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The Parnas, Silvano Arieti, Basic Books, New York, 1979.
The Black Death struck Florence in 1348 and killed over one hundred thousand of its people. The terror that this scourge struck in the hearts of both victims and survivors was almost beyond human endurance. Much of what we know about this we owe to a brief chapter contained in one of the great works of early Italian literature which was written by a contemporary. It deals in a straightforward way with the horror and does not spare the reader. The pain and the fear, the agony and the stench are all there, as are medicine, superstition, thievery, brutality, and compassion. However, within a few pages the author tires of the tragedy. He cannot ignore it, but he puts it behind him and deals with the living. Seven young women and three young men, none younger than 18, none older than 28, save themselves by retiring to a villa and garden outside of town, where they remain secluded and so they survive.
The reader by now may have guessed who the author is and what work of literature I am alluding to. Giovanni Boccaccio, in the Decameron, uses the plague and human suffering only as a framework. The 100 stories he tells are light-hearted and irreverent, even ribald. So how do I dare mention this early Tuscan author in connection with a book about the Holocaust?
There are several reasons. The most personal one is that upon reading The Parnas I found myself flooded with memories. I knew Giuseppe Pardo Roques and I remember him vividly. I knew his house on Sant' Andrea Street, although I never entered it, nor did I see the enchanted garden behind those high walls. The years that I