Giovanni Boccaccio, a Biographical Study
by Edward Hutton · English · Gutenberg #46722 · 949,395 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Giovanni Boccaccio, a Biographical Study
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: Giovanni Boccaccio, a Biographical Study
Author: Edward Hutton
Release date: August 29, 2014 [eBook #46722]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/46722
Credits: Produced by Anna Tuinman, Ted Garvin, John Campbell and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO, A BIOGRAPHICAL STUDY ***
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
Superscripts are denoted by ^ eg xvj^o.
Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been
corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within
the text and consultation of external sources.
Modern practice in Italian texts contracts (removes the space from)
vowel elisions, for example l'anno not l' anno, ch'io not ch' io.
This book, in common with some similar English books of the time, has
a space in these elisions in the original text. This space has been
retained in the etext. The only exceptions, in both the text and
etext, are in French names and phrases, such as d'Aquino and d'Anjou.
More details can be found at the end of the book.
GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
FREDERIC UVEDALE. A Romance. 1901.
STUDIES IN THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS. 1902.
ITALY AND THE ITALIANS. Second Edition. 1902.
THE CITIES OF UMBRIA. Third Edition. 1905.
THE CITIES OF SPAIN. Third Edition. 1906.
SIGISMONDO MALATESTA. 1906.
FLORENCE AND NORTHERN TUSCANY. Second Edition. 1907.
COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE. 1908.
IN UNKNOWN TUSCANY. 1909.
EDITED BY EDWARD HUTTON
MEMOIRS OF THE DUKES OF URBINO.
By JAMES DENNISTOUN OF DENNISTOUN. Illustrating the Arms, Arts, and
Literature of Italy, from 1440 to 1630. New Edition, with upwards of
100 Illustrations. 3 vols. Demy 8vo. 1908.
CROWE AND CAVALCASELLE'S A NEW HISTORY OF PAINTING IN ITALY.
3 vols. 8vo. 1908-9.
[Illustration: _Traditional Portraits of Boccaccio & Fiammetta (Maria
d'Aquino)_
_From the Frescoes in the Spanish Chapel of S. Maria Novella,
Florence._]
GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO
A BIOGRAPHICAL STUDY BY EDWARD HUTTON
WITH PHOTOGRAVURE FRONTISPIECE & NUMEROUS OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS
But if the love that hath and still doth burn me
No love at length return me,
Out of my thoughts I'll set her:
Heart let her go, O heart I pray thee let her!
Say shall she go?
O no, no, no, no, no!
Fix'd in the heart, how can the heart forget her.
LONDON: JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY MCMX
PLYMOUTH: WM. BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS
TO MY FRIEND
J. L. GARVIN
THIS STUDY OF AN HEROIC LIFE
PREFACE
It might seem proper, in England at least, to preface any book
dealing frankly with the author of the _Decameron_ with an apology
for, and perhaps a defence of, its subject. I shall do nothing of
the kind. Indeed, this is not the place, if any be, to undertake the
defence of Boccaccio. His life, the facts of his life, his love, his
humanity, and his labours, plentifully set forth in this work, will
defend him with the simple of heart more eloquently than I could
hope to do. And it might seem that one who exhausted his little
patrimony in the acquirement of learning, who gave Homer back to us,
who founded or certainly fixed Italian prose, who was the friend
of Petrarch, the passionate defender of Dante, and who died in the
pursuit of knowledge, should need no defence anywhere from any one.
This book, on which I have been at work from time to time for some
years, is the result of an endeavour to set out quite frankly and
in order all that may be known of Boccaccio, his life, his love for
Fiammetta, and his work, so splendid in the Tuscan, the fruit of such
an enthusiastic and heroic labour in the Latin. It is an attempt at
a biographical and critical study of one of the greatest creative
writers of Europe, of one of the earliest humanists, in which, for
the first time, in England certainly, all the facts are placed before
the reader, and the sources and authority for these facts quoted,
cited, and named. Yet while I have tried to be as scrupulous as
possible in this respect, I hope the book will be read too by those
for whom notes have no attraction; for it was written first for
delight.
Among other things I have dealt with, the reader will find a study of
Boccaccio's attitude to Woman, and in some sort this may be said to
be the true subject of the book.
I have dealt too with Boccaccio's relation to both Dante and
Petrarch; and it was my intention to have written a chapter on
Boccaccio and Chaucer, but interesting as that subject is--and one of
the greatest desiderata in the study of Chaucer--a chapter in a long
book seemed too small for it; and again, it belongs rather to a book
on Chaucer than to one about Boccaccio. I have left it, then, for
another opportunity, or for another and a better student than myself.
In regard to the illustrations, I may say that I hoped to make them,
as it were, a chapter on Boccaccio and his work in relation to the
fine arts; but I found at last that it would be impossible to carry
this out. To begin with, I was unable to get permission to reproduce
M. Spiridon's and Mr. V. Watney's panels by Alunno di Domenico[1]
illustrating the story of Nastagio degli Onesti (_Decameron_, V,
8), which are perhaps the most beautiful paintings ever made in
illustration of one of Boccaccio's tales. In the second place,
the subject was too big to treat of in the space at my command. I
wish now that I had dealt only with the _Decameron_; but in spite
of a certain want of completeness, the examples I have been able
to reproduce will give the reader a very good idea of the large
and exquisite mass of material of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and
sixteenth centuries in Italy, France, Germany, and even in England
which in its relation to Boccaccio has still to be dealt with.
Nothing on this subject has yet been published, though something
of the sort with regard to Petrarch has been attempted. Beyond the
early part of the seventeenth century I have not sought to go, but an
examination of the work of the eighteenth century in France at any
rate should repay the student in this untouched field.
I have to thank a host of people who in many and various ways have
given me their assistance in the writing of this book. It has been
a labour of love for them as for me, and let us hope that Boccaccio
"in the third heaven with his own Fiammetta" is as grateful for their
kindness as I am.
Especially I wish to thank Mrs. Ross, of Poggio Gherardo, Mr. A. E.
Benn, of Villa Ciliegio, Professor Guido Biagi, of Florence, Mr.
Edmund Gardner, Professor Henri Hauvette, of Paris, Mr. William
Heywood, Dr. Paget Toynbee, and Mr. Charles Whibley. And I must also
express my gratitude to Messrs. J. and J. Leighton, of Brewer Street,
London, W., for so kindly placing at my disposal many of the blocks
which will be found in these pages.
EDWARD HUTTON.
CASA DI BOCCACCIO,
CORBIGNANO,
_September_, 1909.
INTRODUCTION
Of the three great writers who open the literature of the modern
world, Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, it is perhaps the last who has
the greatest significance in the history of culture, of civilisation.
Without the profound mysticism of Dante or the extraordinary
sweetness and perfection of Petrarch, he was more complete than
either of them, full at once of laughter and humility and love--that
humanism which in him alone in his day was really a part of life. For
him the centre of things was not to be found in the next world but in
this. To the _Divine Comedy_ he seems to oppose the Human Comedy, the
_Decameron_, in which he not only created for Italy a classic prose,
but gave the world an ever-living book full of men and women and the
courtesy, generosity, and humanity of life, which was to be one of
the greater literary influences in Europe during some three hundred
years.
In England certainly, and indeed almost everywhere to-day, the name
of Boccaccio stands for this book, the _Decameron_. Yet the volumes
he wrote during a laborious and really uneventful life are very
numerous both in verse and prose, in Latin and in Tuscan. He began to
write before he was twenty years old, and he scarcely stayed his hand
till he lay dying alone in Certaldo in 1375. That the _Decameron_,
his greatest and most various work, should be that by which he is
most widely known, is not remarkable; it is strange, however, that of
all his works it should be the only one that is quite impersonal.
His earlier romances are without exception _romans à clef_; under a
transparent veil of allegory he tells us eagerly, even passionately,
of himself, his love, his sufferings, his agony and delight. He too
has confessed himself with the same intensity as St. Augustine; but
we refuse to hear him. Over and over again he tells his story. One
may follow it exactly from point to point, divide it into periods,
name the beginning and the ending of his love, his enthusiasms, his
youth and ripeness; yet we mark him not, but perhaps wisely reach
down the _Decameron_ from our shelves and silence him with his own
words; for in the _Decameron_ he is almost as completely hidden from
us as is Shakespeare in his plays. And yet for all this, there is a
profound unity in his work, which, if we can but see it, makes of
all his books just the acts of a drama, the drama of his life. The
_Decameron_ is already to be found in essence in the _Filocolo_, as
is the bitter melancholy of the _Corbaccio_, its mad folly too, and
the sweetness of the songs. For the truth about Boccaccio can be
summed up in one statement almost, he was a poet before all things,
not only because he could express himself in perfect verse, nor even
because of the grace and beauty of all his writing, his gifts of
sentiment and sensibility, but because he is an interpreter of nature
and of man, who knows that poetry is holy and sacred, and that one
must accept it thankfully in fear and humility.
He was the most human writer the Renaissance produced in Italy; and
since his life was so full and eager in its desire for knowledge,
it is strange that nothing of any serious account has been written
concerning him in English,[2] and this is even unaccountable when
we remember how eagerly many among our greater poets have been his
debtors. Though for no other cause yet for this it will be well to
try here with what success the allegory of his life may be solved,
the facts set in order, and the significance of his work expressed.
But no study of Boccaccio can be successful, or in any sense
complete, without a glance at the period which produced him, and
especially at those eight-and-forty years so confused in Italy,
and not in Italy alone, which lie between the death of Frederic II
and the birth of Dante in 1265 and the death of Henry VII and the
birth of Boccaccio in 1313. This period, not less significant in
the general history of Italy than in the history of her literature,
begins with the fall of the Empire, its failure, that is, as the sum
or at least the head, of Christendom; it includes the fall of the
medieval Papacy in 1303 and the abandonment of the Eternal City, the
exile of the Popes. These were years of immense disaster in which we
see the passing of a whole civilisation and the birth of the modern
world.
The Papacy had destroyed the Empire but had failed to establish
itself in its place. It threatened a new tyranny, but already weapons
were being forged to combat it, and little by little the Papal view
of the world, of government, was to be met by an appeal to history,
to the criticism of history, and to those political principles which
were to be the result of that criticism. In this work both Petrarch
and Boccaccio bear a noble part.
If we turn to the history of Florence we shall find that the last
thirty-five years of the thirteenth century had been, perhaps, the
happiest in her history. From the triumph of the Guelfs at Benevento
to the quarrel of _Neri_ and _Bianchi_ she was at least at peace with
herself, while in her relations with her sister cities she became
the greatest power in Tuscany. Art and Poetry flourished within her
walls. Dante, Cavalcanti, Giotto, the Pisani, and Arnolfo di Cambio
were busy with their work, and the great churches we know so well,
the beautiful palaces of the officers of the Republic were then
built with pride and enthusiasm. In 1289, the last sparks, as it was
thought, of Tuscan Ghibellinism had been stamped out at Campaldino.
There followed the old quarrel and Dante's exile.
The Ghibellines were no more, but the _Grandi_, those Guelf magnates
who had done so well at Campaldino, hating the burgher rule as
bitterly as the old nobility had done, began to exert themselves.
In the very year of the great battle we find that the peasants of
the _contrada_ were enfranchised to combat them. In 1293 the famous
Ordinances of Justice which excluded them from office were passed,
and the _Gonfaloniere_ was appointed to enforce these laws against
them. A temporary alliance of burghers and _Grandi_ in 1295 drove
Giano della Bella, the hero of these reforms, into exile, and the
government remained in the hands of the _Grandi_. That year saw
Dante's entrance into public life.
The quarrel thus begun came to crisis in 1300, the famous year of
the jubilee, when Boniface VIII seemed to hold the whole world in
his hands. The dissensions in Florence had not been lost upon the
Pope, who, apparently hoping to repress the Republic altogether and
win the obedience of the city, intrigued with the _Neri_, those
among the magnates who, unlike their fellows of the _Bianchi_
faction, among whom Dante is the most conspicuous figure, refused
to admit the Ordinances of Justice, even in their revised form, and
wished for the tyrannical rule of the old _Parte Guelfa_. Already,
as was well known, the Pope was pressing Albert of Austria for a
renunciation of the Imperial claim over Tuscany in favour of the
Holy See; and Florence, finally distracted now by the quarrels of
_Neri_ and _Bianchi_, seemed to be in imminent danger of losing
her liberty. It became necessary to redress the balance of power,
destroyed at Benevento, by an attempt to recreate the Empire. This
was the real work of the _Bianchi_--their solution of the greatest
question of their time. The actual solution was to come, however,
from their opponents: not from the leaders of the _Neri_ it is true,
but from the people themselves. These leaders were but tyrants in
disguise: they served any cause to establish their own lordship.
Corso Donati, for instance, the head and front of the _Neri_, was of
an old Ghibelline stock, yet he trafficked with the Pope, not for
the Church, we may be sure, nor to give Florence to the Holy See,
but that he might himself rule the city. Nor did the Pope disdain to
use him. Alarmed even in Rome by the republican sentiments of the
populace, who wished to rule themselves even as the Florentines, he
desired above all things to bring Florence into his power. On May
15, 1300, the Pope despatched a letter to the Bishop of Florence,
in which he asked: "Is not the Pontiff supreme lord over all, and
particularly over Florence, which for especial reasons is bound to
be subject to him? Do not emperors and kings of the Romans yield
submission to us, yet are they not superior to Florence? During the
vacancy of the Imperial throne, did not the Holy See appoint King
Charles of Anjou Vicar-General of Tuscany?" Thus as Villari says, "in
a rising _crescendo_," he threatened the Florentines that he would
"not only launch his interdict and excommunication against them, but
inflict the utmost injury on their citizens and merchants, cause
their property to be pillaged and confiscated in all parts of the
world, and release all their debtors from the duty of payment." The
_Neri_, fearing the people might, with that impudent claim before
them, side with the _Bianchi_, induced the Pope to send the Cardinal
of Acquasparta to arrange a pacification. But though the city gave
him many promises, she would not invest him with the Balia.
Meanwhile the Pope, set on the subjection of Florence, without
counting the cost, urged Charles of Valois, the brother of Philip
IV of France, to march into Tuscany. Nor was Charles of Anjou,
King of Naples, less eager to have his aid against the Sicilians.
Joined by the exiles in November, 1301, he entered Florence with
some 1200 horse, part French, part Italian. His mission was to crush
the _Bianchi_ and the people, and to uplift the _Neri_. He came at
the request of the Pope, and, so far as he himself was interested,
for booty; yet he swore in S. Maria Novella to keep the peace. On
that same day, November 5, Corso Donati entered the city with an
armed force. The French joined in the riot, the Priors were driven
from their new palace, and the city sacked by the soldiers with the
help of the _Neri_. The Pope had succeeded in substituting black
for white, that was all. A new "peace-maker" failed altogether. The
proscription, already begun, continued, and before January 27, 1302,
Dante went into exile.
But if the Pope had failed to do more than establish the _Neri_ in
the government of Florence, Corso Donati had failed also; he had not
won the lordship of the city. He tried again, splitting the _Neri_
into two factions, and Florence was not to possess herself in peace
till his death in a last attempt in 1308. It was during these years
so full of disaster that Petrarch was born at Arezzo on July 20, 1304.
The medieval idea of the Papacy has been expressed once and for
all by S. Thomas Aquinas. In his mind so profoundly theological,
abhorring variety, the world was to be governed, if at all, by a
constitutional monarchy, strong enough to enforce order, but not to
establish a tyranny. The first object of every Christian society,
the salvation of the soul, was to be achieved by the priest under
the absolute rule of the Pope. Under the old dispensation, as he
admitted, the priest had been subject to the king, but under the new
dispensation the king was subject to the priest in matters touching
the law of Christ. Thus if the king were careless of religion or
schismatic or heretical, the Church might deprive him of his power
and by excommunication release his subjects from their allegiance.
This supreme authority is vested in the Pope, who is infallible, and
from whom there can be no appeal at any time as to what is to be
believed or what condemned.
Before these claims the Empire had fallen in 1266; but a reaction,
the result of the success of Boniface, soon set in, and we find
the most perfect expression of the revived and reformed claims of
the Empire in the _De Monarchia_, which Dante Alighieri wrote in
exile. Dante's Empire was by no means merely a revival of what the
Imperial idea had become in its conflicts with the Holy See. It was
nevertheless as hopeless an anachronism as the dream of S. Thomas
Aquinas, and even less clairvoyant of the future, for it disregarded
altogether the spirit to which the future belonged, the spirit of
nationalism. With a mind as theological as S. Thomas's, Dante hated
variety not less than he, and rather than tolerate the confusion of
the innumerable cities and communes into which Italy was divided,
where there was life, he would have thrust the world back into
Feudalism and the Middle Age from which it was already emerging,
he would have established over all Italy a German king. He was
dreaming of the Roman Empire. The end for which we must strive, he
would seem to say in the _De Monarchia_, that epitaph of the Empire,
is unity; let that be granted. And since that is the end of all
society, how shall we obtain it but by obedience to one head--the
Emperor. And this Empire--so easy is it to mistake the past for the
future--belongs of right to the Roman people who won it long ago. And
what they won Christ sanctioned, for He was born within its confines.
And yet again He recognised it, for He received at the hands of a
Roman judge the sentence under which He bore our sorrows. Nor does
the Empire derive from the Pope or through the Pope, but from God
immediately; for the foundation of the Church is Christ, but the
Empire was before the Church. Yet let Cæsar be reverent to Peter, as
the first-born should be reverent to his father.
So much for the philosophical defence of the reaction. It is rarely,
after all, that a rigidly logical conception of society, of the
State, has any existence in reality. The future, as we know, lay
with quite another theory. Yet which of us to-day but in his secret
heart dreams ever more hopefully of a new unity, that is indeed no
stranger to the old, but in fact the resurrection of the Empire, of
Christendom, in which alone we can be one? After all, is it not now
as then, the noblest hope that can inspire our lives?
Already, before the death of Boniface VIII, the last Pope to die in
Rome for nearly a hundred years, Philip IV of France had asserted
the rights of the State against the claims of the Papal monarchy.
The future was his, and his success was to be so great that for more
than seventy years the Papacy was altogether under the influence of
France, the first of the great nations of the Continent to become
self-conscious. Thus when Boniface died broken-hearted in 1303, it
was the medieval Papacy which lay in state beside him. Two years
later, after the pathetic and ineffectual nine months' reign of
Benedict XI, Clement V, Bertrand de Goth, an Aquitanian, was elected,
and, like his predecessor, fearful before the turbulent Romans and
the confusion of Italy, in 1305 fled away to Avignon, which King
Charles II of Naples held as Count of Anjou on the borders of the
French kingdom. The Papacy had abandoned the Eternal City and had
come under the influence of the French king. Yet in spite of every
disaster the Pope and the Emperor remained the opposed centres of
European affairs. No one as yet realised the possibility of doing
without them, but each power sought rather to use them for its own
end. In this political struggle France held the best position; the
Pope was a Frenchman and so her son; there remained as spoil, the
Empire.
On May 1, 1308, Albert of Hapsburg had been murdered by his nephew;
the election of a new King of the Romans, the future Emperor, fell
pat to Philip's ambitions. He immediately supported the candidature
of his brother, Charles of Valois; but in this he reckoned without
the Pope, who with the Angevins in Naples and himself in Avignon had
no wish to see the Empire also in the hands of France. His position
forbade him openly to oppose Philip, but secretly he gave his support
to Henry of Luxemburg, who was elected as Henry VII on 27 November,
1308.
A German educated in France, the lord of a petty state, Henry, in
spite of the nobility of his nature, of which we hear so much and see
so little, had but feeble Latin sympathies and no real power of his
own. He dreamed of the universal empire like a true German, believing
that the feudal union of Germany and Italy which had always been
impossible was the future of the world. With this mirage before his
eyes he raised the imperial flag and set out southward; and for a
moment it seemed as though the stars had stopped in their courses.
For he was by no means alone in his dream. Every disappointed
ambition in Italy, noble and ignoble, greeted him with a feverish
enthusiasm. The Bianchi and the exiled Ghibellines joined hands,
enormous hopes were conceived, and in his triumph private vengeance
and public hate thought to find achievement. But when Henry entered
Italy in September, 1310, he soon found he had reckoned without the
Florentines, who had called together the Guelf cities, and, leaguing
themselves with King Robert the Wise of Naples, formed what was, in
fact, an Italian confederation to defend freedom and their common
independence. It is true that in these acts Florence thought only of
present safety: she was both right and fortunate; but in allying
herself with King Robert and espousing the cause of France and the
Pope she contributed to that triumph which was to prove for centuries
the most dangerous of all to Italian liberty and independence.
Bitter with loneliness, imprisoned in the adamant of his personality,
Dante, amid the rocks of the Casentino, hurled his curses on
Florence, and not on Florence alone. Is there, I wonder, anything but
hatred and abuse of the cities of his Fatherland in all his work?
He has judged his country as God Himself will not judge it, and he
kept his anger for ever. In the astonishing and disgraceful letters
written in the spring of 1311 he urged Henry to attack his native
city. Hailing this German king--and the Florentines would call him
nothing else--as the "Lamb of God Who taketh away the sins of the
world," he asks him: "What may it profit thee to subdue Cremona?
Brescia, Bergamo, and other cities will continue to revolt until thou
hast extirpated the root of the evil. Art thou ignorant perhaps where
the rank fox lurketh in hiding? The beast drinketh from the Arno,
polluting the waters with its jaws. Knowest thou not that Florence is
its name?..." Henry, however, took no heed as yet of that terrible
voice crying in the wilderness. He entered Rome before attacking
Florence, in May, 1312. He easily won the Capitol, but was fiercely
opposed by King Robert when he tried to reach S. Peter's to win
the imperial crown, and from Castel S. Angelo he was repulsed with
heavy loss. The Roman people, however, presently took his part, and
by threats and violence compelled the bishops to crown him in the
Lateran on June 29.
If Rome greeted him, however, she was alone. Florence remained
the head and front of the unbroken League. Those _scelestissimi
Florentini_, as Dante calls them, still refused to hail him as
anything but Enemy, German King and Tyrant. The fine political
sagacity of Florence, which makes hers the only history worth
reading among the cities of Central Italy, was never shown to better
advantage or more fully justified in the event than when she dared to
send her greatest son into exile and to proclaim his Emperor "German
king" and "enemy." "Remember," she wrote to the people of Brescia,
"that the safety of all Italy and all the Guelfs depends on your
resistance. The Latins must always hold the Germans in enmity, seeing
that they are opposed in act and deed, in manners and soul; not only
is it impossible to serve, but even to hold any intercourse with that
race."
At last the Emperor decided to follow Dante's advice and "slay the
new Goliath." This was easier to talk of in the Casentino than to do.
From mid-September to the end of October the Imperial army lay about
the City of the Lily, never daring to attack. Then the Emperor raised
the siege and set out for Poggibonsi, his health ruined by anxiety
and hardship, and his army, as was always the case both before and
since, broken and spoiled by the Italian summer. He spent the winter
and spring between Poggibonsi and Pisa, then with some idea of
retrieving all by invading Naples, he set off southward in August to
meet his death on S. Bartholomew's Day, poisoned, as some say, at
Buonconvento.
And Florence announced to her allies: "Jesus Christ hath procured the
death of that most haughty tyrant Henry, late Count of Luxemburg,
whom the rebellious persecutors of the Church and the treacherous
foes of ourselves and you call King of the Romans and Emperor."
