Jacopo Passavanti

Michael Sherberg is a former president of the American Boccaccio Association, and erstwhile chair of the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at Washington University.

• AcknowledgmentsIntroductionBibliographyKey to AbbreviationsThe Mirror of True Penitence1. Prologue2. First Distinction: Wherein we show what penitence is.3. Second Distinction: Wherein we show how many things there are that lead us to penitence, and not to delay it.4. Third Distinction: Wherein we show what things impede us and hold us back from penitence.5. Fourth Distinction: Wherein we show what the parts of penitence are, and how many things are required for true penitence. And first we will talk about the main part, which is contrition.6. Fifth Distinction: Wherein we deal with the second part of penitence, namely confession.Index

“Passavanti’s main target audience was the medieval equivalent of podcast listeners, a population not educated to read Latin, tuning in from time to time to sermons in the public square. This smooth and accurate translation will be a great boon to readers of major Italian authors of the fourteenth century, but also to anyone seeking better to understand the medieval worldview on the human condition, from the value of penitence to the interpretation of dreams.”