Armstrong

Produced and directed by Jonquil Panting

First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in December 2014.