In the very year of Henry's death, as we suppose, Boccaccio was born
in Paris. The Middle Age had come to an end. The morning of the
Renaissance had already broken on the world.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Mr. Berenson (_Burlington Magazine_, Vol. I (1903), p. 1 _et
seq._) gives these panels to Alunno di Domenico; Mr. Horne to
Botticelli. See CROWE and CAVALCASELLE (ed. E. Hutton), _A New
History of Painting in Italy_ (Dent, 1909), Vol. II, pp. 409 and 471,
and works there cited.
[2] The best study is that of J. A. Symonds's _Boccaccio as Man and
Author_ (Nimmo, 1896). It is unfortunately among the less serious
works of that scholar.
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE vii
INTRODUCTION xi
CHAPTER
I. BOCCACCIO'S PARENTAGE, BIRTH, AND CHILDHOOD 3
II. HIS ARRIVAL IN NAPLES--HIS YEARS WITH THE
MERCHANT--HIS ABANDONMENT OF TRADE AND
ENTRY ON THE STUDY OF CANON LAW 15
III. HIS MEETING WITH FIAMMETTA AND THE PERIODS
OF THEIR LOVE STORY 27
IV. THE YEARS OF COURTSHIP--THE REWARD--THE
BETRAYAL--THE RETURN TO FLORENCE 41
V. BOCCACCIO'S EARLY WORKS--THE _FILOCOLO_--THE
_FILOSTRATO_--THE _TESEIDE_--THE _AMETO_--THE
_FIAMMETTA_--THE _NINFALE FIESOLANO_ 61
VI. IN FLORENCE--HIS FATHER'S SECOND MARRIAGE--THE
DUKE OF ATHENS 96
VII. IN NAPLES--THE ACCESSION OF GIOVANNA--THE
MURDER OF ANDREW OF HUNGARY--THE VENGEANCE 108
VIII. IN ROMAGNA--THE PLAGUE--THE DEATH OF FIAMMETTA 119
IX. THE _RIME_--THE SONNETS TO FIAMMETTA 130
X. BOCCACCIO AS AMBASSADOR--THE MEETING WITH
PETRARCH 145
XI. TWO EMBASSIES 162
XII. BOCCACCIO'S ATTITUDE TO WOMAN--THE _CORBACCIO_ 170
XIII. LEON PILATUS AND THE TRANSLATION OF HOMER--THE
CONVERSION OF BOCCACCIO 189
XIV. THE EMBASSIES TO THE POPE--VISITS TO VENICE
AND NAPLES--BOCCACCIO'S LOVE OF CHILDREN 207
XV. PETRARCH AND BOCCACCIO--THE LATIN WORKS 223
XVI. DANTE AND BOCCACCIO--THE _VITA_--AND THE
_COMENTO_ 249
XVII. ILLNESS AND DEATH 279
XVIII. THE _DECAMERON_ 291
APPENDICES
I. THE DATES OF BOCCACCIO'S ARRIVAL IN NAPLES
AND OF HIS MEETING WITH FIAMMETTA 319
II. DOCUMENT OF THE SALE OF "CORBIGNANO" (CALLED
NOW "CASA DI BOCCACCIO") BY BOCCACCIO IN
1336 325
III. FROM "LA VILLEGGIATURA DI MAIANO," A MS.
BY RUBERTO GHERARDI; A COPY OF WHICH
IS IN POSSESSION OF MRS. ROSS, OF POGGIO
GHERARDO, NEAR SETTIGNANO, FLORENCE 335
IV. THE ACROSTIC OF THE _AMOROSA VISIONE_ DEDICATING
THE POEM TO FIAMMETTA 348
V. THE WILL OF GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO 350
VI. ENGLISH WORKS ON BOCCACCIO 355
VII. BOCCACCIO AND CHAUCER AND SHAKESPEARE 360
VIII. SYNOPSIS OF THE _DECAMERON_, TOGETHER WITH
SOME WORKS TO BE CONSULTED 367
IX. AN INDEX TO THE _DECAMERON_ 394
INDEX 409
ILLUSTRATIONS
TRADITIONAL PORTRAITS OF BOCCACCIO AND FIAMMETTA (MARIA
D'AQUINO) _Frontispiece_
From the frescoes in the Spanish Chapel at S. Maria Novella,
Florence. Photogravure.
_To face page_
THE BURNING OF THE MASTER OF THE TEMPLE 6
From a miniature in the French version of the _De Casibus
Virorum_, made in 1409 by Laurent le Premierfait. MS. late
XV century. (Brit. Mus. Showcase V, MS. 126.)
CASA DI BOCCACCIO, CORBIGNANO, NEAR FLORENCE 12
KING ROBERT OF NAPLES CROWNED BY S. LOUIS OF TOULOUSE 18
From the fresco by Simone Martini in S. Lorenzo, Naples.
POPE JOAN 24
A woodcut from the _De Claris Mulieribus_. (Berne, 1539.)
(By the courtesy of Messrs. J. and J. Leighton.)
LUCRECE 30
A woodcut from _De Claris Mulieribus_. (Berne, 1539.) (By
the courtesy of Messrs. J. and J. Leighton.)
BOCCACCIO AND MAINARDI CAVALCANTI 36
By the Dutch engraver called "The Master of the Subjects
in the Boccaccio." _De Casibus Virorum._ (Strasburg, 1476.)
SAPOR MOUNTING OVER THE PROSTRATE VALERIAN 42
By the Dutch engraver called "The Master of the Subjects in
the Boccaccio." _De Casibus Virorum._ (Strasburg, 1476.)
MANLIUS THROWN INTO THE TIBER 48
By the Dutch engraver called "The Master of the Subjects in
the Boccaccio." _De Casibus Virorum._ (Strasburg, 1476.)
ALLEGORY OF WEALTH AND POVERTY 54
From a miniature in the French version of the _De Casibus
Virorum_, made in 1409 by Laurent le Premierfait. MS. late
XV century. (Brit. Mus. Rothschild Bequest. MS. XII.)
THE MURDER OF THE EMPEROR AND EMPRESS 62
From a miniature in the French version of the _De Casibus
Virorum_, made in 1409 by Laurent le Premierfait. MS. late
XV century. (Brit. Mus. Showcase V, MS. 126.)
A WOODCUT FROM _DES NOBLES MALHEUREUX (DE CASIBUS
VIRORUM_). PARIS, 1515 68
This cut originally appears in the _Troy Book_. (T. Bonhomme,
Paris, 1484.) Unique copy at Dresden. (By the courtesy of
Messrs. J. and J. Leighton.)
MARCUS MANLIUS HURLED FROM THE TARPEIAN ROCK 74
An English woodcut from Lydgate's _Falles of Princes_.
(Pynson, London, 1527.) It is a copy in reverse from the
French translation of the _De Casibus_. (Du Pré, Paris,
1483.) (By the courtesy of Messrs. J. and J. Leighton.)
THE TITLE OF THE _NOBLES MALHEUREUX_ (_DE CASIBUS_).
PARIS, 1538 80
(By the Courtesy of Messrs. J. and J. Leighton.)
FRONTISPIECE OF THE _DECAMERON_. VENICE, 1492 86
CHAPTER HEADING FROM THE _DECAMERON_. VENICE, 1492 92
THE THEFT OF CALANDRINO'S PIG (_DEC._, VIII, 6) 98
GHINO AND THE ABBOT (_DEC._, X, 2) 98
Woodcuts from the _Decameron_. (Venice, 1492.)
THE DUKE OF ATHENS 104
THE EXECUTION OF FILIPPA LA CATANESE 104
From miniatures in the French version of the _De Casibus
Virorum_, made in 1409 by Laurent le Premierfait. Ms. Late
XV century. (Brit. Mus. Rothschild Bequest. Ms. XII.)
CIMON AND IPHIGENIA (_DEC._, V, 1) 110
From a miniature in the French version of the _Decameron_,
made in 1414 by Laurent le Premierfait. MS. late XV century.
(Brit. Mus. Rothschild Bequest. MS. XIII.)
GULFARDO AND GUASPARRUOLO (_DEC._, VIII, 1) 116
From a miniature in the French version of the _Decameron_,
made in 1414 by Laurent le Premierfait. MS. late XV century.
(Brit. Museum. Rothschild Bequest, MS. XIV.)
MADONNA FRANCESCA AND HER LOVERS (_DEC_., IX, 1) 124
From a miniature in the French version of the _Decameron_,
made in 1414 by Laurent le Premierfait. MS. late XV century.
(Brit. Mus. Rothschild Bequest. MS. XIV.)
THE KNIGHT WHO THOUGHT HIMSELF ILL-REWARDED (_DEC._, X, 1) 132
From a miniature in the French version of the _Decameron_,
made in 1414 by Laurent le Premierfait. MS. late XV century.
(Brit. Mus. Rothschild Bequest. MS. XIV.)
THE STORY OF GRISELDA (_DEC._, X, 10) 138
From the picture by Pesellino in the Morelli Gallery at
Bergamo.
THE STORY OF GRISELDA (_DEC._, X, 10) 146
i. The Marquis of Saluzzo, while out hunting, meets with
Griselda, a peasant girl, and falls in love; he clothes her
in fine things. From the picture in the National Gallery
by (?) Bernardino Fungai.
THE STORY OF GRISELDA (_DEC._, X, 10) 152
ii. Her two children are taken from her, she is divorced,
stripped, and sent back to her father's house. From the
picture in the National Gallery by (?) Bernardino Fungai.
THE STORY OF GRISELDA (_DEC._, X, 10) 158
iii. A banquet is prepared for the new bride; Griselda is
sent for to serve, but is reinstated in her husband's
affections and finds her children. From the picture in the
National Gallery by (?) Bernardino Fungai.
THE PALACE OF THE POPES AT AVIGNON 164
MASETTO AND THE NUNS (_Dec._, iii, 1) 174
In 1538 this woodcut appears in Tansillo's _Stanze_. (By
the courtesy of Messrs. J. and J. Leighton.)
MASETTO AND THE NUNS (_Dec._, iii, 1) 174
A woodcut from _Le Cento Novelle_ in ottava rima. (Venice,
1554.) (By the courtesy of Messrs. J. and J. Leighton.)
MONNA TESSA EXORCISING THE DEVIL. (_Dec._, vii, 1) 184
A woodcut from the _Decameron_. (Venice, 1525.)
MONNA TESSA EXORCISING THE DEVIL. (_Dec._, vii, 1) 184
Appeared in Sansovino's _Le Cento Novelle_ (Venice, 1571.)
(By the courtesy of Messrs. J. and J. Leighton.)
A WOODCUT FROM THE _DECAMERON_. (STRASBURG, 1535) 194
(By the courtesy of Messrs. J. and J. Leighton.)
TITLE OF THE SPANISH TRANSLATION OF THE _DECAMERON_
(VALLADOLID, 1539) 204
(By the courtesy of Messrs. J. and J. Leighton.)
A WOODCUT FROM THE _DECAMERON_ (VENICE, 1602.) TITLE TO
DAY V 214
(By the courtesy of Messrs. J. and J. Leighton.)
PETRARCH AND BOCCACCIO DISCUSSING 224
From a miniature in the French version of the _De Casibus
Virorum_, made in 1409 by Laurent le Premierfait. MS. late
XV century. (Brit. Mus. Showcase V, MS. 126.)
POMPEIA, PAULINA, AND SENECA 230
A woodcut from the _De Claris Mulieribus_ (Ulm, 1473), cap.
92. (By the courtesy of Messrs. J and J. Leighton.)
EPITHARIS 234
A woodcut from the _De Claris Mulieribus_ (Ulm, 1493), cap.
91. (By the courtesy of Messrs. J. and J. Leighton.)
PAULINA, MUNDUS, AND THE GOD ANUBIS 238
A woodcut from the _De Claris Mulieribus_ (Ulm, 1473), cap.
89. (By the courtesy of Messrs. J. and J. Leighton.)
THE TORTURE OF REGULUS 244
A woodcut from Lydgate's _Falle of Princes of John Bochas_.
(London, 1494.)
BOCCACCIO DISCUSSING 250
From a miniature in the French version of the _De Casibus
Virorum_, made in 1409 by Laurent le Premierfait. MS. late
XV century. (Brit. Mus. Rothschild Bequest. MS. XII.)
GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO 265
From the fresco in S. Apollonia, Florence. By Andrea dal
Castagno (1396(?)-1457).
CERTALDO 280
BOCCACCIO'S HOUSE IN CERTALDO 284
ROOM IN BOCCACCIO'S HOUSE AT CERTALDO 288
THE LADIES AND YOUTHS OF THE _DECAMERON_ LEAVING FLORENCE 292
From a miniature in the French version of the _Decameron_,
made in 1414 by Laurent le Premierfait. MS. late XV century.
(Brit. Mus. Rothschild Bequest. MS. XIV.)
POGGIO GHERARDO, NEAR SETTIGNANO, FLORENCE 298
(The scene of the first two days of the _Decameron_.)
VILLA PALMIERI, NEAR FLORENCE 302
(The scene of the third and following days of the
_Decameron_.)
LA VALLE DELLE DONNE 306
From a print of the XVIII century in Baldelli's _Vita di
Gio. Boccaccio_.
TITLE PAGE OF VOLUME II OF THE FIRST ENGLISH EDITION OF THE
_DECAMERON_ (ISAAC JAGGARD, 1620.) 312
GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO
CHAPTER I
1313-1323
BOCCACCIO'S PARENTAGE, BIRTH, AND CHILDHOOD
The facts concerning the life and work of Giovanni Boccaccio, though
they have been traversed over and over again by modern students,[3]
are still for the most part insecure and doubtful; while certain
questions, of chronology especially, seem to be almost insoluble. To
begin with, we are uncertain of the place of his birth and of the
identity of his mother, of whom in his own person he never speaks.
And though it is true that he calls himself "of Certaldo,"[4] a small
town at that time in the Florentine _contado_ where he had some
property, and where indeed he came at last to die, we have reason
to believe that it was not his birthplace. The opinion now most
generally professed by Italian scholars is that he was born in Paris
of a French mother; and, while we cannot assert this as a fact, very
strong evidence, both from within and from without his work, can
be brought to support it. It will be best, perhaps, to examine this
evidence, whose corner-stone is his assertion to Petrarch that he was
born in 1313,[5] as briefly as possible.
The family of Boccaccio[6] was originally from Certaldo in
Valdelsa,[7] his father being the Florentine banker and money-changer
Boccaccio di Chellino da Certaldo, commonly called Boccaccino.[8] We
know very little about him, but we are always told that he was of
very humble condition. That he was of humble birth seems certain,
but his career, what we know of his career, would suggest that he
was in a position of considerable importance. We know that in 1318
he was in business in Florence, the name of his firm being Simon
Jannis Orlandini, Cante et Jacobus fratres et filii q. Ammannati
et Boccaccinus Chelini de Certaldo. In the first half of 1324 he
was among the _aggiunti deputati_ of the _Arte del Cambio_ for the
election of the _Consiglieri della Mercanzia_;[9] in 1326 he was
himself one of the five Consiglieri; in the latter part of 1327 he
represented the Società de' Bardi in Naples, and was very well known
to King Robert;[10] while in 1332 he was one of the _Fattori_ for
the same _Società_ in Paris, a post at least equivalent to that of a
director of a bank to-day. These were positions of importance, and
could not have been held by a person of no account.
As a young man, in 1310, we know he was in business in Paris, for
on May 12 in that year fifty-four Knights Templars were slaughtered
there,[11] and this Boccaccio tells us his father saw.[12] That
there was at that time a considerable Florentine business in
France in spite of those years of disaster--Henry VII had just
entered Italy--is certain. In 1311, indeed, we find the Florentines
addressing a letter to the King of France,[13] lamenting that at
such a moment His Majesty should have taken measures hurtful to the
interests of their merchants, upon whom the prosperity of their city
so largely depended.
Boccaccio di Chellino seems to have remained in Paris in
business;[14] that he was still there in 1313 we know, for in that
year, on March 11, Jacques de Molay, Master of the Templars, was
executed, and Giovanni tells us that his father was present.[15] If,
then, Boccaccio was speaking the truth when he told Petrarch he was
born in 1313, he must have been conceived, and was almost certainly
born, in Paris.
[Illustration: THE BURNING OF THE MASTER OF THE TEMPLE
_From a miniature in the French version of the "De Casibus Virorum,"
made in 1409 by Laurent le Premierfait. MS. late XV century. (Brit.
Mus. Showcase V, MS. 126.)_]
Let us now examine such evidence as we may gather from the allegories
of his own poems and plays, though there he speaks in parables. In
two of his works at least--the _Filocolo_ and the _Ameto_--Boccaccio
seems to be speaking of himself in the characters of Idalagos[16] and
Caleone and Ibrida. The _Ameto_, like the _Filocolo_, was written to
give expression to his love for Fiammetta, the bastard daughter of
King Robert of Naples. There he says that Caleone (whom we suppose
to be in some sort himself) was born not far from the place whence
Fiammetta's mother (whom he has told us was French) drew her origin.
Again, in another part of the same book the story is related of
a young Italian merchant, not distinguished by birth or gentle
breeding, who went to Paris and there seduced a young French widow.
The fruit of their intercourse was a boy, who received the name of
Ibrida. The evidence to be gathered from the _Filocolo_ is even more
precise, but, briefly, it may be said to confirm the story in the
_Ameto_.[17] We find there, however, that the name of the father was
Eucomos, which may be bad Greek for Boccaccio; that the name of the
mother was Gannai, which might seem to be an anagram for Giovanna or
Gianna; and that the father deserted the mother in order to marry
Gharamita,[18] which sounds like an anagram for Margherita, and in
fact we find that Boccaccio di Chellino did marry almost certainly
about 1314 Margherita di Gian Donato de' Martoli.[19]
The result then of these allegorical allusions in the _Ameto_ and
the _Filocolo_ is to support the theory based on the few facts we
possess, and to supplement it. That theory absolutely depends, so
far as we rely upon facts for its confirmation, on Boccaccio's own
statement, as reported by Petrarch, that he was born in 1313. If he
was born in 1313, he was conceived and born in Paris, for we know
that Boccaccio di Chellino was there in the years between 1310 and
1313. The _Filocolo_ and the _Ameto_ bear this out, and lead us to
believe that his mother was a certain Gianna or Gannai (Jeanne,
Giovanna), that he was born out of wedlock, and that his father
deserted his mother, and not long after married Gharamita, as we
suppose Margherita di Gian Donato de' Martoli.
Turning now to the evidence of his contemporaries, we shall find that
just this was the opinion commonly received, so much so that the
Italian translator of Filippo Villani's _Lives_ actually changed the
words of that author and forced him to agree with it. "His father,"
says this adapter,[20] "was Boccaccio of Certaldo, a village of the
Florentine dominion. He was a man distinguished by excellence of
manners. The course of his commercial affairs brought him to Paris,
where he resided for a season, and being free and pleasant in the
temper of his mind, was no less gay and well inclined to love by the
complexion of his constitution. There then it befell that he was
inspired by love for a girl of Paris, belonging to the class between
nobility and bourgeoisie, for whom he conceived the most violent
passion; and, as the admirers of Giovanni assert, she became his wife
and afterwards the mother of Giovanni."
As his admirers assert! But others were not slow to say that his
father and mother were never married; and indeed, this without doubt
was the ordinary opinion.
In the true version of Filippo Villani's _Lives_,[21] written in
Latin, we read that he was the son of his natural father,[22] and
that he was born at Certaldo. Domenico Aretino[23] agrees that
Certaldo was his birthplace, and adds that in his opinion Boccaccio
was a bastard. Again, Salvini and Manni, following perhaps the
well-known sonnet of Acquettino, say he was born in Florence.[24]
In all this confusion we are like to lose our way, and it is
therefore not surprising that modern scholars are divided in opinion.
Tiraboschi[25] remains undecided. Baldelli[26] thinks he was born
in Paris and was illegitimate; Ginguené, Witte, Carducci, Landau,
Hortis, Antona Traversi, and Crescini agree with Baldelli--and,
indeed, we find only two modern students who give Florence as his
birthplace, to wit Corazzini[27] and Koerting[28], who agree,
however, that he was a bastard.
It will thus be seen that the weight of opinion is on the side of
the evidence, and that it certainly seems to have been shown that
Boccaccio was born out of wedlock in Paris in 1313, and that his
mother's name was Jeannette or Jeanne[29]. It is probable that
Boccaccio was brought still a tiny baby to Florence, but we cannot
be sure of this, for though his father seems to have returned in
1314,[30] and almost at once to have married Margherita di Gian
Donato de' Martoli, it is not certain that Giovanni accompanied him.
Indeed the _Filocolo_ seems to suggest that he did not.[31] However
that may be, he was "in his first infancy" when he came to Tuscany,
as he tells us in the _Ameto_, "fanciullo, cercai i regni Etrurii."
The first river he saw was the Arno, "mihi ante alios omnes ab
ipsa infantia cognitus"; and his boyhood was spent on that little
hill described in the _Filocolo_, "piccolo poggio pieno di marine
chiocciole," and covered with "salvatichi cerri," in the house of his
father, "nel suo grembo," as he says in the _Fiammetta_.
Where was this hill dark with oaks where one might find sea-shells,
the tiny shells of sea-snails? We do not know for certain. Some have
thought it to be the hill of Certaldo,[32] but this seems scarcely
likely, for we know that old Boccaccio was resident in Florence in
1318, and Boccaccio himself tells us that his boyhood was spent not
in a house belonging to his father, but "nel suo grembo," literally
in his father's lap.[33] Again, the country which he loved best and
has described with the greatest love and enthusiasm is that between
the village of Settignano and the city of Fiesole, north and east
of Florence. As though unable to forget the lines of just those
hills, the shadows on the woods there, the darkness of the cypresses
over the olives, he returns to them again and again. The _Ninfale
Fiesolano_ is entirely devoted to this country, its woods and hills
and streams; he speaks of it also in the _Ameto_,[34] it is the
setting of the _Decameron_; while the country about Certaldo does not
seem to have specially appealed to him, certainly not in the way the
countryside of one's childhood never ceases to do.
It is, then, to the hills about Settignano, to the woods above the
Mensola and the valley of the Affrico, that we should naturally turn
to look for the scenes of his boyhood. And indeed any doubt of his
presence there might seem to be dismissed by a document discovered by
Gherardi, which proves that on the 18th of May, 1336, by a contract
drawn up by Ser Salvi di Dini, Messer Boccaccio di Chellino da
Certaldo, lately dwelling in the parish of S. Pier Maggiore and then
in that of S. Felicità, sold to Niccolò di Vegna, who bought for
Niccolò the son of Paolo his nephew, the _poderi_ with houses called
Corbignano, partly in the parish of S. Martino a Mensola and partly
in that of S. Maria a Settignano.[35] This villa of old Boccaccio's
exists to-day at Corbignano, and bears his name, Casa di Boccaccio,
and though it has been rebuilt much remains from his day--part of the
old tower that has been broken down and turned into a loggia, here
a ruined fresco, there a spoiled inscription.[36] Here, doubtless,
within sound of Mensola and Affrico, within sight of Florence
and Fiesole, "not too far from the city nor too near the gate,"
Giovanni's childhood was passed.
Of those early years we have naturally very little knowledge. Before
he was seven years old, as he himself tells us,[37] he was set to
learn to read and write. Then he was placed in the care of Giovanni
di Domenico Mazzuoli da Strada, father of the more famous Zanobi, to
begin the study of "Grammatica."[38] With Mazzuoli he began Latin
then,[39] but presently his father, who had already destined him for
the counting-house, took him from the study of "Grammatica" and, as
Giovanni tells us, made him give his time to "Arismetrica."[40] Then,
if we may believe the _Filocolo_, he took him into his business,
where he learned, no doubt, to keep books of account and saw some of
the mysteries of banking and money-lending. Against this mode of life
he conceived then a most lively hatred, which was to increase rather
than to diminish as he grew older. Such work, he assures us in his
_Commentary_ on the _Divine Comedy_, cannot be followed without sin.
