Matteo Bandello, ok. 148561) was an outstanding Italian novelist of the 16th century. He was born in Castelnuovo in Piedmont .. In his youth, he joined the Dominican Order. He travelled extensively and enjoyed the favor of the sovereigns of Northern Italy (d'Este, Sforza, Bentinolo). He spent some time at the Mantua court, where he was a teacher of the famous Lucrezia Gonzaga (1537 AD). ). During the years of the struggle of the Spanish and French parties for dominance on the peninsula, he resolutely sided with the latter. After the Battle of Pavia (1525 AD) ), who ended in the defeat of the French army, emigrated to France, where Henry II made him Bishop of Ajan (1550 AD) ). Here Bandello spent the rest of his life, drawing attention from figures of the French Renaissance. Bandello's main literary work is his novels (3 volumes, Lucca, 1554 g. , postmortem, IV t. — Lyon, 1573 g. ). He wrote a total of 214 novels. In these novels, Bandello is a skilled exponent of the life of the Italian society Cinquecento (XVI in .). ) and in the spirit of his time pays tribute to sentimental-sensitive and "bloody" genres . Bandello's popularity was very significant. From one of his novels, Shakespeare drew the plot of his tragedy “Romeo and Juliet”.