3 h 12 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 3 h 12 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What does love cost when desire pulls one way and duty, rank, or fear pulls another?
In Old Love Stories, Adolfo Albertazzi gathers short tales of attachment in an Italy of the past. Towns, households, and gardens frame private struggles with desire, devotion, jealousy, and regret. Each story rests on a human bond and what it costs, inviting you close to a heart under strain.
These tales explore the first rush of attraction, the warmth of lasting attachment, and the ache of loss. Passion meets the limits of custom, age, and duty. Albertazzi tells these stories with grace and some irony, giving tone and small details room to matter. The pace is quiet, with space to notice what people feel.
What you’ll discover
- An older Italy Enter towns, households, and gardens shaped by the habits of another age.
- Desire against duty Follow the strain of wanting one thing while custom points toward another.
- Love in many shades Find attraction, devotion, jealousy, and regret within these brief portraits of attachment.
- Grace with an edge Notice how a touch of irony sharpens these quiet studies of private feeling.
- A story in one sitting Spend a little time with each tale, giving its central attachment your full attention.
Who will love it
You will love this book if you enjoy short tales of love and trickery, castles and crusades, wit and passion, and one human feeling dressed in the costumes of six centuries.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Passions remain while customs change
- Secret love finds dangerous openings
- Desire brings men to a threshold
- Faith can comfort or wound
- Small actions set trouble moving
- Courtship becomes a game of uncertainty
- Conscience does not speak one way
- Changing voices express familiar passions
- Desire moves and judgment directs
Who’s who
- UgoA young page at Ripalta Castle who falls in love with his lord's wife and will stop at nothing, even hunger, to be heard.
- Lady GinevraThe cheerful young wife of the lord of Ripalta, who must think fast when a page's passion threatens her peace.
- Giovanna del FarnetoA young woman who loves a poor knight and meets him each night across a moat, while her miserly father plans another match.
- Bertramo d'AquinoA knight at the court of Anjou, admired for courtesy, who passionately desires his friend's wife but finally refuses to betray him.
- Friar GerunzioA monk at Pentula who gave away his fortune and fasted, yet cannot quiet his body, and goes down to Jericho in disguise.
- Madonna LisaThe young wife of a prayerful old man, who keeps her lovers and her laughter hidden behind a show of piety.
- DomitillaA widow who has read too many romances, plays a mysterious prisoner in a garden, and hopes to rule the man she enchants.
- Count La FrattaA vain and faithful admirer of the Marchesa Arnisio, who wants to know whether she has a heart and for whom it beats.
Formats and delivery
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, once the book texts are online.
- Audiobook
- Read by Lucas Linden, complete. It opens once the recording is online.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 14 minutes, to read today.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Old Love Stories in 25 languages, side by side, paragraph by paragraph, once the book texts are online: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
Old Love Stories
A young page stops eating until his lady grants his wish, and the returning lord tries to discover what is wrong.
Challenging2–5 hours to read2 languages
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In short
What would you do if a young page decided to eat nothing until the lady of the castle said yes? In the first tale of Old Love Stories, a page named Ugo does exactly that, and the lady must decide what to do before her husband comes home.
Old Love Stories at a glance
- Reading time
- About 2 h 5 min1 h 40 min fast, 2 h 30 min slow
- Length
- 29,700 words
- Library level
- Challenging long sentences, a rich vocabulary
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A page fasts for love and a horse waits
The book opens in the Middle Ages with two tales of love that cannot be spoken aloud. In The Stubborn Page, set at Ripalta Castle, Ugo is a page raised almost like a son by the lord. Lady Ginevra, the lord's cheerful young wife, laughs at his pranks and sings at her window.
At fifteen Ugo hears her singing far above him and understands whom he loves. When the lord rides off to a tournament, Ugo declares himself, and she drives him out in anger. Then he vows to eat nothing until she grants his wish. The lord comes home, and she must explain herself with her husband at the bedside.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 14 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 2 h 5 min
- Level
- Challenging
Cite this edition
Albertazzi, Adolfo. Old Love Stories. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/old-love-stories.
Albertazzi, A. (2026). Old love stories. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/old-love-stories
Albertazzi, Adolfo. Old Love Stories. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/old-love-stories.
@book{albertazzi2026old,
author = {Albertazzi, Adolfo},
title = {Old Love Stories},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/old-love-stories}
}
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What is Old Love Stories about?
It is a collection of twelve short tales of love, with the final six set in successive centuries from the thirteenth to the eighteenth. They include comic, devout, and cruel stories about desire, trickery, honor, and conscience.
Who wrote Old Love Stories and when?
Adolfo Albertazzi, an Italian writer, wrote it. He signed the preface in Mantua in 1895. He died in 1924. The tales are based on older fabliaux, saints' lives, tale books, and real Venetian letters.
Are the stories in Old Love Stories true?
They are fiction built on old sources. The author lists them at the end, including French fabliaux, the Gesta Romanorum, and real love letters from Venice in 1569. He also marks which parts he invented.
The author
Adolfo Albertazzi
1865–1924 · Italian writer
Adolfo Albertazzi was an Italian writer born in Bologna in 1865. He wrote novels, short stories, and literary criticism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He also worked as a teacher. He died in Castel San Pietro Terme, near Bologna, in 1924.
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