Great wealth, he tells us in the _Filocolo_, prohibits, or at least
spoils virtue: there is nothing better or more honest than to
live in a moderate poverty; while in the _De Genealogiis Deorum_ he
says poverty means tranquillity of soul: for riches are the enemy of
quietness and a torment of the mind.
[Illustration: CASA DI BOCCACCIO, CORBIGNANO, NEAR FLORENCE]
But we know nothing of his childhood, only it seems to have been
unhappy. Till his return from Naples many year later, in spite of
his hatred for business, he seems always to have got on well with
his father.[41] In remembering words which he then wrote concerning
him[42] we must remind ourselves that Boccaccino was at that time
an old man, and had probably lost those "excellent manners" of
which Villani speaks; and by then, too, Giovanni had altogether
disappointed him, by forsaking first business, and later the study
of Canon Law. His childhood seems to have been unhappy then not from
any fault or want of care on his father's part, though no doubt his
hatred of business had something to do with it; but the true cause of
the unhappiness, and even, as he says, of the fear which haunted his
boyhood, was almost certainly Margherita, his stepmother, with whom
he doubtless managed to live well enough till her son Francesco was
born.
We have already relied so much on the _Filocolo_ and the _Ameto_
that it will only confuse us to forsake them now. In the former,[43]
he tells us that one day the young shepherd, Idalagos (himself),
following his father, saw two bears, who glared at him with fierce
and terrible eyes in which he saw a desire for his death, so that
he was afraid and fled away from the paternal fields to follow his
calling in other woods. These two bears who chased Giovanni from
home, not directly but indirectly, by causing the fear which hatred
always rouses in the young, were, it seems, Margherita and her son
Francesco, born about 1321.
It may well be that Boccaccino had come to the conclusion about this
time that Giovanni would never make a banker, and hoping yet to see
him prosperous in the Florentine manner, sent him to Naples to learn
to be a merchant. If we add to this inference the evidence of the
allegory of the two bears in the _Filocolo_, we may conclude that
his father, disappointed with him already, was not hard to persuade
when Margherita, loath to see the little bastard beside her own son
Francesco, urged his departure.
All this, however, is conjecture. We know nothing of Boccaccio's
early years save that his father sent him to Naples to learn business
while he was still young, as is generally believed in 1330, but as
we may now think, not without good reason, in 1323, when he was ten
years old.[44]
FOOTNOTES:
[3] For a full bibliography see GUIDO TRAVERSARI, _Bibliografia
Boccaccesca_ (Città di Castello, 1907), Vol. I (Scritti intorno al
Boccaccio e alla fortuna delle sue opere).
[4] He commonly signs himself "Joannes Boccaccius" and "Giovanni da
Certaldo." In his Will he describes himself as "Joannes olim Boccacii
de Certaldo," and in the epitaph he wrote for his tomb we read
"Patria Certaldum."
[5] See PETRARCA, _Senili_, VIII, i., Lett. del 20 luglio, 1366 (in
traduz. Fracassetti, p. 445): "Conciossiachè tu devi sapere, e il
sappian pure quanti non hanno a schifo quest' umile origine, che
nell' anno 1304 di quest' ultima età, cui dà nome e principio Gesù
Cristo fonte ed autore di ogni mia speranza, sullo spuntare dell'
alba, il lunedì 20 luglio io nacqui al mondo nella città di Arezzo,
e nella strada dell' Orto.... Ed oggi pure è lunedì, siamo pur oggi
al 20 di luglio e corre l' anno 1366. Conta sulle dita e vedrai che
son passati 62 anni da che toccai l' inquieta soglia di questa vita;
sì che oggi appunto, e in quest' ora medesima, io pongo il piede su
quel che dicono anno tremendo sessagesimo terzo, e se tu non menti,
e, secondo il costume che dissi de' giovani, qualcuno pure tu non te
ne scemi nell' ordine del nascere, io ti precedo di nove anni." Then
if Petrarch was born in 1304, Boccaccio was born in 1313. FILIPPO
VILLANI, _Le Vite d' uomini illustri Fiorentini_ (Firenze, 1826), p.
12, tells us that Boccaccio died in 1375, aged sixty-two.
[6] Cf. DAVIDSOHN, _Il Padre di Gio. Boccacci_ in _Arch. St.
It._, Ser. V, Vol. XXIII, p. 144. IDEM, _Forschungen zur
Geschichte von Florenz_ (Berlin, 1901), pp. 172, 182, 184, 187,
253. G. MINI, _Il Libro d' oro di Firenze Antica_ in _Giornale
Araldico-genealogico-diplomatico_ (1901), XXVIII, p. 156. And see for
the descendants of the family an interesting paper by ANSELMI, _Nuovi
documenti e nuove opere di frate Ambrogio della Robbia nelle Marche_
in _Arte e Storia_ (1904), XXIII, p. 154.
[7] He himself tells us this in _De Montibus, Sylvis, Lacubus_, etc.
[8] See the documents published by CRESCINI, _Contributo agli Studi
sul Boccaccio_ (Torino, 1887), esp. p. 258.
[9] See _Arch. di Stato Firenze, Mercanzia_, No. 137, _ad ann._, May
23.
[10] In the carteggio of the _Signoria Fiorentina_ (missive iv. f.
37 of _Arch. di Stato di Firenze_) is to be found the copy of a
letter from the Priori to King Robert, which has been published. The
Signoria on April 12, 1329, write to King Robert that the lack of
corn in the city is so great as to cause fear of tumult; wherefore
they pray him to order the captains of his ships to send certain
galleys they had taken with corn to Talamone, where they might buy
what they needed. Under this letter is written: "Ad infra scriptos
mercatores. Predicta notificata sunt Boccaccio de Certaldo, Baldo
Orlandini et Acciaiolo de Acciaiolis, et mandatum est et scriptum,
quod litteras predictas domino regi presententur." It follows that
Boccaccino was among the first Florentine _negozianti_ then in
Naples. But see _infra_. He must have come into personal relations
with King Robert on this occasion, even though hitherto he had not
done so.
[11] Cf. HAVEMANN, _Geschichte des ausgangs des Tempelherrenordens_
(Stuttgart, 1846), pp. 261-3, and CRESCINI, _Contributo agli studi
sul Boccaccio_ (Torino, 1887), cap. i. p. 25. Crescini's book is
invaluable.
[12] He tells us this in the _De Casibus Illustrium Virorum_, Lib. IX.
[13] See DESJARDINS, _Négociations Diplomatiques de la France avec
la Toscane_, Vol. I, p. 12 _et seq._, and VILLARI, _The First Two
Centuries of Florentine History_ (Eng. trans., 1905), p. 554.
[14] That he was not a mere traveller between Tuscany and France
seems certain, for Boccaccio says: "Boccaccius genitor meus, qui tunc
forte Parisius negotiator, honesto cum labore rem curabat augere
domesticam," etc.
[15] BOCCACCIO, _De Cas. Ill. Vir._, Lib. IX. Cf. CRESCINI, _op. cit._
[16] Cf. CRESCINI, _op. cit._, cap. i; ANTONA TRAVERSI, _Della patria
di Gio. Boccaccio_ in _Fanfulla della Domenica_ (1880), II, and in
_Rivista Europea_ (1882), XXVI. See also B. ZUMBINI, _Il Filocolo del
Boccaccio_ (Firenze, 1879), esp. p. 58; and CRESCINI, _Idalagos_ in
_Zeitschrift für Rom. Phil._ (1885-6), IX, 457-9, X, 1-21.
[17] Cf. _Ameto_ in _Opere Minori_ (Milan, 1879), p. 186 _et seq._;
and _Filocolo_ in _Opere Volgari_, ed. Moutier (Firenze, 1827), Vol.
II, p. 236 _et seq._
[18] For a full discussion of these allusions and anagrams, cf.
CRESCINI, _Contributo agli studi sul Boccaccio_ (Torino, 1887), cap,
i. It will be seen that if our theory be correct, Giovanni Boccaccio
bears the names of both his parents--Giovanna and Boccaccio. It is
necessary to point out, however, that there is not much in this,
for a paternal uncle was called Vanni, and Giovanni may have been
named after him, as his brother was named after another uncle. Cf.
BALDELLI, _Vita di Gio. Boccaccio_ (Firenze, 1806), p. 274, note 1.
[19] In the _Filocolo_ (_ed. cit._, Vol. II, pp. 242-3) we read:
"Ma non lungo tempo quivi ricevuti noi dimorò, che abbandonata la
semplice giovane e l' armento tornò nei suoi campi, e quivi appresso
noi si tirò, e non guari lontano al suo natal sito la promessa fede
a Giannai ad un' altra, Garamita chiamata, ripromise e servò, di cui
nuova prole dopo piccolo spazio riceveo." Cf. BALDELLI, _Vita di Gio.
Boccaccio_ (Firenze, 1806), p. 275.
[20] See F. VILLANI, _Le Vite d' uomini illustri Fiorentini_
(Firenze, 1826). F. Villani was a contemporary of Boccaccio, and
succeeded him in the chair founded at Florence for the exposition of
the _Divine Comedy_.
[21] See Galletti, _Philippi Villani: Liber de Civitatis Florentiæ
famosis civibus ex codice Mediceo Laurentiano, nunc primum editus_,
etc. (Firenze, 1847), and on this CALÒ, _Filippo Villani e il Liber
de Origine civitatis_, etc. (Rocca S. Casciano, 1904), pp. 154-5.
[22] The son of his "natural father" may mean that Boccaccio di
Chellino was not his adoptive father, or it may mean that Giovanni
was a bastard. See on this CRESCINI, _op. cit._, p. 38 _et seq._, and
DELLA TORRE, _La Giovinezza di Gio. Boccaccio_ (Città di Castello,
1905), cap. i.
[23] Domenico Bandini Aretino says: "Boccatius pater ejus ... amavit
quamdam iuventulam Parisinam, quam prout diligentes Ioannem dicunt
quamquam alia communior sit opinio sibi postea uxorem fecit, ex qua
genitus est Ioannes." See SOLERTI, _Le vite di Dante, Petrarca e
Boccaccio scritte fino al secolo XVII_ (Milano, 1904). The lives
of Boccaccio constitute the third part of the volume; the second
of these is Domenico's. Cf. MESSERA, _Le più antiche biografie del
Boccaccio_ in _Zeitschrift für Rom. Phil._ (1903), XXVII, fasc. iii.
See also CRESCINI, _op. cit._, p. 16, note 1, and ANTONA TRAVERSI,
_op. cit._ in _Fansulia della Domencia_, II, 23, where many authors
of this opinion are quoted.
[24] Giovanni Acquettino da Prato was a bad poet. His sonnet says:
"Nacqui in Firenze al Pozzo Toscanelli." Pozzo Toscanelli was in the
S. Felicità quarter, close to the Via Guicciardini.
[25] _St. della Lett. Ital._ (1823), V, part iii. p. 738 _et seq._
[26] _Op. cit._, pp. 277-80.
[27] CORAZZINI, _Lettere edite e inedite di G. Boccaccio_ (Firenze,
1877), p. viii. _et seq._
[28] KOERTING, _Boccaccio's Leben und Werke_ (Leipzig, 1880), p.
67 _et seq._, and _Boccaccio Analekten_ in _Zeitschrift für Rom.
Phil._ (1881), v. p. 209 _et seq._ If Antona Traversi has disposed of
Corazzini's assertions, Crescini seems certainly to have demolished
the arguments of Koerting.
[29] All the dates and facts so carefully established by Crescini
and Della Torre are really dependent on the date of Boccaccio's
birth, 1313, being the true one. This is the corner-stone of their
structure. But the story of his illegitimacy and foreign birth was
current long before this date was established. It was the commonly
received opinion. Why? Doubtless because Boccaccio himself had
practically stated so in the _Filocolo_ and the _Ameto_. That Filippo
Villani's Italian translator was dependent on these allegories for
his story seems to be proved (cf. DELLA TORRE, _op. cit._, p. 30); so
probably was the general public. The question remains: Was Boccaccio
speaking the mere truth concerning himself in these allegories?
Filippo Villani himself, as we have seen, believed that he was born
at Certaldo; so did Domenico Aretino. For myself, I do not think that
enough has been allowed for the indirect influence of Fiammetta in
the _Filocolo_ and the _Ameto_. They were written for her--to express
his love for her. She was the illegitimate daughter of King Robert of
Naples by the wife of the nobleman Conte d'Aquino--a woman of French
extraction. It is strange, then, that Boccaccio's story of his birth
in the allegories should so closely resemble hers. She doubtless
thought herself a very great lady, and was probably prouder of her
royal blood than a legitimate princess would have been. But Boccaccio
was just the son of a small Florentine trader; and he was a Poet. To
proclaim himself--half secretly--illegitimate was a gain to him, a
gain in romance. How could a youthful poet, in love with a princess
too, announce himself as the son of a petty trader, a mere ordinary
bourgeois, to a lady so fine as the blonde Fiammetta? Of course he
could not absolutely deny that this was so, especially after his
father's visit (1327), and also we must remember that the Florentine
trader held, or is supposed to have held, quite a good social
position even in feudal Naples. Nevertheless his bourgeois birth did
not please the greatest story-teller of Europe. So he invented a
romantic birth--he too would be the result of a love-intrigue, even
as Fiammetta was. And because he loved her, and therefore wished to
be as close to her and as like her as possible, he too would have
a French mother. Suppose all this to be true, and that after all
Boccaccio is the son of Margherita, the wife of his father; that
he was born in wedlock in 1318; that he met Fiammetta not on March
30, 1331 (see Appendix I), but on March 30, 1336, and that he told
Petrarch he was born in 1313 because he knew his father was in Paris
at that date--this last with his usual realism to clinch the whole
story he had told Fiammetta.
[30] In 1318 Boccaccio di Chellino is spoken of as having been a
dweller in the quarter of S. Pier Maggiore for some four years. See
MANNI, _Istoria del Decameron_ (Firenze, 1742), p. 7, who gives the
document. This may mean little, however, for the residence may have
been purely formal, and have signified merely that a business was
carried on there in his name. But see CRESCINI, _op. cit._, pp. 40
and 41, Note 1, and DELLA TORRE, _op. cit._, pp. 7-14.
[31] Cf. _Filocolo_, _ed. cit._, Vol. II, pp. 242-3.
[32] DELLA TORRE, _op. cit._, p. 2.
[33] Moreover, as we shall see, the story of the "two bears" which
in his allegory followed his father and drove himself out of the
house--to Naples--seems to make it necessary that they should all
have been living together. See _infra_, p. 14.
[34] In the first page he says: "Vagabondo giovane i Fauni e le
Driadi abitatrici del luogo, solea visitare, et elli forse dagli
vicini monti avuta antica origine, quasi da carnalità costretto, di
ciò avendo memoria, con pietosi affetti gli onorava talvolta...."
[35] The document is given in full in Appendix II. The fact that the
parish of S. Pier Maggiore is mentioned proves that when Boccaccio
di Chellino was married, he was living therein, for the property was
part of the dowry of Margherita di Gian Donato his first wife.
[36] See my _Country Walks About Florence_ (Methuen, 1908), pp. 13-15
Casa di Boccaccio is within sight and almost within hail of Poggio
Gherardo, the supposed scene of the first two days of the _Decameron_.
[37] In the _De Genealogiis Deorum_, Lib. XV, cap. x., he says "Non
dum ad septimum annum deveneram ... vix prima literarum elementa
cognoveram...." At this time he was already composing verses, he says.
[38] Cf. MASSERA, _Le più antiche biografie_ in _Zeitschrift für Rom.
Phil._, XXVII, pp. 310-18. But see CRESCINI, _op. cit._, p. 48, note
3; and in reply DELLA TORRE, _op. cit._, p. 3, note 5.
[39] "Qui ... ferula ... ab incunabulis puellulos primum grammaticæ
gradum tentantes cogere consueverat," writes Boccaccio in the
letter to Iacobo Pizzinghe. See CORRAZINI, _Le Lett. ed. e ined.
di G. B._ (Firenze, 1877), p 196, and _Filocolo_, _ed. cit._, I,
75-6. It was probably the _Metamorphoses_ of Ovid that he read with
Mazzuoli, though in the _Filocolo_ he speaks of the _Ars Amandi_! The
_Metamorphoses_ were read for the sake of the mythology as well as
for the exercise in Latin. Cf. DELLA TORRE, _op. cit._, p. 4.
[40] Cf. HECKER, _Boccaccio Funde_ (Braunschweig, 1902), p. 288, and
MASSERA, _op. cit._, p. 310.
[41] DELLA TORRE, _op. cit._, pp. 5, 6.
[42] In the _Ameto_:--
"Lì non si ride mai se non di rado,
La casa oscura e muta, e molto trista
Me ritiene e riceve a mal mio grado;
Dove la cruda ed orribile vista
D' un vecchio freddo, ruvido ed avaro
Ogn' ora con affanno più m' attrista."
No doubt, after the gaiety of Naples and its court, the life with an
old and poor Florentine merchant seemed dull; and besides, Fiammetta
was far away.
[43] _Filocolo_, _ed. cit._, Vol. II, p. 243. He says: "Io semplice
e lascivo" (cf. _Paradiso_, v. 82-4) "come già dissi, le pedate
dello ingannator padre seguendo, volendo un giorno nella paternale
casa entrare, due orsi ferocissimi e terribili mi vidi avanti con
gli occhi ardenti desiderosi della mia morte, de' quali dubitando
io volsi i passi miei, e da quell' ora innanzi sempre d' entrare in
quella dubitai. Ma acciocchè io più vero dica, tanta fu la paura, che
abbandonati i paternali campi, in questi boschi venni l' apparato
uficio a operare." CRESCINI in _Kritischer Jahresbericht über
Fortschrifte der Rom. Phil._ (1898), III, p. 396 _et seq._, takes
these two bears to be old Boccaccio and Margherita, but DELLA TORRE,
_op. cit._, pp. 18-30, asks very aptly how could Boccaccio speak
thus of a father he allows in the _Fiammetta_ "per la mia puerizia
nel suo grembo teneramente allevata, per l' amor da lui verso di
me continuamente portato." Della Torre takes the two bears to be
Margherita and her son Francesco, born _ca._ 1321. See _op. cit._, p.
24, and document there quoted.
[44] See Appendix I, where the whole question is discussed. Cf. DELLA
TORRE, _op. cit._, p. 30, note 1, and caps. ii. and iii.; CASETTI,
_Il Boccaccio a Napoli_ in _Nuova Antologia_ (1875); and DE BLASIIS,
_La Dimora di Gio. Boccaccio a Napoli_ in _Arch. St. per le prov.
Nap._ (1892), XXII, p. 11 _et seq._
CHAPTER II
1323-1330
HIS ARRIVAL IN NAPLES--HIS YEARS WITH THE MERCHANT--HIS ABANDONMENT
OF TRADE AND ENTRY ON THE STUDY OF CANON LAW
In the fourteenth century the journey from Florence by way of Siena,
Perugia, Rieti, Aquila, and Sulmona, thence across the Apennines at
Il Sangro, and so through Isernia and Venafro, through Teano and
Capua to Naples, occupied some ten or eleven days.[45] The way was
difficult and tiring, especially for a lad of ten years old, and it
seems as though Giovanni was altogether tired out, for, if we may
believe the _Ameto_,[46] as he drew near the city at last he fell
asleep on his horse. And as he slept, a dream came to him. Full
of fear as he was, lonely and bewildered, those "two bears" still
pursuing him, doubtless, in his heart, suddenly it seemed to him
that he was already arrived in the city. "The new streets," he says
in the _Ameto_,[47] "held my heart with delight, and as I passed on
my way there appeared to the eyes of my mind a most beautiful girl,
in aspect gracious and fair, dressed all in garments of green, which
befitted her age and recalled the ancient dress of the city; and with
joy she gave me welcome, first taking me by the hand, and she kissed
me and I her; and then she said sweetly, 'Come where you shall find
good luck and happiness.'"[48] It was thus Giovanni was welcomed into
Naples with a kiss.
Naples was then at the height of its splendour, under Robert the
Wise, King of Jerusalem and the Two Sicilies, Count of Provence.
If his titles had little reality, for that of Jerusalem merely
commemorated an episode of history, and Sicily itself had passed
into the hands of Aragon, as King of Naples and Count of Provence he
possessed an exceptional influence in the affairs of Europe, while
in Italy he was in some sort at the head of the triumphant Guelf
cause. The son of Charles I of Anjou, King of Naples, Duke Robert,
had seized the crown of Italy and Apulia, not without suspicion of
fratricide; for the tale goes that none knew better than he the cause
of the sudden illness which carried off his elder brother, Dante's
beloved Charles Martel. However that may be, in June, 1309, Duke
Robert went by sea from Naples to Provence to the Papal Court there,
"with a great fleet of galleys," Villani[49] tells us, "and a great
company, and was crowned King of Sicily and of Apulia by Pope Clement
on S. Mary's Day in September." A year later we find him in Florence
on his way back from Avignon. He stayed in the house of the Peruzzi
dal Parlagio, and Villani[50] says: "The Florentines did him much
honour and held jousts and gave him large presents of money, and he
abode in Florence until the 24th day of October to reconcile the
Guelfs together ... and to treat of warding off the Emperor." He was,
in fact, the great opponent, as we have seen, of Henry VII, and in
1312 Villani[51] records that he sent 600 Catalan and Apulian horse
to Rome to defend the City, while the people of Florence, Lucca, and
Siena, and of other cities of Tuscany who were in league with him,
sent help also; yet though they held half Rome between them, Henry
was crowned in the Lateran after all. It was in the very year of the
Emperor's death that the Florentines gave him the lordship of their
city, as did the Lucchese, the Pistoians, and the men of Prato.[52]
Later, after much fighting, the Genoese did the same; so that in the
year 1323 King Robert was in some sort drawing tribute from more than
half the Communes of Central Italy. The brilliancy of his statecraft,
or even, perhaps, of his statesmanship, added to the splendour of
Naples, whither his magnanimity and the brilliance of his court
attracted some of the greatest men of the time.[53]
"Cernite Robertum
Regem virtute refertum"
wrote Petrarch of him later--"full of virtue." While in a letter
written in 1340 to Cardinal Colonna he says that of all men he would
most readily have accepted King Robert as a judge of his ability.
Nor were they poets and men of learning alone whom he gathered about
him. In 1330 Giotto, who had known Charles of Calabria in Florence in
1328,[54] came to Naples on his invitation; while so early as 1310,
certainly, Simone Martini was known to him, and seems about that time
to have painted his portrait, later representing him in S. Chiara as
crowned by his brother S. Louis of Toulouse.[55] It was then into a
city where learning and the arts were the fashion that Boccaccio came
in 1323.
There were other things too: the amenity of one's days passed so
much in the open air, the splendour of a city rich and secure, the
capital of a kingdom, and the residence of a king--the only king in
Italy--above all, perhaps, the gaiety of that southern life in the
brilliant sunshine. Boccaccio never tires of telling us about this
city of his youth. "Naples," he says in the _Fiammetta_, "was gay,
peaceful, rich, and splendid above any other Italian city, full of
festas, games, and shows." "One only thought, how to occupy oneself,"
he says again, "how to amuse oneself, dancing to the sound of music,
discussing affairs of love, and losing one's heart over sweet words,
and Venus there was indeed a goddess, so that more than one who came
thither a Lucrece returned a Cleopatra. Sometimes," he continues,
"the youths and maidens went in the gayest companies into the woods,
where tables were prepared for them on which were set out all manner
of delicate meats; and the picnic over, they would set themselves
to dance and to romp and play. Some would glide in boats along the
shore, others, dispensing with shoes and stockings, and lifting high
their petticoats, would venture among the rocks or into the water
to find sea shells; others again would fish with lines." And then
there were the Courts of Love held in the spring, when the girls,
adorned with splendid jewels, he tells us in the _Filocolo_, tried to
outshine one another, and while the old people looked on, the young
men danced with them, touching their delicate hands. And seeing that
he was surrounded by a life like this, is it any wonder that he fell
in love with love, with beauty?
[Illustration: KING ROBERT OF NAPLES CROWNED BY S. LOUIS OF TOULOUSE
_From the fresco by Simone Martini in S. Lorenzo, Naples._
_Anderson._]
Of the first years of his sojourn in that beautiful southern place we
have only the vaguest hints.[56] In the _De Genealogiis_[57] he says
that "for six years he did nothing but waste irrecoverable time" with
the merchant to whom his father had confided him. He always hated
business, and precocious as he was in his love for literature, in
the gaiety and beauty of Naples he grew to despise those engaged in
money-making; for, as he says in the _Corbaccio_, they knew nothing
of any beautiful thing, but only how to fill their pockets.[58]
Indeed Boccaccio might seem to have had no taste or even capacity
for anything but study and the art of literature. He most bitterly
reproaches his father in the _De Genealogiis_[59] for having turned
him for so many years from his vocation. "If my father had dealt
wisely with me I might have been among the great poets," he writes.
"But he forced me, in vain, to give my mind to money-making, and
to such a paying thing as the Canon Law. I became neither a man
of affairs nor a canonist, and I lost all chance of succeeding in
poetry."
Those six irrecoverable years had indeed almost passed away before
even in Naples he was able to find, unlearned as he was, "rozza
mente" as he calls himself, any opportunity of culture. It was in
1328,[60] it seems, that those _conversazioni astronomiche_ began
with Calmeta, which aroused in him the desire of wisdom.[61] By that
time his father was in Naples, having come thither in the autumn of
1327, and it may have been in his company that Giovanni first met
this the earliest friend of his youth. But who was this Calmeta,
this benefactor to whom, after all, we owe so much? Andalò di Negro,
says Crescini;[62] but as Della Torre reminds us, his work was done
in Latin, and Giovanni knew but little of the tongue. It will be
seen in the _Filocolo_, to which we must turn again for guidance,
that Calmeta and Idalagos have the same profession; they are both
shepherds, and it is in their leisure that Calmeta teaches Idalagos
astronomy. It seems then that Calmeta was also in business in Naples.
That such an one there was Della Torre proves by drawing attention to
a letter he will not allow to be apocryphal.[63] Calmeta, then, as we
see, like Giovanni, was inclined to study, and more fortunate than
he, had been able "tuam puerilem ætatem coram educatoribus roborare,
et vago atque interno intuiti elementa grammaticæ ruminare...." that
is to say, to finish his elementary course of study, which consisted
of grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric.
But this new friendship was not the only thing that about this
time helped to strengthen Giovanni's dislike of business and to
encourage him in his love of learning and literature. For in the
same year, 1328, it seems likely that he was presented at the court
of King Robert,[64] a court, as we have already said, full of gay,
delightful people and learned men.[65] It seems certain too that he
was presented by his father who, as we have seen, between September
and November, 1327, came to Naples as a member of the Società de'
Bardi.[66] Now old Boccaccio not only went frequently to court during
his sojourn in Naples, for he was very honourably received there, but
was probably one of the most considerable Florentine merchants in the
city,[67] and then he had known Carlo, Duke of Calabria, in Florence,
before setting out.[68] There can therefore be very little doubt as
to where Giovanni got his introduction.
Before his father left Naples, Giovanni, who was then about sixteen
years of age, had had the courage to tell him that he could not
pursue a business career.[69] His father seems at last to have been
convinced of this, and gave his consent for study in the Arts, but,
practical man as he was, he believed in a fixed profession, and
therefore set Giovanni in 1329[70] to study Canon Law, which might
well bring him a career. So his father left him.
Whatever his duties had been or were to be, neither they nor his
studies with his friend the young merchant occupied all his time.
He enjoyed life, entering with gusto into the gaiety of what was
certainly the gayest city in Italy then and later. He speaks often
of the beauty of the women[71] amid that splendour of earth and
sky and sea; and the beautiful names of two he courted and loved,
being in love with love, have come down to us, to wit Pampinea, that
white dove "bianca columba," and Abrotonia, the "nera merla" of the
_Filocolo_.[72] Like Romeo, Boccaccio had his Rosaline. These were
not profound passions, of course, but the sentimental or sensual
ardours of youth that were nevertheless an introduction to love
himself.[73] They soon passed away, though not without a momentary
chagrin, for if he betrayed the first, the second seems to have
forsaken him. After that disillusion he tells us he retired into
his room, and there, tired as he was, fell asleep half in tears.
And again, as once before, a vision came to him. He seemed to be
sitting, where indeed he was, all sorrowful, when suddenly Abrotonia
and Pampinea appeared to him. For some time they watched him weeping,
and then began to make fun of his tears. He prayed them to leave him
alone since they were the first and only cause of his grief, but the
two damsels redoubled their laughter, so that at last he turned to
them and said: "Begone, begone! Is your laughter then the price of my
verses in your honour and of all my trouble?"[74] But they answered
that it was for another that he had really sung. Then he awoke; it
was still night, and, tearful as he was, he rose to light the lamp,
and sat thus thinking for a time. But weary at last he returned to
bed, and presently falling asleep he dreamed again. Once more the two
girls stood before him, but with them was another, fairer far, all
dressed in green. Her they presented to him, saying that it was she
who would be the real "tyrant of his heart." Then he looked at her,
and behold, she was the same lady he had seen in the first vision
when, weary with the long roads, he first drew near to Naples; the
very lady indeed who bade him welcome and kissed him, and whom he
kissed again. So the dream ended.
What are we to think of these visions? Did they really happen, or
are they merely an artistic method of stating certain facts--among
the rest that Fiammetta was about to renew his life? But we have
gone too far to turn back now; we have already relied so much on the
allegories of the _Ameto_, the _Filocolo_, and the _Fiammetta_, that
we dare not at this point question them too curiously. The visions
are all probably true in substance if not in detail. We must accept
them, though not necessarily the explanations that have been offered
of them.[75]
[Illustration: POPE JOAN
_A woodcut from the "De Claris Mulieribus." (Berne, 1539.) (By the
courtesy of Messrs. J. & J. Leighton.)_]
All this probably happened at the end of 1329, and Fiammetta was
still more than a year away. By this time, however, Boccaccio
was already studying Canon Law. Who was his master? He does not
himself tell us. All he says is in the _De Genealogiis_,[76] and
many reading that passage have at once thought of Cino da Pistoja,
chiefly perhaps because it is so delightful to link together two
famous men.[77] But while it is true that Cino was a doctor of Law
in Naples in 1330,[78] we know that Boccaccio studied Canon Law, and
that Cino was a Doctor of Civil Law and a very bitter enemy of the
_Canonisti_.[79] It seems indeed impossible to name his master.[80]
Whoever he may have been, the study of Canon Law which presently
became so repugnant to Giovanni must have been at first, at any rate,
much more delightful than business. It probably gave him more liberty
for reading and for pleasure. He had, of course, begun to study Latin
again, and no doubt he read Ovid, whom he so especially loved--
"Lo quale poetando
Iscrisse tanti versi per amore
Come acquistar si potesse mostrando."[81]
No doubt, too, he read the _Ars Amandi_, "in which," he says in the
_Filocolo_, "the greatest of poets shows how the sacred fire of Venus
may be made to burn with care even in the coldest," and knew it all
by heart.
We may believe too that he read the _Heroides_, which he imitated
later in the letters of Florio to Biancofiore and of Biancofiore to
Florio; and the _Metamorphoses_, which indeed we find on every page
of the _Filocolo_.[82]
Delia Torre thinks[83] that although Cino da Pistoja was not his
master, he certainly met him during his stay in Naples between
October, 1330, and July, 1331,[84] and it was possibly through him
that Boccaccio first read Dante. At any rate, he read him, and
shortly after he imitates and speaks of him.[85] He also studied at
this time under Andalò di Negro,[86] the celebrated astrologer,
one of the most learned men of his time, and we shall see to what
use he put the knowledge he acquired; but who was it who introduced
to him the French Romances? Perhaps it was one of the many friends
he doubtless had among the rich Florentine merchants and their sons
then in Naples;[87] but indeed he could hardly have failed to meet
with them in that Angevin Court. That he knew the romance of King
Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table we know,[88] but he knew
even better the legends of the Romans and the Trojans, which he told
Fiammetta, who now comes into his life never really to leave him
again.
FOOTNOTES:
[45] It seems strange that Boccaccio did not follow the Via
Francigena for Rome, as Henry VII and all the emperors did, till we
remember that the Pope was in Avignon and the City a nest of robbers.
The route given above is, according to De Blasiis, the one he took,
though of course there is no certainty about it. Cf. DE BLASIIS, _op.
cit._, pp. 513-14.
There is also this to be considered that, according to Della Torre's
theory, which we accept, Boccaccio's journey took place in December,
1323. But Mr. Heywood informs me that at that date the country about
Perugia was in a state of war. Spoleto was then being besieged by the
Perugians, and the Aretine Bishop was perpetually organising raids
and incursions for her relief. In the autumn Città di Castello had
revolted and given herself to the Tarlati, and even if (owing to
the season of the year and the consequent scarcity of grass for the
horses of the _milites_) military operations were impossible on a
large scale in the open country, the whole _contado_ must still have
been full of marauding bands. This route then via Perugia would have
been dangerous if not impossible. The explanation may be that the
Florentines and Sienese were allied with the Perugians. Certainly in
the spring of 1324 there were Florentine troops in the Perugian camp
before Spoleto. Perhaps the boy found protection by travelling with
some of his military compatriots. In 1327 (see _infra_) the route
suggested by DE BLASIIS and accepted by DELLA TORRE would have been
reasonable enough.
[46] _Ameto_ (_Opere Minori_, Milano, 1879), p. 225.
[47] My translation is free; I give therefore the original: "... le
mai non vedute rughe con diletto teneano l' anima mia, per la quale
così andando, agli occhi della mente si parò innanzi una giovane
bellissima in aspetto, graziosa e leggiadra, e di verdi vestimenti
vestita ornata secondo che la sua età e l' antico costume della città
richiedono; e con liete accoglienze, me prima per la mano preso, mi
baciò, ed io lei; dopo questo aggiugnendo con voce piacevole, vieni
dove la cagione de' tuoi beni vedrai."
[48] One may contrast this vision of welcome with that which had
driven him away. Of such is the symmetry of Latin work. He himself
calls this a prevision of Fiammetta. We cannot help reminding
ourselves that the _Vita Nuova_ was already known to him when he
wrote thus.
[49] G. VILLANI, _Cronica_, Lib. VIII, cap. 112.
[50] _Ibid._, Lib. IX, cap. 8.
[51] _Ibid._, Lib. IX, cap. 39.
[52] _Ibid._, Lib. IX, cap. 56.
[53] Cf. DE BLASIIS, _op. cit._
[54] See CROWE and CAVALCASELLE, ed. E. Hutton (Dent, 1908), Vol. I,
p. 26.
[55] The picture, of life size, is still at Naples in S. Lorenzo
Maggiore. SCHULZ, _Denkmäler der Kunst des Mittelalters in
Unteritalien_, Vol. III, p. 165, publishes a document dated 13 July,
1317, by which King Robert grants Simone Martini a pension of twenty
gold florins.
[56] It is perhaps not altogether unlikely that for a boy the port
and Dogana would have extraordinary attractions. At any rate,
Boccaccio in the tenth novel of the eighth day of the _Decameron_
describes the ways of "maritime countries that have ports," how that
"all merchants arriving there with merchandise would on discharging
bring all their goods into a warehouse, called in many places
'Dogana'...."
[57] Lib. XV, 10: "Sex annis nil aliud feci quam non recuperabile
tempus in vacuum terere." Note these six years, they will be valuable
to us when we come to decide as to the year in which he first met
Fiammetta, and thus to fix the date of his advent to Naples. See
Appendix I.
[58] "Laddove essi del tutto ignoranti, niuna cosa più oltre sanno,
che quanti passi ha dal fondaco, o dalla bottega alla lor casa; e
par loro ogni uomo, che di ciò egli volesse sgannare, aver vinto
e confuso quando dicono: all' uscio mi si pare, quasi in niun'
altra cosa stia il sapere, se non o in ingannare o in guadagnare."
_Corbaccio_ in _Opere Minori_ (Milano, 1879), p. 277. Cf. _Egloga_
xiii., where the same sentiments are expressed.
[59] Lib. XV, cap. x.
[60] Cf. DELLA TORRE, _op. cit._, pp. 109-11.
[61] Cf. _Filocolo_, _ed. cit._, Lib. IV, p. 244 _et seq._
[62] CRESCINI, _op. cit._, p. 47.
[63] This letter is printed in CORAZZINI, _Le Lett. edite e ined._
(Firenze, 1877), p. 457. "Te igitur carissime," writes Boccaccio,
"tam delectabilia tam animum attrahentia agentem cognovi, si recolis,
et tui gratia tantæ dulcedinis effectus sum particeps tuus, insimul
et amicus, in tam alto mysterio, in tam delectabili et sacro studio
Providentia summa nos junxit, quos æqualis animi vinctos tenuit,
retinet et tenebit...." This is the letter beginning "Sacræ famis et
angelicæ viro," which we shall allude to again.
[64] Cf. DE BLASIIS, _De Casibus_, _u.s._, IX, 26, and DELLA TORRE,
_op. cit._, p. 112.
[65] Cf. FARAGLIA, _Barbato di Sulmona e gli uomini di lettere della
Corte di Roberto d' Angiò_ in _Arch. St. Ital._, Ser. V, Vol. III
(1889), p. 343 _et seq._
[66] We fix the approximate date of Boccaccio's presentation at court
by his own words in the _De Casibus Illustrium Virorum_, Lib. IX,
cap. 26: "Me _adhuc adulescentulo_ versanteque Roberti Hierosolymorum
et Sicilicæ Regis in aula...." As we have seen, adolescence began,
according to the reckoning then, at fourteen years. To strengthen
this supposition, we know that Boccaccino was in Naples at that time,
and in relations with King Robert. See Appendix I.
[67] See _supra_ p. 5, n. 1.
[68] Cf. DE BLASIIS, _op. cit._, p. 506, note 1. DAVIDSOHN,
_Forschungen zur Geschichte von Florenz_ (Berlin, 1901), III, p.
182, note 911. DELLA TORRE, _op. cit._, pp. 117-18. "Boccaccius
de Certaldo de Societate Bardorum de Florencia, consiliarius,
cambellanus, mercator, familiaris et fidelis noster," wrote the king
of him. Cf. DAVIDSOHN, _op. cit._, III, p. 187, note 942; and IBID.,
_Il padre di Gio. Boccaccio_ in _Arch. St. It._, Ser. V, Vol. XXIII,
p. 144.
[69] Cf. _De Genealogiis_, XV, 10; "Quoniam visum est, aliquibus
ostendentibus inditiis, me aptiorem literarum studiis, issuit ... ut
pontificum sanctiones dives exinde futurus, auditurus intrarem."
[70] See _supra_, p. 19, n. 2, where, as we find in the _De
Genealogiis_, he says that for six years he did nothing but waste
irrecoverable time. Thus if he came to Naples in 1323 it was in 1329
that he began to study Law. The last we hear of his father in Naples
is in 1329.
[71] "E come gli altri giovani le chiare bellezze delle donne di
questa terra andavano riguardando, ed io" (_Ameto_, _ed. cit._, p.
225). In the _Filocolo_ (_ed. cit._, Lib. IV, p. 246) he tells us
that this was especially true in the spring.
[72] CRESCINI, _op. cit._, p. 50. Whether Abrotonia and Pampinea
were the earliest of his loves seems doubtful. Cf. RENIER, _La Vita
Nuova e Fiammetta_, p. 225 _et seq._ Who was the Lia of the _Ameto_,
and when did he meet her? Cf. ANTONIA TRAVERSI, _La Lia dell' Ameto_
in _Giornale di Filologia romanza_, n. 9, p. 130 _et seq._, and
CRESCINI, _Due Studi riguardanti opere minori del B._ (Padova, 1882).
Was she the same person as the Lucia of the _Amorosa Visione_? Or is
the Lucia of the _Amorosa Visione_ not a person at all? See CRESCINI,
_lucia non Lucia_ in _Giorn. St. della Lett. It._, III, fasc. 9, pp.
422-3. These are questions too difficult for a mere Englishman. An
excellent paper on Boccaccio's loves is that by ANTONA TRAVERSI, _Le
prime amanti di G. B._ in _Fanfulla della Domenica_, IV, 19.
[73] Della Torre finds these love affairs to have befallen 1329.
I have, as in almost all concerning the youth of Boccaccio, found
myself in agreement with him. But cf. HAUVETTE, _Une confession de
Boccace--Il Corbaccio_ in _Bull. Ital._, I, p. 5 _et seq._
[74] "O giovani schernitrici de' danni dati e di chi con sommo studio
per addietro v' ha onorate; levatevi di qui, questa noia non si
conviene a me per premio de' cantati versi in vostra laude, e delle
avute fatiche."
[75] Cf. CRESCINI, _op. cit._, p. 108, note 1.
[76] Lib. XV, cap. x.: "... jussit genitor idem, ut pontificum
sanctiones dives exinde futurus, auditurus intrarem et sub preceptore
clarissimo fere tantumdem temporis in cassum etiam laboravi."
[77] A letter forged probably by Doni, who posed as its discoverer,
would have confirmed this. The letter ran: "Di Pisa alli xix
di aprile, 1338--Giovanni di Boccaccio da Certaldo discepolo e
ubbidientissimo figliulo infinitamente vi si raccomanda." As is well
known, Cino da Pistoja died at the end of 1336 or beginning of 1337.
[78] Cf. H. COCHIN, _Boccaccio_ (Sansoni, Firenze, 1901), trad. di
Vitaliani.
[79] DE BLASIIS, _Cino da Pistoia nella Università di Napoli_ in
_Arch. St. per le prov. Nap._, Ann. XI (1886), p. 149. Again, the
course seems to have been for six years under the same master, and
although Cino was called to Naples in August, 1330, he was in Perugia
in 1332. Cf. DE BLASIIS, _op. cit._, p. 149.
[80] BALDELLI, _Vita_, p. 6, note 1, thinks this master was Dionisio
Roberti da Borgo Sansepolcro. He adds that this man was in Paris in
1329, and that Boccaccio _there in that year_ began work under him.
In defence of this theory he cites a letter from Boccaccio himself
to Niccola Acciaiuoli of 28th August, 1341, in which he says: "Nè
è nuova questa speranza, ma antica; perocchè altra non mi rimase,
poichè il reverendo mio padre e signore, maestro Dionigi, forse per
lo migliore, da Dio mi fu tolto." (Cf. CORAZZINI, _op. cit._, p.
18.) We may dismiss Baldelli's argument, for we have decided that
Boccaccio was in Naples in 1329, when he began the study of Canon
Law. But the conjecture itself gains a certain new strength from
the fact that Roberti was a professor in Naples. (See RENIER, _La
Vita Nuova e La Fiammetta_, Torino, 1879. Cf. GIGLI, _I sonetti
Baiani del Boccaccio_ in _Giornale St. della Lett. Ital._, XLIII
(1904), p. 299 _et seq._) In 1328, however, he proves to have been
in Paris, and in fact he did not arrive in Naples till 1338. As I
have said, the course lasted six years, and even though we concede
that Boccaccio began his studies under Roberti in 1338, we know
that three years later, in 1341, Roberti died (DELLA TORRE, _op.
cit._, p. 146). Besides, in 1341 Boccaccio had returned to Florence.
Roberti seems, indeed, to have been the protector rather than the
master of Boccaccio, even as Acciaiuoli was, and it is for this
reason that Boccaccio alludes to him in writing to Acciaiuoli in
1341 when Roberti was dead. The doctors in Naples in 1329 are named
by DE BLASIIS, _op. cit._, p. 149. Among them were Giovanni di
Torre, Lorenzo di Ravello, Giovanni di Lando, Niccola Rufolo, Biagio
Paccone, Gio. Grillo, Niccola Alunno.
[81] _Amorosa Visione_, v. 171-3.
[82] Cf. HORTIS, _Studi sulle Opere Latine di Gio. Boccaccio_, etc.
(Trieste, 1879), p. 399.
[83] DELLA TORRE, _op. cit._, p. 151. But the strongest proof that
Boccaccio and Cino were friends is furnished by VOLPI, _Una Canzone
di Cino da Pistoia nel "Filostrato" del Boccaccio_ in _Bull. St.
Pistoiese_ (1899), Vol. I, fasc. 3, p. 116 _et seq._, who finds a
song of Cino's in the _Filostrato_. It seems probable, then, since
they were in personal relations, that Cino introduced the works of
Dante to Boccaccio.
[84] DE BLASIIS, _op. cit._, p. 139 _et seq._
[85] In the _Filocolo_ (_ed. cit._), II, 377, begun according to our
theory in 1331. I quote the following: "Nè ti sia cura di volere
essere dove i misurati versi del Fiorentino Dante si cantino, il
quale tu, siccome piccolo servidore, molto dei reverente seguire."
Cf. DOBELLI, _Il culto del Boccaccio per Dante_ in _Giornale
Dantesca_ (1898), V, p. 207 _et seq._ See too the quotations from
Dante, for they are really just that in the _Filostrato_, part ii.
strofa 50, _et passim_, and see _infra_, pp. 77, n. 2, and 253, n. 5.
[86] Cf. BERTOLOTTO, _Il Trattato dell' Astrolabio di A. di N._ in
_Atti della Soc. Liguria di St. Pat._ (1892), Vol. XXV, p. 55 _et
seq_. Also the _De Genealogiis_, XV, 6, and HORTIS, _Studi_, p.
158 and notes 1-3. Andalò di Negro was born in 1260, it seems, at
Genoa. In 1314 he was chosen by the Signoria of Genoa as ambassador
to Alessio Comneno of Trebizond, and he carried out his mission
excellently. He had already travelled much, and after his embassy
seems to have gone to Cyprus (_Genealogiis, u.s._). He passed his
last years at the court of King Robert in Naples, who appointed him
astrologer and physician to the court. His pay was six ounces of gold
annually (BERTOLOTTO, _u.s._). He died in the early summer of 1334.
He was a learned astronomer and astrologer, and probably one of the
most remarkable men of his time.
[87] Cf. DE. BLASIIS, _op. cit._, p. 494.
[88] Cf. _Amorosa Visione_, cap. xxix.
CHAPTER III
1331
HIS MEETING WITH FIAMMETTA AND THE PERIODS OF THEIR LOVE STORY
For it was in the midst of this gay life, full of poetry and study,
that he met her who was so much more beautiful than all the other
"ninfe Partenopee," and who seemed to him "quella che in Cipri già fu
adorata," that is to say, Venus herself. He saw her first on a Holy
Saturday, on the Vigil of Easter, as he himself tells us, and as we
think on 30th March, 1331.[89] He had gone to Mass, it seems, about
ten o'clock in the morning, the fashionable hour of the day, rather
to see the people than to attend the service, in the church of S.
Lorenzo of the Franciscans. And there amid that great throng of all
sorts and conditions of men he first caught sight of the woman who
was so profoundly to influence his life and shape his work.
"I found myself," he says, "in a fine church of Naples, named after
him who endured to be offered as a sacrifice upon the gridiron.
And there, there was a singing compact of sweetest melody. I was
listening to the Holy Mass celebrated by a priest, successor to him
who first girt himself humbly with the cord, exalting poverty and
adopting it. Now while I stood there, the fourth hour of the day,
according to my reckoning, having already passed down the eastern
sky, there appeared to my eyes the wondrous beauty of a young woman,
come thither to hear what I too heard attentively. I had no sooner
seen her than my heart began to throb so strongly that I felt it in
my slightest pulses; and not knowing why nor yet perceiving what had
happened, I began to say, 'Ohimè, what is this?'... But at length,
being unable to sate myself with gazing, I said, 'O Love, most noble
Lord, whose strength not even the gods were able to resist,[90] I
thank thee for setting happiness before my eyes!'... I had no sooner
said these words than the flashing eyes of that lovely lady fixed
themselves on mine...."[91]
Fiammetta, for it was she, was tall and _slanciata_; her hair,
he tells us, "is so blonde that the world holds nothing like it;
it shades a white forehead of noble width, beneath which are the
curves of two black and most slender eyebrows ... and under these
two roguish eyes ... cheeks of no other colour than milk." This
description, even in the hands of Boccaccio, is little more than
the immortal "Item, two lips, indifferent red...."[92] Yet little
by little in his work Fiammetta lives for us. On that day she was
dressed in a _bruna vesta_,[93] and wearing a veil that fell from her
head crowned with a garland.[94] After her golden hair, it is her
eyes and her mouth that he loves best in her.
"Due begli occhi luccan, sì che fiammetta
Parea ciascun d' amore luminosa;
E la sua bocca bella e piccioletta
Vermiglia rosa e fresca somigliava."[95]
He seems to have asked one of his companions who she was, but he knew
not.
"Io stetti molto a lei mirar sospeso
Per guardar s' io l' udissi nominare,
O ch' io 'l vedessi scritto breve o steso
Lì nol vid' io nè 'l seppi immaginare."[96]
When she saw that he continued to stare at her, she screened herself
with her veil.[97] But he changed his position and found a place by a
column whence he could see her very well--"dirittissimamente opposto,
... appoggiato ad una colonna marmorea"--and there, while the priest
sang the Office, "con canto pieno di dolce melodia,"[98] he drank
in her blonde beauty which the dark clothes made more splendid--the
golden hair and the milk-white skin, the shining eyes and the mouth
like a rose in a field of lilies.[99] Once she looked at him,--"Li
occhi, con debita gravità elevati, in tra la moltitudine de'
circostanti giovani, con acuto ragguardamento distesi."[100] So he
stayed where he was till the service was over, "senza mutare luogo."
Then he joined his companions, waiting with them at the door to see
the girls pass out. And it was then, in the midst of other ladies,
that he saw her for the second time, watching her pass out of S.
Lorenzo on her way home. When she was gone he went back to his room
with his friends, who remained a short time with him. These, as soon
as might be, excusing himself, he sent away, and remained alone with
his thoughts.
The morrow was Easter Day, and again he went to S. Lorenzo to see
her only. And she was there indeed, "di molto oro lucente"--"adorned
with gems and dressed in most fair green, beautiful both by nature
and by art."[101] Then remembering all things, he said to himself:
"This is that lady who in my boyhood (_puerizia_) and again not so
long ago, appeared to me in my dreams; this is she who, with a joyful
countenance and gracious, welcomed me to this city; this is she who
was ordained to rule my mind, and who was promised me for lady, in my
dreams."[102] From this moment began for him "the new life."
Who was this lady "promised to him in his dreams," whose love was
indeed the great prize of his youth? We know really very little
about her, though he speaks of her so often, but in three well-known
places, in the _Filocolo_, the _Ameto_, and the _Amorosa Visione_,
he tells us of her origin. It is in the _Ameto_ that he gives us
the fullest account of her. In that comedy[103] he tells us that
at the court of King Robert there was a gentleman of the wealthy
and powerful house of Aquino who held in Naples "the highest place
beside the throne of him who reigned there." This noble had married,
we learn, a young Provençal, "per bellezza da lodare molto," who
with her husband lived in the royal palace.[104] Of this pair
were born "some daughters whom Fiammetta called sisters,"[105]
and a son who was assassinated.[106] Fiammetta's own birth is, we
understand, surrounded by a kind of mystery, "voluttuoso e lascivo,"
corresponding, as we shall see, to her own temperament.[107]
[Illustration: LUCRECE
_A woodcut from "De Claris Mulieribus." (Berne, 1539.) (By the
courtesy of Mssrs. J. & J. Leighton.)_]
Boccaccio suggests that her birth is connected with the great _festa_
which celebrated the coronation of King Robert, that took place
in Avignon in September, 1309.[108] The king returned to Naples
by way of Florence, where he arrived on September 30, 1310;[109]
he was still there in October, and there was much fighting to be
done, for Henry VII was making war in Italy; so that it was not
till February 2, 1313,[110] that the king opened the first general
parliament in Naples after his coronation. Della Torre[111] thinks
that it was on this occasion the great _festa_ described by Boccaccio
took place. Its chief feature seems to have been a banquet of the
greatest magnificence, to which all the court as well as many of the
leading subjects of the Kingdom were bidden. Amid all this splendour
Boccaccio describes the king's gaze passing over a host of beautiful
women, to rest, always with new delight, on the beauty of the young
wife of D'Aquino, who, since her husband belonged to the court, was
naturally present. Well, to make a long story short, a little later
the king seduced this lady, but as it seems, on or about the same
night she slept also with her husband, so that when nine months
later a daughter was born to her, both the king and her husband
believed themselves to be the father. It is like a story out of the
_Decameron_.
This daughter, the Fiammetta of his dreams, was born, he tells us,
in the spring[112]--the spring then of 1314[113]--and was named
Maria.[114] Before very long she lost her mother, who however, before
she died, told her as well as she could, considering her tender
age, the mystery of her birth. Not long after, her father--or rather
her mother's husband--died also, leaving the _piccoletta_ "a vestali
vergini a lui di sangue congiunte ... acciocchè quelle di costumi
e d' arte inviolata servandomi, ornassero la giovanezza mia";[115]
which is Boccaccio's way of saying that she was placed in the care
of nuns, the nuns, as Casetti[116] supposes, of the Order of St.
Benedict, to whom belonged the very ancient church of S. Arcangelo
a Baiano.[117] There she grew up, and, like very many others of
an eager and sensuous temperament, totally unfitted for the life
of a religious, she desired too to be a nun, and this desire, we
learn, became definite in her after an ecstatic vision in which S.
Scholastica appeared to her[118] and invited her to take the vow. But
happily this was not to be. Her golden hair was not to fall under the
shears of the Church, but to be a poet's crown. She was too beautiful
for the cloister, and indeed already the fame of her beauty had gone
beyond the convent walls, which were in fact by no means very secure
or unassailable. In those days, people "in the world," men as well
as women, were received even by the "enclosed" in the parlour of the
convent, where it was customary to hold receptions.[119]
So, we learn, there presently began a struggle in Fiammetta's
heart--it was not of very long duration--between her resolution to
take the veil and her feminine vanity. Little by little she began
to adorn herself,[120] she received offers of marriage which by no
means shocked her, she became reconciled to the life of the world
for which she was so perfectly fitted by nature. Among the suitors,
and apparently they were many, was "uno dei più nobili giovani
... di fortuna grazioso, de' beni Giunonichi copioso, e chiaro di
sangue."[121] To him, as to the rest, she replied with a refusal, to
which she was doubtless encouraged by the nuns, who could not easily
suffer so well-born and powerful a pupil to escape them. The young
man, however--we do not know his name--was not easily discouraged,
and, renewing his suit, was accepted. So she was married perhaps when
she was about fifteen years old, in 1329.[122]
Her beauty[123] was famous, and she seems scarcely to have been
married when she gave herself up to all the voluptuousness of her
nature, more or less mute in the convent. That she could read we
know, for she read not only Giovanni's letters, but Ovid,[124]
probably a translation of the _Ars Amandi_, and the French
Romances.[125] She was greatly run after by the youth of the
Neapolitan court, who swore no _festa_ was complete without her.
Her husband's house, too, was in such a position that not only the
citizens, but strangers, who must on arrival or departure pass it
by, might spy her at her window or on her balcony.[126] Her excuse
is this universal admiration, and the eagerness of her temperament,
which allowed her to pass with ease from one lover to another.[127]
And then she also found that stolen waters are sweet, and bread
eaten in secret is pleasant.[128] She excuses herself for having
betrayed the husband who loved her so much, and can say: "What is
lawfully pursued is apt to be considered of small account, even
though it be most excellent, but what is difficult of attainment,
even if contemptible, is held in high esteem."[129] But, like all
vain and sensual natures, she was cruel, and encouraged her suitors
to squander their substance on her, giving them nothing in return,
and leading each to suppose that he was the only one she loved, and
that she was about to make him happy. "And I," she says to Boccaccio
in the character of Alleiram, "and I have laughed at them all,
choosing, however, those who took my fancy and who were judged apt
to give me pleasure. But no sooner was the fire spent than I broke
the vase which contained the water and flung away the pieces." These
words, so cynically moving, not only show us the cruelty of Maria's
nature, but cast a strange light on the general condition of society
in what was then, as later, the most corrupt city in Italy. Such,
then, was the blonde Fiammetta whom Boccaccio loved.
But how could he, a mere merchant's son, ever hope to reach the arms
of this disdainful, indifferent lady? By means of poetry? It seems
so. But before replying fully to this question it will be necessary
to establish the chronological limits and divisions of this love
affair, and this is the most difficult question in all the difficult
history of the youth of Boccaccio.
We may find, as it happens, two dates to begin with in the _Amorosa
Visione_. They have not escaped Crescini,[130] who, founding himself
on them, has concluded, though not too certainly, that between the
day of _innamoramento_ and that of _possesso completo_ 159 days
passed. He arrives at this tentative conclusion in the following
manner. In chapter xliv. of the _Amorosa Visione_ Boccaccio tells us
that when he became enamoured of Fiammetta, at first he marvelled
greatly, as though something incredible had befallen him. Then he
began to make fun of himself, "farsi beffa," for having thought of a
lady so far above him. But at last, when
"Quattro via sei volte il sole
Con l' orizzonte il ciel congiunto aveva ..."
it appeared that his courting pleased his lady, and he seemed to
understand from her that there was no distance however great, between
lover and beloved, that love could not annihilate. But, said she, one
ought to serve her only, and not to run after other ladies.
Crescini interprets this to mean that twenty-four days after
Boccaccio first saw Fiammetta, she gave him reason to hope. And he
arrives at this conclusion because he considers that the sun is in
conjunction with the horizon only once a day, whereas it might seem
to be so twice a day, at sunrise as at sunset. The other 135 days of
Crescini's chronology come from the following verses of chapter xlvi.
of the _Amorosa Visione_, in which Boccaccio tells us that he was
able to possess Maria after
"Cinque fiate tre via nove giorni
Sotto la dolce signoria di questa
Trovato m' era in diversi soggiorni."
Thus, says Crescini, we have twenty-four days from the first meeting
to the acceptance of his court, and 135 days thenceforward to the
possession, that is 159 days.[131]
Della Torre,[132] however, will have none of this reckoning, and
seems to have proved that it is indeed inexact. To begin with,
according to the Ptolemaic system, the sun moved round the earth and
touched it as it were not only at its rising but also at its setting,
so that the twenty-four days become twelve. This, however, is but a
small matter, merely reducing the 159 days to 147. Crescini's chief
error, according to Della Torre, is that he has added the first
period of twelve (or twenty-four) days to the second of 135--making
them immediately consecutive. Let us examine this matter somewhat
closely.
In the _Ameto_ Boccaccio tells us that the happy night which came at
the end of the 135 days, the night in which he possessed Fiammetta,
fell "temperante Apollo i veleni freddi di Scorpione." Now at what
time precisely is the sun in the sign of the Scorpion? Andalò[133]
tells us that at the end of the 20th October the sun is three and a
half _gradi_ in Scorpio, and that by the 15th November it is already
entering Sagittarius. The sun then entered Scorpio on the 17th
October and left it on the 14th November.[134] Somewhere between
those two dates the loves of Giovanni and Fiammetta were consummated.
[Illustration: BOCCACCIO AND MAINARDI CAVALACANTI
_By the Dutch engraver called "The Master of the Subjects in the
Boccaccio." "De Casibus Virorum." (Strasburg, 1476.)_]
Boccaccio tells us, if we interpret him aright, that twelve days
after his _innamoramento_ his lady showed him that she was pleased
by his love. He then passes on to describe the long and faithful
service he gave her:--
"Lungamente seguendo sua pietate
Ora in avversi ed ora in graziosi
Casi reggendo la mia voluntate,"[135]
and so on. Then he says:--
"Traendomi più là e con sommesso
Parlar le chiesi, che al mio dolore
Fine ponesse, qual doveva ad esso,
Ognor servando quel debito onore
Che si conviene a' suoi costumi adorni,
Di gentilezza pieni e di valore,"[136]
and at last adds the lines already quoted,
"Cinque fiate tre via nove giorni
Sotto la dolce signoria di questa
Trovato m' era in diversi soggiorni";
when
"nella braccia la Donna pietosa
Istupefatto gli parea tenere."
Taken thus we may divide the story of his love for Fiammetta into
three periods. The first of these ends twelve days after the first
meeting, and is the period of uncertainty. The second period is
that in which he is accepted as courtier, as it were, on his trial.
The third begins when his lady, moved by long service and repeated
proofs of his devotions, returns his love; it is the period of "dolce
signoria" and lasts one hundred and thirty-five days, at the end of
which she gives herself to him.[137]
Of these periods we know only the length, then, of the first and
the last. The first began on the 30th March and lasted till the
12th April, 1331, when the second began, to last how long? Well, at
least two months, it seems,[138] perhaps three. In that case all
three periods belong to the same year. If this be not so, the second
period was of longer duration than three months, perhaps much longer.
Boccaccio himself tells us that it was "non senza molto affanno lunga
stagione."[139] Now it seems reasonable to suppose that even so eager
a lover as Boccaccio cannot call three months "lunga stagione,"
though he were dying for her and each minute was an eternity. He can
scarcely have hoped to seduce a woman of his own class in less time.
Common sense, then, is on our side when reminding ourselves that
Maria d'Aquino was of the noblest family, married, too, to a husband
who loved her, and generally courted by all the golden youth of
Naples--while Giovanni was the son of a merchant--we insist that he
cannot mean a paltry three months when he speaks of a long time.[140]
But if the second period lasted more than three months, and so does
not belong to the year 1331, to what year or years does it belong?
Della Torre seems to have found a clue in the following sonnet, whose
authenticity, though doubted by Crescini,[141] he insists upon:--
"_Se io potessi creder che in cinqu' anni
Ch' egli è che vostro fui, tanto caluto
Di me vi fosse, che aver saputo
Il nome mio voleste_, de' miei danni
Per ristorato avermi, de' miei affanni
Potrei forse sperare ancora aiuto,
Nè mi parrebbe il tempo aver perduto
A condolermi de' miei stessi inganni...."[142]
which we may explain as "O my lady, I shall be the happiest of
mortals if in the five years that I shall pay you court, I should
break through your indifference...." Five years brings us from 30th
March, 1331, to 1336.
Now let us see whither the other facts we have will lead us.
In 1339 Boccaccio and Fiammetta had parted,[143] Boccaccio
having been "betrayed" by her, as he tells us in Sonnets iv. and
xxxiii.,[144] during the bathing season at Baia--the bathing season
then of 1338--whither she had forbidden him to accompany her. But
we know from Sonnets xlvii. and xlviii. that the end of the second
period and the beginning of the third took place during the bathing
season, and that there was also a season in which he accompanied her
to Baia as her acknowledged lover.[145] There must, then, have been
three seasons before April, 1339, and these three years lead us again
to the year 1336.
So we believe that the first period "of uncertainty" in his love
began on 30th March and ended on 12th April, 1331; that the second
period "of service" began on 12th April, 1331, and ended between 3rd
June and 2nd July, 1336, when the third period began, ending three
years later. This third period is divided, as we have seen, into
three parts, and comprises three bathing seasons. The first of these
falls between 3rd June--2nd July, 1336, and the 17th October to 15th
November, i.e. 135 days; an act of audacity on Giovanni's part, as we
shall see, giving him possession of Fiammetta. The second is a period
in which their love had become calmer: it fills the season of 1337 in
which he was her _cavaliere servente_. The third falls in 1338, when,
probably on account of the suspicions aroused by their intimacy,
Fiammetta forbade him to accompany her to Baia, where in his absence
she "betrayed" him.
Having thus found a chronology of Boccaccio's love-story, we must
consider more particularly his life during its three periods.
FOOTNOTES:
[89] See Appendix I.
[90] Cf. Sophocles, _Antigone_, 781 _et seq._
"Ἔρως ἀνίκατε μάχαν
Ἔρος ὃς ἐν κτήμασι πίπτεις,
ὃς ἐν μαλακαῖς παρειαίς
νεάνιδος ἐννυχεύεις,
φοιτᾷς δ' ὑπερπόντιος ἔν τ' ἀγρονόμοις αὐλαῖς·
καί σ' οὔτ' ἀθανάτων φύξιμος οὐδεὶς
οὔθ' ἁμερίων ἐπ' ἀνθρώπων, ὁ δ' ἔχων μέμηνεν·"
Yet when he wrote the _Filocolo_ Boccaccio knew no Greek.
[91] See _Filocolo_, _ed. cit._, I, p. 5 _et seq._ The scene
is described also in the _Filostrato_, i. xxvi.-xxxiv. In the
_Fiammetta_, cap. i., it is described from Fiammetta's point of view.
[92] In the _Fiammetta_ (_Opere Minori_, Milano, 1879, p. 25)
Boccaccio thus describes himself on that morning through the eyes
of Fiammetta; it is in keeping with the topsy-turveydom of that
extraordinary work: "Dico che, secondo il mio giudicio, il quale
ancora non era da amore occupato, elli era di forma bellissimo, nelli
atti piacevolissimo ed onestissimo nell' abito suo, e della sua
giovinezza dava manifesto segnale la crespa lanugine, che pur ora
occupava le guancie sue; e me non meno pietoso che cauto rimirava tra
uomo e uomo."
[93] _Ameto_ (_ed. cit._), p. 228. We should have expected a green
dress to agree with the prevision; but it was Sabbato Santo. On
Easter Day she is in green. See _infra_.
[94] _Fiammetta_ (_ed. cit._), p. 23.
[95] _Amorosa Visione_, cap. xv.
[96] _Ibid._, cap. xvi.
[97] _Fiammetta_ (_ed. cit._), p. 24.
[98] _Filocolo_ (_ed. cit._), I, p. 5.
[99] _Ameto_ (_ed. cit._), pp. 65-6.
[100] _Fiammetta_ (_ed. cit._), p. 24.
[101] _Ameto_, _ed. cit._, p. 228.
[102] _Ibid._
[103] _Ibid._, pp. 221-3.
[104] _Filocolo_, _ed. cit._, I, p. 4.
[105] _Fiammetta_, _ed. cit._, pp. 114-17.
[106] _Ibid._, p. 101.
[107] Cf. DELLA TORRE, _op. cit._, p. 182.
[108] Cf. VILLANI, _Cronica_, Lib. VIII, cap. 112.
[109] VILLANI, _op. cit._, Lib. IX, cap. 8.
[110] Cf. _Arch. St. per le prov. nap._, Vol. VII, pp. 220-1.
[111] DELLA TORRE, _op. cit._, p. 183.
[112] Cf. _Fiammetta_, _ed. cit._, p. 21: "Nel tempo nel quale la
rivestita terra più che tutto l' altro anno si mostra bella."
[113] Cf. BALDELLI, _op. cit._, p. 362, and CASETTI, _Il Boccaccio a
Napoli, u s._, p. 573. So that Boccaccio's age did not differ much
from Fiammetta's.
[114] _Filocolo_, _ed. cit._, Vol. I, p. 4. In the _Fiammetta_,
_ed. cit._, p. 21, we learn that she was "in altissime delizie ...
nutrita."
[115] _Ameto_, _ed. cit._, pp. 222-3.
[116] CASETTI, _op. cit._, p. 575.
[117] See _Filocolo_, _ed. cit._, I, p. 6: "in un santo tempo del
principe de' celestiali uccelli nominato." Cf. _Catalogo di tutti
gli edifici sacri della città di Napoli_ in _Arch. St. per le prov.
nap._, VIII, p. 32.
[118] _Ameto_, _ed. cit._, p. 223.
[119] There are many examples of this.
[120] "Con sollecitudini ed arti." And again there came to her very
soon "dalla natura ammaestrata, sentendo quali disii alli giovani
possono porgere le vaghe donne, conobbi che la mia bellezza più
miei coetanei giovanetti ed altri nobili accese di fuoco amoroso."
(_Fiammetta_, _ed. cit._, p. 21).
[121] _Ameto_, _ed. cit._, p. 223.
[122] Cf. DELLA TORRE, _op. cit._, p. 188. As to these early
marriages, cf. _Decameron_, X, 10. Griselda was but twelve years
old, and Juliet, as we remember, was "not fourteen." Fiammetta when
Boccaccio first met her was seventeen years old, "dix-sept est
étrangement belle," and had already had time for more than one act of
infidelity.
[123] _Fiammetta_, _ed. cit._, p. 92.
[124] _Ibid._, pp. 52-4.
[125] _Ibid._, p. 130.
[126] _Filocolo_, _ed. cit._, II, pp. 260-1.
[127] Her excuse is also the morals of the time. There was temptation
everywhere, as the _Decameron_ alone without the evidence of the
other _novelle_ would amply prove. Every sort of shift was resorted
to. Procuresses, hired by would-be lovers, forced themselves into the
house of the young wife and compelled her to listen to them. They
deceived even the most jealous husbands. The priest even acted as a
pander sometimes and more often as a seducer. _Decameron_, III, 3,
and _Il Cortigiano di_ CASTIGLIONE, Lib. III, cap. xx. The society in
which she moved had no moral horror of this sort of thing; as to-day,
the sin lay in being found out. A woman's _onestà_ was not ruined by
secret vice, but by the exposure of it, which brought ridicule and
shame.
[128]
"L' acqua furtiva, assai più dolce cosa
È che il vin con abbondanza avuto;
Così d' amor la gioia, che nascosa,
Trapassa assai del sempre mai tenuto
Marito in braccio...."
_Filostrato_, parte ii. strofe 74.
[129] _Fiammetta_, _ed. cit._, p. 102. She thought poorly of
marriage, consoling herself when her lover marries by saying: "tutti
coloro che moglie prendono, e che l' hanno, l' amino siccome fanno
dell' altre donne: la soperchia copia, che le mogli fanno di sè a'
loro mariti, è cagion di tostano rincrescimento, quando esse pur nel
principio sommamente piacessero...." (_Fiammetta_, _ed. cit._, pp.
69-70).
[130] CRESCINI, _op. cit._, pp. 127 and 130, note 2.
[131] CRESCINI, _op. cit._
[132] DELLA TORRE, _op. cit._, p. 192 _et seq._
[133] In his _Tabula ad situandos et concordandos menses cum signis
in dorso astrolabii_ in _Atti della soc. Ligure di Stor. Pat._
(1892), Vol. XXV, p. 59.
[134] CRESCINI thinks (_op. cit._) that Boccaccio first saw Fiammetta
on 11th April, 1338. Supposing, then, the date most favourable to
him, to wit, that Boccaccio possessed Fiammetta in the night of 17-18
October: 135 days before that was 3rd June, and twenty-four before
that was 10th May (twelve days before was 22nd May), not 11th April.
Suppose we take our own date, 30th March, we are in worse case still.
It seems then certain that between these two periods of 12 and 135
days there was an interval. To decide on its length is the difficulty.
[135] _Amorosa Visione_, cap. xlv.
[136] _Ibid._, cap. xlvi.
[137] Cf. _Filocolo_, _ed. cit._, II, pp. 261-2.
[138] Cf. _supra_, p. 36, n. 4.
[139] _Filocolo_, _ed. cit._, II, p. 248.
[140] Besides, all the romances are against it. How long did Lancelot
serve for Guinivere? And he was the best knight that there was in the
whole world.
[141] CRESCINI, _op. cit._, p. 185.
[142] Sonnet lxxxvi. in edition Moutier (_Opere Volgari di G. B._),
Vol. XVI (Firenze, 1834).
[143] On 3rd April, 1339, Boccaccio writes to Carlo Duca di Durazzo
that he cannot finish the poem he had asked for because his heart
is killed by a love betrayed. Here is the letter, or part of it:
"Crepor celsitudinis Epiri principatus, ac Procerum Italiæ claritas
singularis, cui nisi fallor, a Superis fortuna candidior, reservatur
ut vestra novit Serenitas, et pelignensis Ovidii reverenda testatur
auctoritas:
'Carmina proveniunt animo deducta sereno.'
Sed saevientis Rhamnusiæ causa, ac atrocitatis cupidinis importunæ:
'Nubila sunt sibitis tempora nostra malis.'
prout parvus et exoticus sermo, caliopeo moderamine constitutus
vestræ magnificentiæ declarabit inferius; verum tamen non ad plenum;
quia si plene anxietates meas vellem ostendere nec sufficeret
calamus, et multitudo fastudiret animum intuentis; qui etiam me
vivum respiciens ulterius miraretur, quam si Ceæ Erigonis Cristibiæ,
vel Medeæ inspiceret actiones. Propter quod si tantæ dominationis
mandata, ad plenum inclyte Princeps, non pertraho, in excutationem
animi anxiantis fata miserrima se ostendant...." Cf. CORAZZINI, _op.
cit._, pp. 439-40.
[144] Sonnet xxxiii.:--
"E che io vadia là mi è interdetto
Da lei, che può di me quel che le piace."
[145] Cf. DELLA TORRE, _op. cit._, p. 207.
CHAPTER IV
1331-1340
THE YEARS OF COURTSHIP--THE REWARD--THE BETRAYAL--THE RETURN TO
FLORENCE
Of the first period of Giovanni's love-story, the period of
uncertainty which lasted but twelve days, we know almost nothing,
save that he was used to remind himself very often of his
unworthiness, and to tell himself that he was only the son of a
merchant, while Fiammetta, it was said, was the daughter of a king,
and at any rate belonged to one of the richest and most powerful
families in the Kingdom. That she was married does not seem to have
distressed him or appeared as an obstacle at all, for the court was
corrupt;[146] but he seems to have been disturbed by the knowledge
that she was surrounded by a hundred adorers richer, nobler, and with
better opportunities than himself. And so he seems to have come to
the conclusion that there was nothing to be done but to make fun of
himself for having entertained a thought of her. It was apparently in
these states of mind that he passed the days from Holy Saturday to
12th April, 1331, when he found suddenly to his surprise that she was
content he should love her if he would.
What happened is described in the forty-fourth chapter of the
_Amorosa Visione_. The twelve days were passed, he tells us in this
allegory, when he heard a voice like a terrible thunder cry to him:--
"O tu ... che nel chiaro giorno
Del dolce lume della luce mia,
Che a te vago sì raggia d' intorno,
Non ischernir con gabbo mia balìa
Nè dubitar però per mia grandezza,
La quale umil, quando vorrai, ti fia,
Onora con amor la mia bellezza,
Nè d' alcun' altra più non ti curare,
Se tu non vo' provar mia rigidezza."
How can we interpret this? It seems that there was evidently
an occasion in which Fiammetta gave him to understand that
she was not averse from his love. What was this occasion?
Della Torre[147]--certainly the most subtle and curious of his
interpreters--thinks he has found it: that he can identify it with
that in which Fiammetta bade him write the _Filocolo_.
[Illustration: SAPOR MOUNTING OVER THE PROSTRATE VALERIAN
_By the Dutch engraver called "The Master of the Subjects in the
Boccaccio." "De Casibus Virorum." (Strasburg, 1476.)_]
In the prologue to that romance Boccaccio tells us that after leaving
the temple of S. Lorenzo with full heart, and having sighed many
days, he found himself by chance--he does not remember how--with some
companions "in un santo tempio del Principe de' celestiali uccelli
nominato": that is to say, as Casetti interprets it, in the convent
of S. Arcangelo a Baiano, where Fiammetta had been. I have said that
it was quite usual for nuns to receive visitors, both men and women,
from the outside; the _Fiammetta_[148] itself confirms it if need be.
The convents were in some sort fashionable resorts where one went to
spend an hour in talk. On some such occasion Boccaccio went to S.
Arcangelo with a friend, and finding Fiammetta there, probably told
her stories from the French romances "del valoroso giovane Florio
figliuolo di Felice grandissimo Re di Spagna," or of Lancelot and
Guinivere, "con amorose parole," stuffed with piteous words. When he
had finished, she, altogether charmed, turned to the young poet
and bade him write such a romance as that--for her--"a little book in
which the beginning of love, the courtship, and the fortune of the
two lovers even to their death shall be told." Well, what could he
do but obey gladly? "Hearing the sweetness of the words which came
from that gracious mouth," he tells us, "and remembering that never
once till this day had that noble lady asked anything of me, I took
her prayer for a command, and saw therein hope for my desires";[149]
so he answered that he would do his best to please her. She thanked
him, and Boccaccio, "costretto più da ragione che da volontà," went
home and began at once to compose his romance.[150] So ends the first
period of his love-story, and the second, the period of courtship,
begins.
The first result of this interview and of the hope and fear it gave
him--for whatever may have been the case with Fiammetta now and
later, Giovanni was genuinely in love--was that he wandered away
"dall' usato cammino" from the highway that had brought him so far
and abandoned "le imprese cose," things already begun.[151] And if
we ask ourselves what was this highway, we may answer his way of
life; and the things already begun--his study of the Canon Law. About
this time, then, he began to go more to court, to enter eagerly into
the joy of Neapolitan life in search of Fiammetta. At the same time
his studies suffered--he neglected them to the dismay, as we shall
see, not only of his father, but of his friends.
Something has already been said of the life at the court of King
Robert. The very soul of it was the three ladies: Agnes de Perigord,
wife of Jean D'Anjou, brother of King Robert; Marie de Valois, wife
of Charles, Duke of Calabria, son of the king; and Catherine de
Courteney, who at twelve years of age had married Philip of Taranto,
another of the King's brothers.[152] The luxury in the city was by
far the greatest to be found in Italy. The merchants of Florence,
Lucca, Venice, and Genoa furnished to the court "scarlatti di Gant,"
"sciamiti, panni ricamati ad uso orientale," "oggetti d' oro ed
argento," and "gemmas et lapides pretiosas ad camere regie usum."
Boccaccio himself describes Naples: "Città, oltre a tutte l' altre
italiche, di lietissime feste abbondevole, non solamente rallegra
i suoi cittadini o con le nozze o con li bagni o con li marini
liti, ma, copiosa di molti giuochi, sovente or con uno, or con un
altro letifica la sua gente: ma tra l' altre cose, nelle quali essa
appare splendidissima, è nel sovente armeggiare."[153] Or again of
the spring there: "I giovani, quando sopra i correnti cavalli con
le fiere armi giostravano, e quando circondati da' sonanti sonagli
armeggiavano, quando con ammaestrata mano lieti mostravano come gli
arditi cavalli con ispumante freno si debbano reggere. Le giovani
donne di queste cose vaghe, inghirlandate di nuove frondi, lieti
sguardi porgevano ai loro amanti, ora dall' alte finestre ed ora
dalle basse porte; e quale con nuovo dono, e quale con sembiante, e
quale con parole confortava il suo del suo amore."[154]
If he thus spent his time in play and love there can have been little
enough left, when the _Filocolo_ was laid aside, for study. We find
his father complaining of his slackness. Old Boccaccio had already
been grievously disappointed when Giovanni abandoned trade, and now
that he threw up or was not eager to pursue his law studies, he was
both distressed and angry; nor were Giovanni's friends more content.
All the Florentines at Naples, he tells us, seemed to speak with his
father's voice. It was well to be in love, they told him, even better
to write poetry, but to ruin oneself for love, _Monna mia!_ what
madness, and then poetry never made any one rich.[155]
So spoke and thought the practical Tuscan soul, and the English have
but echoed it for centuries. However, Giovanni only immersed himself
more in Ovid, and doubtless the throb of hexameter and pentameter
silenced the prose of the merchants. Later, about 1334, he began to
read Petrarch;[156] their personal friendship, however, did not
begin till much later, in 1350.[157] His reading then, like his love,
inspired him to write verses, and as he tells us, when the days of
uncertainty were over, "Under the new lordship of love I desired to
know what power splendid words had to move human hearts."[158] And
these _ornate parole_ were all in honour of his love. How he praises
her!
"Ed io presumo in versi diseguali
Di disegnarle in canto senza suono?
Vedete se son folli i pensier miei!"[159]
Presumptuous or no, he tells us very eloquently and sweetly that her
teeth were candid Eastern pearls, her lips, living rubies clear and
red, her cheeks, roses mixed with lilies, her hair, all gold like an
aureole about her happy face:--
"E l' altre parti tutte si confanno
Alle predette in proporzione eguale
Di costei ch' i ver angioli simiglia."[160]
And then her eyes, it is always them he praises best:--
"L' angelico leggiadro e dolce riso
Nel qual quando scintillan quelle stelle
Che la luce del ciel fanno minore
Par s' apra 'l cielo e rida il mundo tutto."[161]
But he speaks of her beauty in a thousand verses in a thousand
places, in many disguises.
This burning and eager love was, however, hindered in one thing--he
had the greatest difficulty in seeing Fiammetta:--
"Qualor mi mena Amor dov' io vi veggia
Ch' assai di rado avvien, sì cara sete...."[162]
For at this time certainly Fiammetta does not seem to have
considered his love of any importance to her, so that she gave him
very few opportunities of seeing her, and then in everything he had
to be careful not to rouse her husband's suspicions.[163] Sometimes,
too, she went far away into the country to some property of her
family, whither he could not follow, and always every year to Baia
for the season; so that we find him writing:--
"... colla bellezza sua mi spoglia
Ogn' anno nella più lieta stagione
Di quella donna ch' è sol mio desire;
A sè la chiama, ed io, contra mia voglia
Rimango senza il cuore, in gran quistione,
Qual men dorriemi il vivere o 'l morire."[164]
He managed to see her, however, sometimes in church, or at her
window, or in the gardens, and once he followed her to Baia, but only
to see her "a long way off." Yet, as he reminds himself, he always
had her, a vision in his heart:--
"Onde contra mia voglia, s' io non voglio
Lei riguardando, perder di vederla,
In altra parte mi convien voltare.
Oh grieve caso! ond' io forte mi doglio;
Colei qui cerco di poter vederla
Sempre non posso poi lei riguardare."[165]
Then there were moments of wild hope, till the indifference of
Fiammetta put it out; and he would resolve to break the "love
chains," but it was useless. He humiliated himself, and at last came
to despair. It was in some such moment, during her absence, we may
think, that he began the _Filostrato_,[166] and at length finally
abandoned those studies which in some sort his love had killed.
In this feverish state of mind, of soul, sometimes hopeful, sometimes
in despair, Boccaccio passed the next five years of his life, from
the spring of 1331 to the spring of 1336. It was during this time,
in 1335[167] it seems, that with his father's unwilling permission he
discontinued the law studies he had begun in 1329, but had for long
neglected, and gave himself up to literature, "without a master,"
but not without a counsellor--his old companion in the study of
astronomy, Calmeta. Other friends, too, were able to assist him,
among them Giovanni Barrili, the jurisconsult, a man of fine culture,
later Seneschal of King Robert for the kingdom of Provence,[168] and
Paolo da Perugia, King Robert's learned librarian, elected to that
office in 1332. Him Boccaccio held in the highest veneration, and no
doubt Paolo was very useful to him.[169]
We know nothing of his first literary studies, but we may be sure he
continued to read Ovid, and now read or re-read Virgil--these if only
for the study of versification. As for prose, it is possible that he
now read the _Metamorphoses_ of Apuleius, which he certainly knew and
admired. However that may be, his work at this time cannot have been
very severe or serious, for his mind was full of uneasiness about
Fiammetta, and this excitement no doubt increased in the early summer
of 1336, when she grew "kinder," and deigned even to encourage him;
he met her "con humil voce e con atti piacenti."[170]
[Illustration: MANLIUS THROWN INTO THE TIBER
_By the Dutch engraver called "The Master of the Subjects in the
Boccaccio." "De Casibus Virorum." (Strasburg, 1476.)_]
What was the real cause of this "kindness" it seems impossible we
should ever know. Perhaps at the moment Fiammetta lacked a lover,
though that is hard measure for her. Some cause there must have been,
for a woman does not surely let a lover sigh for five years unheard,
and then for no reason at all suddenly requite him. Certainly
Giovanni had made many beautiful verses for her, but when did that
touch a woman's heart? Yet, be the cause what it may, in the summer
of 1336 she would suddenly grow pale when he passed her by, and then
as suddenly turn her "starry eyes" on him languidly, voluptuously:--
"Amor, se questa donna non s' infinge
La mia speranza al suo termine viene...."
All this seems to have come to pass at Baia, perhaps, as Boccaccio
seems himself to suggest, one day in the woods of Monte Miseno
whither they were gone with a gay company holding festa there in
the golden spring weather.[171] And there were other days too: long
delicious noons in the woods, still evenings by the seashore, where,
though not alone, he might talk freely to her, by chance or strategy,
or in a low voice whisper his latest verses beating with her heart.
Giovanni, we may be sure, was no mean strategist; he was capable of
playing his part in the game of hide-and-seek with the world.[172]
He seems eagerly to have sought the friendship of her husband and
of her relations and Fiammetta herself tells us in the romance that
bears her name that filled "non solamente dello amoroso ardore, ma
ancora di cautela perfetta il vidi pieno; il che sommamente mi fu a
grado. Esso, con intera considerazione vago di servare il mio onore e
adempiere, quando i luoghi e li tempi il concedessero, li suoi desii
credo non senza gravissima pena, usando molte arti, s' ingegnò d'
aver la familiarità di qualunque mi era parente, ed ultimamente del
mio marito: la quale non solamente ebbe, ma ancora con tanta grazia
la possedette, che a niuno niuna cosa era a grado, se non tanto
quanto con lui la comunicava...."[173]
Well, the one hundred and thirty-five days had begun.[174] There
were difficulties still to be overcome, however, before he won that
for which, as he says, he had always begged. Fiammetta, like a very
woman, denied it him over and over again, though very willingly she
would have given it to him. Expert as he had become in a woman's
heart--in this woman's heart at least--Giovanni guessed all this
and knew besides that she could not give him what he desired unless
he took it with a show at least of violence. Such, even to-day, are
Italian manners.[175] He awaited the opportunity. It seems to have
come during the absence of the husband in Capua.[176] Screwing his
courage to the sticking-point, he resolved to go to her chamber, and
to this end persuaded or bribed her maid to help him.[177]
It was in the early days of November probably, days so pensive in
that beautiful southern country, that it befell even as he had
planned. Led by the maid into Fiammetta's chamber, he hid himself
behind the curtains of the great marital bed. Presently she came
in with the maid, who undressed her and put her to bed, and left
her, half laughing, half in tears. Again he waited, and when at
last, desperate with anxiety and hope, he dared to come out of his
hiding, she was sleeping as quietly as a child. For a time he looked
at her, then trembling and scarce daring to breathe the while, he
crept into the great bed beside her, in verity as though he were her
newly wedded husband. Then softly he kissed her, sleeping still, and
drawing aside the curtain that hid the light,[178] discovered to his
amorous eyes "il delicato petto, e con desiderosa mano toccava le
ritonde mammelle, bacciandola molte volte," and already held her in
his arms when she awakened. She opened her mouth to cry for help, he
closed it with kisses; she strove to get out of bed, but he held her
firm, bidding her have no fear. She was defeated, of course, but that
her yielding might not seem too easy she reproached him[179] in a
trembling voice--trembling with fear and pleasure--for the violence
with which he had stolen what she had always denied him; adding that
all was quite useless as she did not wish it.
Then Giovanni, putting all to the proof, drew a dagger from his
belt, and retiring to a corner of the bed, in a low and distressed
voice said--we find the words in the _Ameto_--"I come not, O lady,
to defile the chastity of thy bed, but as an ardent lover to obtain
relief for my burning desires; thou alone canst assuage them, or tell
me to die: surely I will only leave thee satisfied or dead, not that
I seek to gratify my passion by violence or to compel any to raise
cruel hands against me; but if thou art deaf to my entreaties with my
dagger I shall pierce my heart."
To kill himself--there. O no, Giovanni! Certainly she did not want
that. What then? Well, not a dead man in her room, at any rate, for
all the world to talk about.[180] Yes, she was paid in her own coin.
She was conquered; her silence gave consent. "O no, Giovanni!"
"Donna mia," he whispered, "I came thus because it was pleasing to
the gods...."[181]
"Thou lovest me so?" she answered. "And when then, and how, and why
... and why?" So he told her all over again from the beginning, and
she, yielding little by little, seemed doubtful even yet. Then he
asked again, "Che farò O Donna? Passerà il freddo ferro il solecito
petto o lieto sarà dal tuo riscaldato?" At this renewed menace the
poor lady, without more ado, reached for the iron and flung it away.
Then he, putting his arms about her and kissing her furiously,
whispered: "Lady, the gods, my passion, and thy beauty, have wounded
my soul, and thus as was already told thee in dreams I shall for
ever be thine: I do not think I need implore thee to be mine, but if
necessary I pray thee now once for all...."
That night was but the first of a long series, as we may suppose.
"Oh," says Fiammetta, in the romance which bears her name, "how he
loved my room and with what joy it saw him arrive. He held it in
greater reverence than any church (temple). Ah me, what pleasant
kisses! What loving embraces! How many nights passed as though they
had been bright days in sweet converse without sleep! How many
delights, dear to every lover, have we enjoyed there in those happy
days."[182]
So autumn passed into winter and the long nights grew short, and
all the world was at the spring; and for them too it was the golden
age--so long ago. Well, do we not know how they spent their lives?
It was ever Giovanni's way to kiss and tell. Has he not spoken of
the festas and the jousts, and the rare encounters that in Naples
greeted Primavera?[183] We see him with Fiammetta at the Courts of
Love, in the deep shade of the gardens, in the joyful fields,[184]
on the seashore at Baia,[185] and at the Bagno beside the lake of
Avernus,[186] while we may catch a glimpse of them too at a wedding
feast.[187] So passed what proved to be the one happy year of their
love, and perhaps the happiest of Giovanni's life.
* * * * *
That year so full of wild joy soon passed away. With the dawn of
1338 his troubles began. At first jealousy. He found it waiting to
torture him on returning from a journey we know not whither,[188] in
which he had encountered dangers by flood and field; a winter journey
then, doubtless. He came home to find Fiammetta disdainful, angry,
even indifferent. All the annoyance of the road came back to him
threefold:--[189]
"... non ch' alcun tormento
Mi desser tornand 'io, ma fur gioconde,
Tanta dolce speranza mi recava
Spronato dal desio di rivederti,
Qual ver me ti lasciai, Donna, pietosa.
Or, oltre, a quel che io, lasso! stimava,
Trovo mi sdegni, e non so per quai merti;
Per che piange nel cor l' alma dogliosa,
E maledico i monti, l' alpe e 'l mare,
Che mai mi ci lasciaron ritornare."[190]
Whose fault was it? Perhaps there is not much need to ask. Fiammetta
was incapable of any stability in love, and Giovanni could never
help looking at "altre donne."[191] As we have seen, Fiammetta was
surrounded by admirers who were not, be sure, more scrupulous than
Boccaccio. So that his suspicions were aroused, and he must have
found it difficult to obey her when she forbade him to follow her
to Baia in 1338. Perhaps he had compromised her, and for that cause
alone she had ceased to care for him--it would perhaps be after her
nature; but however it may have been, it was no marvel that he was
jealous, angry, and afraid.[192]
[Illustration: ALLEGORY OF WEALTH AND POVERTY
_From a miniature in the French version of the "De Casibus Virorum,"
made in 1409 by Laurent le Premierfait. MS. Late XV century. (Brit.
Mus. Rothschild Bequest. MS. XII.)_]
And his fears prophesied truly--he was betrayed. He did not know it
when she first returned to Naples after the summer was gone. She took
care of that,[193] but she gave him excuses instead of kisses,
which only roused his angry jealousy the more. "Il geloso," she told
him, "ha l' animo pieno d' infinite sollecitudini, alle quali nè
speranza nè altro diletto può porgere conforto o alleviare la sua
pena.... Egli vuole e s' ingegna di porre legge a' piedi e alle mani,
e a ogni altro atto della sua donna,"[194] and so on and so forth.
These hypocritical and eloquent commonplaces did not soothe him, but
rather increased his anxiety. We must remember that though Giovanni
would gad after other beauties, he loved Fiammetta then and always.
It is not surprising, then, that his jealousy became a wild anger.
"Nel cuore mi s' accese un' ira sì ferocissima, che quasi con lei non
mi fece allora crucciare, ma pur mi ritenni."[195] Little by little
suspicion grew to certainty; he guessed he was betrayed, he knew it,
he suspected the very man, his supplanter, his friend; and he sees
him, as it were in a dream, on the "montagne vicine a Pompeano," like
a great mastiff who devours the hen pheasant at a mouthful.[196] What
could he do, what could he say? "Let Thy name perish, Baia...."
"Perir possa il tuo nome, Baia, e il loco;
Boschi selvaggi le tue piagge sieno,
E le tue fonti diventin veneno,
Nè vi si bagni alcun molto nè poco:
In pianto si converta ogni tuo gioco,
E suspetto diventi il tuo bel seno
A' naviganti; il nuvolo e 'l sereno
In te riversin fumo solfo e fuoco;
Che hai corrotto la più casta mente
Che fosse in donna colla tua licenza,
Se il ver mi disser gli occhi non è guari.
Là onde io sempre viverò dolente,
Come ingannato da folle credenza;
Or fuss' io stato cieco non ha guari!"[197]
After rage, humiliation. He tells himself that in spite of all he
will love her always, more and more, yes, more than his own life or
honour. He will persist, he will not be easily beaten, he will regain
her. And yet it is all quite useless, as he knows.[198] Was it not in
this hour that he wrote the following beautiful lines:--
"La lagrime e i sospiri e 'l non sperare,
A quella fine m' han si sbigottito
Ch' io me ne vo per via com' uom smarrito:
Non so che dire e molto men che fare.
E quando avvien che talor ragionare
Oda di me, che n' ho talvolta udito,
Del pallido colore, e del partito
Vigore, e del dolor che di fuor pare,
Una pietà di me stesso mi vene
Sì grande, ch' io desio di dir piangendo
Che sia cagion di tanto mio martiro:
Ma poi, temendo non aggiugner pene
Alle mie noie, tanto mi difendo,
Ch' io passo in compagnia d' alcun sospiro."[199]
But fate was not content, as he himself says,[200] with this single
blow. Till now he had wanted for nothing; he had had a home of his
own, and had been able to go to court when, and as, he would, and
to enter fully into the life of the gay city. Now suddenly poverty
stared him in the face. His father, from whom all that was stable
and good in his life hitherto had proceeded, was ruined.[201] But
even in his fall he remembered his son, and though Giovanni was
now twenty-five years of age, he maintained him, at considerable
inconvenience doubtless, from 1st November, 1338, to 1st November,
1339, by buying for him the produce of a _podere_ near Capua, "i beni
della chiesa di S. Lorenzo dell' Arcivescovato di Capua," which cost
him twenty-six florins.[202] Della Torre thinks that the wretched
youth was compelled to visit the place (possibly this was his fateful
journey) and to deal with a _fattore di campagna_ and the wily
_contadini_ of whom Alberti has so much to tell us a century later.
With them he would have to take account of the grain, the grapes, the
olives, the swine, and so forth, while trying to write romances and
to save his love from utter disaster.
As though the ills he suffered were not enough, it was at this time
he lost a friend and protector from whom he expected very much.
Niccolò Acciaiuoli, whom he had known since 1331, left Naples on 10th
October, 1338, and two years later Boccaccio writes to him on his
return from the Morea: "Nicola, if any trust can be placed in the
miserable, I swear to you by my suffering soul that the departure of
Trojan Æneas was not a deeper sorrow to the Carthaginian Dido than
was yours to me: not without reason, though you knew it not: nor
did Penelope long for the return of Ulysses more than I longed for
yours."[203]
And then all his companions forsook him owing to his change of
fortune; one by one they fell away. He who had consorted with nobles
and loved a king's daughter was left alone; not in his own dwelling,
but outside the city now, "sub Monte Falerno apud busta Maronis," as
he dates his letters: close then to the tomb of Virgil. Was it now,
at the lowest ebb of his fortunes, in all this tempest of ill, that
he turned to the verse of the Mantuan who has healed so many wounds
that the Church may not touch; and so, dreaming beside his sepulchre
at Posilippo, remembering the wasted life, the irrecoverable years,
made that vow which posterity has so well remembered, sworn as it was
on Virgil's grave, to give himself to letters, to follow his art for
ever?
Henceforth his life belongs to literature. "Every cloud," says the
proverb, "has a silver lining," and the miseries of youth, though
not the least bitter, differ, in this at least, from those of old
age, that one has time to profit by them. So it was with Giovanni.
The tempest which had destroyed so much that he valued most highly
was in some sort his salvation. To love is good, they had told him,
to write verses even better; but to ruin oneself for love----! What
madness! Yet it was just that he had done, and like many others who
have practised his art, he found in ruin the highway of the world.
Driven by poverty outside the city, deprived alike of its pleasures
and the excitement and distractions of his love, he had nothing left
but his art, and for the first time in his life he seems to have set
himself to study and to practise it with all his might. Deserted
by his companions, he reminded himself that he was a poet and that
solitude was his friend. He seems to have read much, studying in the
shadow of Virgil's tomb the works of that poet[204] and the writings
of the ever-delightful Apuleius, while in the letter to Calmeta we
find--and this is most interesting in regard to his own work--that he
was already reading the _Thebais_ of Statius.[205] Helpers, too, of
a sort he had, among them Dionigi Roberti da Borgo Sansepolcro,[206]
who, as Della Torre thinks, made him write to Petrarch, a thing
Boccaccio no doubt had long wished, but hesitated, to do. The first
extant communication between them, however, dates from 1349.
In the midst of this resurrection of energy in which, as we learn,
he had already grown calm enough to see _Fiammetta_ afar off without
flinching and even with a sort of pleasure, his father, widowed by
the death of Margherita, "full of years, deprived by death of his
children," summoned him home.[207] When did Boccaccio obey this
summons? That he was in Naples in 1340 is proved by the letter "Sacro
famis et angelice viro," dated "sub Monte Falerno apud busta Maronis
Virgilii, Julii Kal IIII.," i.e. 28th June, and, as the contents
show, of the year 1340.[208] He was still there in October, for
on 1st November the renewal of the contract of the _podere_ of S.
Lorenzo fell due, but by 11th January, 1341, we know him to have been
in Florence.[209] He left Naples, then, between 1st November, 1340,
and 11th January, 1341,[210] and as the journey took eleven days or
so he must have set out in the end of the year. By so doing, as it
happened, he just missed seeing Petrarch, who, invited to his court
by King Robert, left Avignon on 16th February, 1341, in the company
of Azzo da Correggio, to reach Naples in March.[211]
So Giovanni came back into the delicate and strong Florentine
country, along the bad roads, through the short days, the whole world
lost in wind and rain, neither glad nor sorry, but thoughtful, and,
yes, homesick after all for that ghost in his heart.
FOOTNOTES:
[146] And such was the fashion.
[147] DELLA TORRE, _op. cit._, p. 213.
[148] _Fiammetta_, _ed. cit._, pp. 63-4.
[149] I give the Italian, my translation being somewhat free:--"Un
piccolo libretto, volgarmente parlando, nel quale il nascimento, lo
innamoramento, e gli accidenti delli detti due infino alla lor fine
interamente si contenga.... Io sentendo la dolcezza delle parole
procedenti dalla graziosa bocca _e pensando che mai, cioè infino a
questo giorno, di niuna cosa era stato dalla nobil donna pregato, il
suo prego in luogo di comandamento mi reputai, prendendo per quello
migliore speranza nel futuro de' miei disii_."
[150] In the _Amorosa Visione_ we learn that she told him no longer
to make fun of himself and to think no more of the social difference
between them. In the _Filocolo_ he tells us that he first began to
hope after this interview. No doubt she wished to play with him as
with the rest. Certainly he was not easy in his mind. "Quelle parole
più paura d' inganno che speranza di futuro frutto mi porsero," he
tells us in the _Filocolo_, _ed. cit._, II., p. 248. Then come the
words I for one find so suspicious concerning his birth. In order,
he says, to bring her nearer to him, he thinks of his birth which,
different in social position as they are, was not unlike hers in
its romance. His mother was noble, he tells her, and he feels this
nobility in his heart. "Ma la nobilità del mio cuore tratta non
dal pastor padre, ma dalla reale madre mi porse ardire e dissi:
'Seguirolla e proverò se vera sarà nell' effetto come nel parlar si
mostra volonterosa."
[151] _Filocolo_, _ed. cit._, II, 86.
[152] See on this subject DE BLASIIS, _Le Case de' Principi Angioni_
in _Arch. St. per le prov. nap._, Ann. XII, pp. 311-12.
[153] _Fiammetta_, _ed. cit._, p. 84. I translate: "A city more
addicted to joyous festivals than any other in Italy, her citizens
were not only entertained with marriages, or country amusements, or
with boat-races, but abounding in perpetual festivities she diverted
her inhabitants now with one thing, now with another; among others
she shone supreme in the frequent tournaments."
[154] _Fiammetta_, _ed. cit._, pp. 119-20. "The youths when jousting
with potent weapons on galloping horses or to the sound of clashing
bells in miniature warfare, showed joyously how with a light hand on
the foam-covered bridle fiery horses were to be managed. The young
women delighting in these things, garlanded with spring flowers,
either from high windows or from the doors below, glanced gaily at
their lovers; one with a new gift, another with tender looks, yet
another with soft words assured her servant of her love."
[155] Cf. _De Genealogiis_, XIV, 4, and XV, 10. Giovanni's reply will
be found in the _Filocolo_, _ed. cit._, II, pp. 84-6, "Chi mosse
Vergilio? Chi Ovidio? Chi gli altri poeti a lasciare di loro eterna
fama ne' santi versi, li quali mai ai nostri orecchi pervenuti non
sarieno se costui non fosse?" and so forth.
[156] So it seems we ought to understand his letter to Franceschino
da Brossano, where he says: "Et ego quadraginta annis, vel amplius
suis (that is, of Petrarch) fui" (CORAZZINI, _op. cit._, p. 382).
[157] "Sono quarant' anni," he writes in 1374, "e più che io amo
ed onoro il Petrarca"; cf. DOBELLI and MANICARDI AND MASSERA:
_Introduzione al testo critico del "Canzoniere" del Boccaccio_
(Castel Fiorentino, 1901), pp. 62-4.
[158] _Filocolo_, _ed. cit._, II, p. 248.
[159] _Rime_ (Moutier), XVIII.
[160] _Ibid._, III.
[161] _Ibid._, LXXXIX.
[162] _Ibid._, LXXXIII.
[163] _Fiammetta_, _ed. cit._, p. 28.
[164] _Rime_ (Moutier), XXXIV.
[165] _Ibid._, XXV.
[166] Cf. CRESCINI, _op. cit._, pp. 186-208; DELLA TORRE, _op. cit._,
p. 245.
[167] See DELLA TORRE, _op. cit._, pp. 259 and 260. Cf. also
_De Genealogiis_, Lib. XV, cap. x (HECKER, _Boccaccio Funde_,
Braunschweig, 1902, p. 289). "Attamen jam fere maturus etate et mei
juris factus, nemine impellente, nemine docente, imo obsistente patre
et studium tale damnante, quod modicum novi poetice, sua sponte
sumpsit ingenium eamque summa aviditate secutus sum, et, precipua cum
delectatione, auctorum eiusdem libros vidi legique, et, uti potui,
intelligere conatus sum." So he seems to have won over his father by
telling him he was of an age to decide for himself.
[168] See ZENATI, _Dante e Firenze_ (Firenze, 1903), p. 251, note 1,
and the works there cited. FARAGLIA, _Barbato di Sulmona e gli uomini
di lettere della corte di Roberto d' Angiò_ in _Arch. St. It._,
Ser. V, Vol. III, p. 343. IDEM: _I due amici del Petrarca, Giovanni
Barrili e Barbato di Sulmona_ in _I miei studi storici delle cose
abruzzesi_ (Rocca Carabba, 1893), and DELLA TORRE, _op. cit._, p. 261
_et seq._
[169] Cf. ZENATI, _op. cit._, p. 275, note 1.
[170] See MANICARDI MASSERA, _op. cit._, p. 71, note 1, and DELLA
TORRE, _op. cit._, p. 262.
[171] Boccaccio praises especially Monte Miseno in Sonnet xlviii.:--
"Ben lo so io, che in te ogni mia noia
Lasciai, e femmi d' allegrezza pieno
Colui ch' è sire e re d' ogni mia gloria";
and even more especially in Sonnet xlvii., where he speaks of it:--
"Nelle quai si benigno Amor trovai
Che refrigerio diede a' miei ardori
E ad ogni mia noia pose freno."
But see also ANTONA TRAVERSI, _Della realtà dell' amore di Boccaccio_
in _Propugnatore_ (1883-4), Vols. XVI and XVII, and in _Rivista
Europea_ (1882-3), Vols. XXIX and XXXI.
[172] As to his strategy, hear him in the _Fiammetta_: "Quante volte
già in mia presenza e de' miei più cari, caldo di festa e di cibi
e di amore, fignendo Fiammetta e Panfilo essere stati greci, narrò
egli come io di lui, ed esso di me, primamente stati eravamo presi,
con quanti accidenti poi n' erano seguitati, alli luoghi ed alle
persone pertinenti alla novella dando convenevoli nomi! Certo io ne
risi più volte, e non meno della sua sagacità che della semplicità
delli ascoltanti; e talvolta fu che io temetti, che troppo caldo non
trasportasse la lingua disavvendutamente dove essa andare non doveva;
ma egli, più savio che io non pensava, astutissimamente si guardava
dal falso latino...." Maria was doubtless a good scholar, already very
proficient.
[173] _Fiammetta_, _ed. cit._, p. 37 _et seq._; cf. CRESCINI,
_op. cit._, pp. 151-2. I translate: "filled not only with amorous
ardour, but also with infinite caution, which pleased me mightily,
desirous above all things to shield my honour and yet to attain
whenever possible his desire, not, I think, without much trouble,
he used every art and studied how to gain the friendship, first of
any who were related to me, and then of my husband: in this he was
so successful that he entirely won their good graces, and nothing
pleased them but what was shared by him."
[174] See _supra_, p. 40.
[175] On this point see an incident related by LINA DUFF GORDON in
her charming _Home Life in Italy_ (Methuen, 1908), p. 157.
[176] See _Ameto_, _ed. cit._, p. 224 _et seq._; cf. CRESCINI, _op.
cit._, pp. 80-2, and DELLA TORRE, _op. cit._, p. 270.
[177] For all these particulars and the following see _Filocolo_,
_ed. cit._, II, pp. 168-9, 174, 178-9. Without doubt these passages
are biographical. See CRESCINI, _op. cit._, p. 82, and DELLA TORRE,
p. 270 _et seq._
[178] Fiammetta was afraid of the dark since her childhood; she
always had a light in her room. Cf. _Fiammetta_, _ed. cit._, p. 55.
[179] "Col tuo ardito ingegno, me presa nella tacita notte secura
dormendo ... prima nelle braccia m' avesti e quasi la mia pudicizia
violata, che io fossi dal sonno interamente sviluppata. E che doveva
io fare, questo veggendo? doveva io gridare, e col mio grido a me
infamia perpetua, ed a te, il quale io più che me medesima amava,
morte cercare?"--_Fiammetta_, _ed. cit._; p. 67. Not so argued
"Lucrece of Rome town."
[180] It was a cowardly threat from our point of view, but probably
not an idle one. Men go to bed in Sicily and die of love in the
night. And then, too, this violence was part of the etiquette, and in
some sort is so still, in Southern Italy, at any rate.
[181] _Filocolo_, _ed. cit._, II, p. 180. In the _Ameto_, _ed. cit._,
p. 225, he says it was Hecate who brought him in.
[182] _Fiammetta_, _ed. cit._, p. 39.
[183] Cf. _Fiammetta_, _ed. cit._, pp. 84-8.
[184] _Filocolo_, _ed. cit._, II, p. 27 _et seq._; cf. also DELLA
TORRE, _St. della Accademia Platonica di Firenze_ (Firenze, 1902),
p. 164 _et seq._; and PIO RAJNA, _L' Episodio delle Questioni d'
amore nel "Filocolo"_ in _Raccolta di studi critici per A. d' Ancona_
(Firenze, 1901).
[185] Sonnet xxxii., _Rime_, _ed. cit._
[186] Cf. HORTIS, _Accenni alle Scienze naturali nelle opere di
G. B._ (Trieste, 1877), p. 49 _et seq._; and PERCOPÒ, _I bagni di
Pozzuoli_ in _Arch. St. per le prov. nap._, XI, pp. 668, 703-4.
[187] _Fiammetta_, pp. 77-80.
[188] Cf. CRESCINI, _op. cit._, p. 182, note 1.
[189] Cf. DELLA TORRE, _op. cit._, p. 289.
[190] Sonnet lix., _Rime_, _ed. cit._
[191] See Madrigal ii. (Moutier) and Sonnet xxiv. (Moutier), where
he excuses himself. As for Fiammetta, we know her, and she says,
in the _Fiammetta_, "Quanti e quali giovani d' avere il mio amore
tentassero, e i diversi modi, e l' inghirlandate porte dagli loro
amori, le notturne risse e le diurne prodezze per quelli operate."
In the _Filocolo_ he describes how in a vision Florio is shown how
strenuously he ought to defend his love from her admirers.
[192] See Sonnet lxix., in which he says (but see the whole sonnet):--
"Ed io lo so, e di quinci ho temenza,
Non con la donna mia si fatti sienvi,
Che 'l petto l' aprano ed entrinsi in quello."
[193] _Filocolo_, _ed. cit._, II, p. 70-1; CRESCINI, _op. cit._, pp.
76-7: DELLA TORRE, _op. cit._, pp. 294-5.
[194] I translate: "The jealous lover's soul is ever filled with
infinite terrors and his pangs are not to be alleviated by hope or
by any other joy. He insists on inventing and dictating laws for the
feet and hands, and for every act of his mistress."--_Filocolo_, _ed.
cit._, II, p. 73.
[195] _Filocolo_, _ed. cit._, II, p. 71. I translate: "My heart was
filled with such furious anger that I almost broke away from her, yet
I restrained myself."
[196] _Filocolo_, _ed. cit._, II, pp. 25-6.
[197] Sonnet iv.; cf. also Sonnet lv. "Che dolore intollerabile
sostengo," he writes in the _Filocolo_. See also Madrigal iii., and
DELLA TORRE, _op. cit._, pp. 297-9.
[198] Cf. _Filocolo_, _ed. cit._, II, p. 262. "Come di altri molti,"
he says, "avea fatto, cosi di lui feci gittandolo dal mio senno.
Questa cosa fatta, la costui letizia si rivolse in pianto. E,
brevemente, egli in poco tempo di tanta pietà il suo viso dipinse,
che egli in compassione di sè moveva i più ignoti. Egli mi si
mostrava, e con preghi e con lagrime tanto umile quanto più poteva,
la mia grazia ricercando...."
[199] Sonnet lxxxvii.
[200] _Filocolo_, _ed. cit._, II, 26.
[201] We know nothing of the cause of Boccaccino's ruin. It is
interesting to remember, however, that he was connected with the
Bardi who in 1339 had, with the Peruzzi, lent Edward III of England
1,075,000 florins. As we know, this sum was never repaid, and the
transaction ruined the lenders. Boccaccino himself seems to have been
already short of money in 1336, when he sold Casa di Boccaccio.
[202] The church is situated, according to Della Torre, in the
village of S. Maria Maggiore. See DELLA TORRE, _op. cit._, pp. 309-13.
[203] CORAZZINI, _op. cit._, p. 17.
[204] That Boccaccio considered Virgil in some sort a magician is
certain. Cf. HORTIS, _Studi_, etc., pp. 394, 396-8.
[205] Not being able to understand it, he asks for an example with
glosses. Cf. CORAZZINI, _op. cit._, p. 465.
[206] Cf. the letter to Niccolò Acciaiuoli, dated from Florence,
August 23, 1341, where he speaks of "il reverendo mio padre e
signore, Maestro Dionigi," CORAZZINI, _op. cit._, p. 18. Possibly
Dionigi made him read Seneca. Cf. DELLA TORRE, _op. cit._, pp. 323-4.
[207] Boccaccino had lost almost everything, including the _dote_
of his wife. Giovanni declares this was the justice of heaven upon
him for the desertion of his (Giovanni's) mother. Cf. _Ameto_, _ed.
cit._, pp. 187-8. He never forgave his father for this. Yet, like a
good son, he obeyed the summons, and says later that "we ought to
learn to bear the yoke of our fathers, and should honour with the
greatest reverence their trembling old age." We believe Margherita
died in 1339. The last document we have which speaks of her is,
however, of 1337. When Francesco died we cannot say.
[208] Cf. DELLA TORRE, _op. cit._, p. 339. This letter is, as I have
already said, considered apocryphal by many scholars, though not by
Della Torre.
[209] _Ibid._, p. 343. See document there given, which equally proves
that on 11th January, 1341, Boccaccio was already in Florence.
[210] _Fiammetta_, _ed. cit._, p. 40, where he says Panfilo (himself)
left Naples "essendo il tempo per piove e per freddo noioso."
[211] Della Torre seems to have proved that Boccaccio left Naples
in December, 1340, and was in Florence early in the new year, 1341.
For the most part he is in agreement with Crescini and Landau. Cf.
CRESCINI, _op. cit._, p. 86 _et seq._, and LANDAU, _op. cit._, 70 and
40 (Italian edition) also pp. 181-2. KOERTING, _op. cit._, p. 164,
says 1339 or 1340.
CHAPTER V
BOCCACCIO'S EARLY WORKS--THE _FILOCOLO_--THE _FILOSTRATO_--THE
_TESEIDE_--THE _AMETO_--THE _FIAMMETTA_--THE _NINFALE FIESOLANO_
I have written at some length and in some detail of the early
years of Boccaccio and of the circumstances attending his love for
Fiammetta, because they decided the rest of his life, and are in
many ways by far the most important in his whole career. But the ten
years which follow his return to Florence are even more uncertain and
obscure that those which preceded them, while we are without any of
those semi-biographical allegories to help us. It will be necessary,
therefore, to deal with these years less personally, and to regard
them more strictly from the point of view of the work they produced.
And to begin with, let us consider the work already begun before
Boccaccio left Naples, or at any rate worked on during the years
1341-4, which were spent in and around Florence.
That his life was far from happy on his return from Naples we know
not only from the bitter and cruel verses he has left us, in which he
speaks of his home--
"Dove la cruda ed orribile vista
D' un vecchio freddo, ruvido ed avaro
Ogn' ora con affanno più m' attrista----"[212]
but also from the letters he sent to Niccolò Acciaiuoli,[213] in
which he says: "I can write nothing here where I am in Florence,
for if I should, I must write not in ink, but in tears. My only hope
is in you--you alone can change my unhappy fate." That he was very
poor we may be certain, and though he was not compelled to work at
business, the abomination of his youth, no doubt he had to listen
to the regrets, and perhaps to the reproaches, of an old man whom
misfortune had soured. His father, however, seems to have left him
quite free to work as he wished, satisfying himself with his mere
presence and company. And then the worst was soon over, for, by what
means we know not, by December, 1342, he was able to buy a house in
the parish of S. Ambrogio, and to live in his own way.[214]
This period, then, materially so unfortunate, not for Boccaccio
alone, as we shall see, is nevertheless the most fruitful of his
existence. For it is in the five years which follow his return from
Naples that we may be sure he was at work on the _Filocolo_, the
_Ameto_, the _Teseide_, the _Amorosa Visione_, the _Filostrato_, and
wrote the _Fiammetta_ and the _Ninfale Fiesolano_, and somewhat in
that sequence; though save with regard to the _Filocolo_ perhaps, we
have no notice or date or hint even of the order of their production,
either from himself or any of his contemporaries.
It was at this time, too, that he perfected himself in the Latin
tongue and read the classics, of which he shows he had a marvellously
close if uncritical knowledge. His state of soul is visible in his
work, which is so extraordinarily personal. A single thought seems to
fill his mind: he had loved a princess, and had been loved in return;
she had forsaken him, but she remained, in spite of everything, the
lode-star of his life. He writes really of nothing else but this.
Full of her he sets himself to glorify her, and to tell over and over
again his own story.
[Illustration: THE MURDER OF THE EMPEROR AND EMPRESS
_From a miniature in the French version of the "De Casibus Virorum,"
made in 1409 by Laurent le Premierfait. MS. late XV century. (Brit.
Mus. Showcase V, MS. 126.)_]
It was the story of Florio and Biancofiore, popular enough in Naples,
that had charmed Fiammetta at first hearing in the convent parlour at
S. Arcangelo a Baiano, and it is round this tale that the _Filocolo_
is written.[215] As he tells us himself in the first page, this was
the first book he made to please her, and it was therefore probably
begun in the summer of 1331.[216] The work thus undertaken seems to
have grown on his hands, and can indeed have been no light task: it
is the longest of his works after the _Decameron_, and the weakest
of all. The book, indeed, as we now have it, must have demanded
years of labour; as he himself exclaims: "O piccolo mio libretto a
me più anni stato graziosa fatica";[217] and it is certain that it
was still unfinished when he returned to Florence, and probable that
it remained so for some years. The narrative is complicated, and the
relation very long drawn out and even tiresome.
There live in Rome, we learn, Quinto Lelio Africano and Giulia
Tropazia his wife, who have been married for five years, and yet, to
their sorrow, have no children. Lelio is descended from the conqueror
of Carthage, Scipio Africanus, and Giulia from the Julian stock.
They are both pious Christians and vow a pilgrimage to S. James of
Compostella if, in answer to the prayers of that saint, God will
vouchsafe them a child. Their prayers are heard, and with a great
company they set out on pilgrimage to Spain in fulfilment of their
vow.
Now this pilgrimage has especially infuriated the ancient enemy
of mankind, here half Satan, half Pluto, and he is resolved to
hinder it. In the form of a knight he appears before King Felice of
Spain, who is descended in direct line from Atlas, the bearer of the
heavens, and tells him how his faithful city of Marmorina has been
assailed by the Romans, how it was sacked and its inhabitants put to
the sword without mercy.
Much moved to anger by this tale, King Felice sets out against the
Romans, and meeting Lelio with his people on pilgrimage, takes
them for his enemies and attacks them. The little Roman company
defends itself with the courage of despair, but ends by succumbing
to overwhelming force. All the Romans are killed on the field and
their women made prisoners; but not before the King understands how
maliciously he has been deceived by the devil, and how the folk
he has killed were but innocent pilgrims. So he leads Giulia and
Glorizia her friend to his wife in Seville, where a great fête is
given in his honour.
And as it happens Giulia and the Queen give birth in the same day
to a daughter and a son respectively, who are given the names of
Biancofiore and Florio. Giulia, however, dies in child-bed, and her
daughter Biancofiore is educated by the Queen with her son Florio.
The two children learn to read in the "santo libro d' Ovidio," in
which Boccaccio tells us the poet shows, "come i santi fuochi di
Venere si deano ne' freddi cuori con sollecitudine accendere." And
this reading is not without its effect; the two children fall in
love, Love himself appearing to them.
There follows what we might expect. The King is angered at their
love, and refuses to permit the union of his son with an unknown
Roman girl. He sends the fifteen-year-old Florio to Montorio,
ostensibly to study philosophy, but really to forget Biancofiore.
After the parting, charmingly told, in which Florio calls on the gods
and heroes, and Biancofiore gives him a ring which will always tell
him of her safety, he departs. The King, however, profiting by his
absence, plots against Biancofiore with the assistance of Massamutino
the seneschal. At a sumptuous banquet given in the castle the girl is
accused of having tried to poison him. She is condemned to the stake,
and Massamutino is to execute the sentence.
Meanwhile Florio has been disquieted by the sudden tarnishing
of the ring. Suddenly Venus appears to him, and bids him go to
the assistance of his mistress. Armed with arms terrestrial and
celestial, accompanied by Mars, Florio hastens to Marmorina. He
frees Biancofiore, and in a sort of duel conquers the seneschal,
and having obtained from him a confession of the conspiracy, proves
the innocence of Biancofiore and kills him. During all this he is
incognito. Then, without heeding her prayers, he gives her once
more into the care of the King and returns to Montorio without
declaring who he is. There he is tempted to be false to his love by
two girls who offer him every sort of love and pleasure, and it is
only with difficulty he keeps his faith. He is then assaulted by
jealousy, however, for he knows that a young knight, Fileno by name,
altogether noble and valorous, is fallen in love with Biancofiore.
Florio resolves to kill him, but the youth is advised in a dream of
his danger and flies into Tuscany, where, by reason of his continual
weeping, he is changed into a fountain near a temple.
The persecutions of Biancofiore, however, are not over. King Felice,
wishing to be rid of her, sells her one day to some merchants, and
these take her at length to Alexandria in Egypt. Florio, returning,
is told she is dead; he tries to kill himself on her pretended tomb,
but his mother prevents him and tells him the truth. He resolves to
set out through the world in search of his love. Here the first part
of the story may be said to end.
The second part is concerned with Florio's adventures. He travels
unknown under the name of Filocolo,[218] that is to say Fatica d'
Amore. With his companions he voyages first towards Italy, and, blown
by a tempest to Partenope (Naples), meets there in a garden the
beautiful Fiammetta and her lover Galeone amid a joyful and numerous
company, each member of which recounts an amorous adventure, and
closes the narrative with a demand for the solution of the _Questione
d' Amore_ which arises out of it.
Meanwhile Biancofiore has been sold to the admiral of the Sultan
of Babylon in Alexandria, who makes a collection of beauties for
his lord. This treasure is kept well guarded, but with every
consideration, at the top of a lofty and beautiful tower by Sadoc,
a ferocious old Arab, who, however, has two weaknesses--his love of
money and his love of chess. Florio allows him to win at a game of
chess, and at the same time bribes him generously. Having thus won
his good will he has himself carried to Biancofiore in a great basket
of flowers. She rewards him for all his labour. The admiral, however,
learns of this, and, furious at the spoliation of his property,
condemns both Florio and his mistress to be burned alive. But when
they are at the stake, Venus makes their bodies invulnerable, and
inspires Florio's companions to heroic deeds. In admiration of their
courage, the admiral is reconciled with them; and, in fact, when
Florio, Filocolo till now, declares who he is, he finds that the old
admiral is his uncle. Then follows the marriage and the marriage
feast.
Here the book might well have ended; but Boccaccio has by no means
finished.
On the way back to Spain, Florio, Biancofiore and their companions
pass through Italy. In Naples they find Galeone abandoned by
Fiammetta. They visit the places round about, the baths of Baia, the
ancient sepulchre of Misenum,[219] Cuma, the Mare Morto and Pozzuoli.
Florio fishes in the bay and hunts in the woods. One day following a
stag, he shoots an arrow that not only wounds the animal, but also
strikes the root of a tall pine, and, wonderful to relate, Florio
and Biancofiore see blood spring from the wounded tree and hear a
mournful voice cry out in pain. This being, changed into a tree,
proves to be Idalagos, who, questioned by Florio, tells him all his
history, the history, as we have seen,[220] of Boccaccio himself, for
it is his own story he tells in the name of Idalagos.
After these adventures Florio, with Biancofiore and his companions,
goes on to Rome, where, like a modern tourist, he visits all the
sights. In the Lateran he meets the monk Ilario, who discourses on
religion, dealing severely with paganism, and recounting briefly
the contents of the Old and New Testaments. He speaks also of the
history of the Greeks and Romans, and at last converts Florio and his
companions to Christianity.[221] Then follows the reconciliation with
Biancofiore's relations and the return to Spain, where, Felice being
dead, Florio inherits his kingdom, and with Biancofiore lives happily
ever after.
Such, in the most meagre outline, is the main story of the
_Filocolo_; but Boccaccio is not really concerned with it in its
integrity, and in the construction of it he does not show himself
to be the future composer of the _Decameron_. He collects in haste,
and without much discernment, all sorts of episodes and adventures,
and tells them, not without some confusion, solely to serve his own
ends, to express himself and his love. Sometimes he copies the French
poems from which in part he had the story,[222] though probably his
real sources were tradition; sometimes he invents his own story, as
in the tale of Idalagos. But as a work of art the _Filocolo_ is now
intolerable, and is, in fact, even in Italy, quite unread. For when
we have followed the hero in detail from birth to the unspeakable
happiness which is the finality of all such creations, we know
nothing of his character. He is not a man, but a shadow; the ghost of
a ghost. And as it is with Florio, so it is with Biancofiore: they
are pure nothing. But, as it seems, Boccaccio was too young and too
eager to care about anything but flattering Fiammetta and telling her
he loved her. The story, in so far as it is a story, is an imitation
of the endless medieval tales told by word of mouth in the streets
and piazzas up and down Italy. Yet now and again, even in this
wearying and complicated desert of words, we may find hints of the
author's attitude of mind towards the great things of the world,
while once certainly we find a prophecy not only of a great artist,
but of the _Decameron_ itself.
[Illustration: A WOODCUT FROM "DES NOBLES MALHEUREUX" (DE CASIBUS
VIRORUM) PARIS, 1515.
_This cut originally appears in the "Troy Book." (T. Bonhomme, Paris,
1484.) Unique copy at Dresden. (By the courtesy of Messrs. J. & J.
Leighton.)_]
In the course of the book Boccaccio makes all sorts of excursions
into mythology, and towards the end into religion. If we examine
these pages we find that for him the gods of Greece once reigning in
Olympus are now devils and demons according to the transformation
of the Middle Age. The monk who converts Florio and teaches him
Christian doctrine speaks with the same faith of Saturn and the
Trojan war, while Mars and Venus are never named without the epithet
of _Santi_, and S. James of Compostella is "il Dio che viene adorato
in Galizia."
In spite, however, of its faults of prolixity and preciosity, the
_Filocolo_ has, as I have said, this much interest for us to-day,
that in the finest episode, that of the _Questioni d' Amore_,
it prophesies the _Decameron_. In the course of his search for
Biancofiore, Florio, it will be remembered, comes to Naples, where
in a beautiful garden he finds Fiammetta and her lover Galeone.
There, amid a joyful company, he assists at a festa given in his
honour, where thirteen questions are proposed by four ladies--Cara,
Pola, and Graziosa, and one dressed in _bruni vestimenti_; and nine
gentlemen--Filocolo, Longanio, Menedon, Clonico, Galeone, Feramonte,
Duke of Montorio, Ascalione, Parmenione, and Massalino.[223] It is
Fiammetta's task to resolve these questions. Neither the tales nor
the questions which rise out of them are entirely new. For instance,
Galeone asks: "Whether a man for his own good ought to fall in
love or no?" Feramonte demands: "Whether a young man should love a
married woman, a maiden, or a widow?" It is not indeed so much in the
questions as in the stories and the assembly we are interested, for
they announce the _Decameron_, the whole of which, as Bartoli[224]
says, is contained in the _Questioni d' Amore_.[225]
The first edition of the _Filocolo_ was published in Venice in 1472
by Gabriele di Piero, with a life of Boccaccio written by Girolamo
Squarciafico. A French translation appeared in 1542 by Adrien Sevin.
It was translated again in 1554 by I. Vincent (Paris, 1554, Michel
Fezandat).
* * * * *
The _Filocolo_ was written in prose. In his next venture[226]
Boccaccio, who had no doubt already written many songs for Fiammetta,
attempted a story in verse. It is written in _ottave_, and was begun
during the earlier and brighter period of his love.[227] "You are
gone suddenly to Samnium," he writes in the dedication to Fiammetta,
"and ... I have sought in the old histories what personage I might
choose as messenger of my secret and unhappy love, and I have found
Troilus son of Priam, who loved Criseyde. His miseries are my
history. I have sung them in light rhymes and in my own Tuscan, and
so when you read the lamentations of Troilus and his sorrow at the
departure of his love, you shall know my tears, my sighs, my agonies,
and if I vaunt the beauties and the charms of Criseyde you will know
that I dream of yours." Well, the intention of the poem is just
that. It is an expression of his love. He is tremendously interested
in what he has suffered; he wishes her to know of it, he is eager
to tell of his experiences, his pains and joys. The picture is the
merest excuse, a means of self-expression. And yet in its exquisite
beauty of sentiment and verse it is one of the loveliest of his
works. The following is an outline of the narrative.
During the siege of Troy, Calchas, priest of Apollo, deserts to the
Greek camp,[228] and leaves his daughter Criseyde, the young and
beautiful widow, in Troy.[229] Troilus sees her there in the temple
of Minerva,[230] and falls in love. By good luck he finds that
Criseyde is a cousin of his dear friend Pandarus, whom he immediately
makes his confidant,[231] obtaining from him the promise that he will
help him.[232] Pandarus goes slowly and cautiously to work. He first
persuades Criseyde to let herself be seen by Troilus,[233] and when
this does not satisfy his friend he shows himself rich in resource.
At his suggestion Troilus writes to Criseyde and he bears the letter.
He spares no way of persuading her, who at first swearing "per la
mia salute" that she will never consent, consents and makes Troilus
happy.[234]
Almost all the third Canto is devoted to a description of the
happiness of the two lovers.
"Poi che ciascun sen fu ito a dormire,
E la casa rimasta tutta cheta,
Tosto parve a Griseida di gire
Dov' era Troilo ni parte segreta,
Il qual, com' egli la sentì venire,
Drizzato ni piè, e con la faccia lieta
Le si fe' incontro, tacito aspettando,
Per esser presto ad ogni suo comando.
"Avea la donna un torchio in mano acceso,
E tutta sola discese le scale,
E Troilo vide aspettarla sospeso,
Cui ella salutò, poi disse, quale
Ella potè: signor, se io ho offeso,
In parte tale il tuo splendor reale
Tenendo chiuso, pregoti per Dio,
Che mi perdoni, dolce mio disio.
"A cui Troilo disse: donna bella
Sola speranza e ben della mia mente,
Sempre davanti m' è stata la stella
Del tuo bel viso splendido e lucente,
E stata m' è più casa particella
Questa, che 'l mio palagio certamente;
E dimandar perdono a ciò non tocca;
Poi l' abbracciò e baciaronsi in bocca.
"Non si partiron prima di quel loco
Che mille volta insieme s' abbracciaro
Con dolce festa e con ardente gioco,
Ed altrettante vie più si baciaro,
Siccome que' ch' ardevan d' ugual foco,
E che l' un l' altro molto aveva caro;
Ma come l' accoglienze si finiro,
Salir le scale e'n camera ne giro.
"Lungo sarebbe a raccontar la festa
E impossibile a dire il diletto
Che insieme preser pervenuti in questa:
E' si spogliarono e entraron nel letto;
Dove la donna nell' ultima vesta
Rimasa già, con piacevole detto
Gli disse: speglio mio, le nuove spose
Son la notte primiera vergognose.
"A cui Troilo disse: anima mia,
I' te ne prego, sì ch' io t' abbia in braccio
Ignuda sì come il mio cor disia.
Ed ella allora: ve' che me ne spaccio;
E la camicia sua gittata via,
Nelle sue braccia si raccolse avaccio
E strignendo l' un l' altro con fervore,
D' amor sentiron l' ultimo valore.
"O dolce notte, e molto disiata,
Chente fostu alli due lieti amanti!"[235]
* * * * *
But the happiness of the Trojan prince does not last. Calchas, who
desires to see his daughter, contrives that she shall come to him
in an exchange of prisoners. Inexpressible is the sorrow of Troilus
when he learns of this design.[236] He prays the gods, if they wish
to punish him, to take from him his brother Hector or Polissena, but
to leave him his Criseyde.[237] Nor is Criseyde less affected.[238]
Pandarus, when appealed to, suggests that Troilus shall take the
girl, if need be, by force: a marriage seems to have been out of the
question.
"Pensato ancora avea di domandarla
Di grazia al padre mio che la mi desse;
Poi penso questo fora un accusarla,
E far palese le cose commesse;
Nè spero ancora ch' el dovesse darla,
Sì per non romper le cose promesse,
E perchè la direbbe diseguale
A me, al qual vuol dar donna reale."[239]
In fact, Cassandra has already discovered that her brother is in
love with a lady of no birth, the daughter of a wretched and vulgar
priest. So Troilus decides to have a last meeting with Criseyde
before she goes, to contrive with her what is to be done. At this
meeting the lovers swear eternal fidelity[240] and Criseyde promises
to return to him in Troy in ten days' time. Then in that same day
Diomede delivers one prisoner and takes Criseyde back with him to the
Greek camp.
Now Troilus is alone with his sorrow. He visits all the places that
remind him of Criseyde, and this pilgrimage is described in some of
the most splendid verses of the poem:--[241]
"Quindi sen gì per Troia cavalcando
E ciascun luogo gliel tornava a mente;
De' quai con seco giva ragionando:
Quivi rider la vidi lietamente;
Quivi la vidi verso me guardando:
Quivi mi salutò benignamente;
Quivi far festa e quivi star pensosa,
Quivi la vidi a? miei sospir pietosa.
"Colà istava, quand' ella mi prese
Con gli occhi belli e vaghi con amore;
* * * * *
"Colà la vidi altiera, e là umile
Mi si mostrò la mia donna gentile."
So he passes the time. In vain Pandarus seeks to distract him;[242]
in vain he seeks to comfort himself with making verses; the
longing to see Criseyde again is stronger than anything else.
[Illustration: MARCUS MANLIUS HURLED FROM THE TARPEIAN ROCK
_An English woodcut from Lydgate's "Falles of Princes." (Pynson,
London, 1527.) It is a copy in reverse from the French translation of
the "De Casibus." (Du Pré, Paris. 1483.) (By the courtesy of Messrs.
J. & J. Leighton.)_]
At last the ten days pass, and Criseyde ought to return to Troy.
Troilus awaits her at dawn at the gate of the city; but in vain: she
does not come. He consoles himself, however, by thinking that perhaps
she has forgotten to count the days and will come to-morrow. But
neither does she come on the morrow. Thus he awaits her for a whole
week in vain at the gate of the city, till at last in despair he
resolves to take his own life.[243]
Meanwhile Criseyde, from the day of her departure, has passed the
time much better than Troilus. For in truth she has consoled herself
with Diomede, who, after the first four days, has easily made her
forget the Trojan. She does not wish, however, that Troilus should
know she has broken faith. She answers his letters and puts him off
with words and excuses.
"My love with words and errors still she feeds,
But edifies another with her deeds."[244]
This sort of deception, however, cannot last long. Troilus grows
more and more suspicious, till one day Deiphebus having fought with
Diomede, he brings into Troy a clasp taken from the Greek which
Troilus recognises as the same he had given to Criseyde, and is
persuaded of her falsity.[245] So he resolves to avenge himself on
Diomede. In every encounter he rushes headlong on the foe, achieving
miracles of valour, seeking everywhere for Diomede; but fate is
against him even here, and he falls at last unavenged, but at least
by the noble hand of Achilles.[246]
"The wraththe, as I began yow for to seye
Of Troilus, the Grekes boughten dere;
For thousands his hondes maden deye
As he that was with-outen any pere,
Save Ector, in his tyme, as I can here.
But weylaway save only goddes will
Dispitously him slough the fiers Achille."[247]
Thus ends this simple work. In it we see an extraordinary advance
on the _Filocolo_ and the _Teseide_, both of which were possibly
planned and begun before the _Filostrato_ and finished later, for
there is a fine unity about the last which suggests that it was begun
and ended without intervention. Certainly here Boccaccio has freed
himself from all the mythological nonsense of those works as well as
from the lay figures and ghosts of knights who take antique names and
follow impossible ways. Here are real people of flesh and blood, and
among them nothing is finer than the study of Criseyde. She is as
living as any figure in the _Decameron_ itself. We see her first as a
widow mourning for a husband she has altogether forgotten; yet when
Pandarus makes his first overtures, she pleads her bereavement, while
she reads with delight the letters Troilus sends her, and is already
contriving in her little head how and when she shall meet him. She
tries to make Pandarus think she is doing everything out of pity, but
in her mind she has already decided to give everything to her lover,
although she writes him that she is "desirous to please him so far
as she may with safety to her honour and chastity." Then, as soon
as she has left Troy weeping, and Diomede has revealed his love to
her, she forgets Troilus because the Greek "was tall and strong and
beautiful":--
"Egli era grande e bel della persona,
Giovane fresco e piacevole assai
E forte e fier siccome si ragiona....
E ad amor la natura aveva prona."[248]
So she takes him, but even to him she lies, for she tells him she
has loved and been loved by no one but her dead husband, whom she
served loyally:--
"Amore io non conobbi, poi morio
Colui al qual lealmente il servai,
Sì come a marito e signor mio;
Nè Greco nè Troian mai non curai
In cotal fatto, nè me m' è in disio
Curarne alcuno, nè mi fia giammai...."[249]
This character, vain, false, and light, but absolutely living and a
very woman, is opposed to the loyal character of Pandarus, and is
doubtless subtly modelled without too much exaggeration on that of
Fiammetta. In direct contrast to it is the character of Troilus, the
most beautiful in the poem: so eager, so ardent, so perfectly youth
itself. He knows no country, no religion, no filial affection, but
lives and sees only Criseyde. Every day he will thrust himself into
the thickest of the fight in search of glory that he may lay it at
her feet and win her praise. It is love that has made him a hero,
as it made Boccaccio a poet: but both Criseyde and Fiammetta were
women; what should they care for that? Troilus is a real creation,
the first of those marvellous living figures who later people the
_Decameron_: the first and the most charming, the most youthful, the
most beautiful. But the whole poem is marvellously original alike in
its characters and in its versification.
As for the story, Boccaccio, it seems, got it partly from Benoît
de Sainte-More, whose _Roman de Troie_ had been composed from the
uncertainly dated works of "Dictys Cretensis" and "Dares Phrygius,"
and partly from the prose Latin _Hystoria Troiana_ of Guido delle
Colonne; there is certainly nothing of the _Iliad_ there. But the
_Filostrato_ is really an original composition, owing little or
nothing to any previous work. If there be any imitations to be found
in it they are not of the _Roman de Troie_ or of Guido delle Colonne,
but of Dante:[250] the _Divine Comedy_ even at this time having cast
its shadow over Boccaccio.
In the ninth and last book of the poem, which is not indeed a part of
it, but rather a sort of epilogue, he dedicates his work to Fiammetta,
"Alla donna gentil della mia mente,"
and tells her that she may find there his own tears and sighs because
of--
"De' suoi begli occhi i raggi chiari,
Mi si occultaron per la sua partenza
Che lieto sol vivea di lor presenza."
These words to some extent date the poem, which was apparently
finished before Fiammetta had betrayed him, and it seems likely even
that he had not as yet obtained from her the favours he valued so
highly and of which she was so generous to so many. These are the
reasons why I have considered the _Filostrato_ so early a work in
spite of its perfection.
The poem was published for the first time about 1480 by Luca Veneto
in Venice; it was translated into French[251] by Louis de Beauveau,
Seneschal d'Anjou, and as we shall see, Chaucer drew from it his
exquisite poem _Troilus and Criseyde_.
* * * * *
In turning now to the _Teseide_ we come apparently to the third work,
in point of time, of Boccaccio's youth. In the _Filocolo_, itself a
labour of love, he has told us of his first joy; in the _Filostrato_
of his hopes, torments, doubts, and waiting; in the _Teseide_ we see
the agonies of his jealousy. It was written to some extent under the
influence of Virgil as we should suppose, since it was begun, as we
may think, in the shadow of his tomb when Boccaccio had left the
city of Naples,[252] and it proves indeed to be written in twelve
books, and to have precisely the same number of lines as the _Æneid_,
namely 9896; it is therefore about twice as long as the _Filostrato_.
It is prefaced by a letter "To Fiammetta," in which he tells us why
he has written the poem, while "thinking of past joy in present
misery." The work professes to be a story of ancient times, and to
be concerned with the love two brothers in arms, Palemon and Arcite,
bear Emilia; but this is merely an excuse. "It is to please you," he
tells Fiammetta, "that I have composed this love story." Was it with
some idea of winning back her love by this stupendous manuscript?
How charming and how naive, how like Giovanni too; but how absurd to
dream of thus influencing Fiammetta. Did she ever read these nine
thousand odd verses? _Che! che!_
The story is meagrely as follows:--
In the barbarous land of Scythia,[253] on the shores of the Black
Sea, dwelt the Amazons under Ippolyta, their queen. Now certain
Greeks cast up on that coast in a tempest had been ill-treated there,
and Theseus, Duke of Athens, undertakes a war of vengeance against
that kingdom, and in spite of a valorous defence conquers it.[254]
His price of peace is absolute submission and the hand of the Queen
Ippolyta. And it was so, and many of the Greeks too, longing for
women after the campaign, married also. And when Theseus had lived in
peace there with his wife Ippolyta for more than a year,[255] scarce
thinking of Athens, his friend Peritoo appeared to him in a dream
urging his return. So he set out and came to Athens with Ippolyta and
her younger sister Emilia.
Scarcely is he come to Athens when he is urged by a deputation of
the Greek princesses to declare war on Creon, who will not permit
the burial rites to be perf
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/46722