2. Tresanti Town ‘of the three saints’ (Trium Sanctorum), lying some thirty-five miles west of Barletta.
3. I can transform this mare The adventures of a young man transformed by magic into an ass are recounted by Apuleius in The Golden Ass, of which the Latin title is Metamorphoses. Similar transformations occur in other works of medieval literature, including Vincent de Beauvais’s Speculum historiale, Jacques de Vitry’s Exempla and Jacopo Passavanti’s Specchio della vera penitenza. The metamorphosis of a young woman into a mare is described in the Vitae Patrum (‘Lives of the Fathers’) from the Patrologia Latina.
4. Bitonto An inland market town some ten miles west of Bari, famous for its annual fair that was founded in 1316. It was held on All Saints’ Day, 1 November, eleven days before a similar fair in Barletta.
(Conclusion)
1. I am so young The opening words of Neifile’s song (io mi son giovinetta’) recall the beginning of a poem of Dante’s, which begins ‘i’ mi son pargoletta’. Her song is in fact shot through with echoes of the poets of the dolce stil novo, especially Guido Cavalcanti, whose poem beginning ‘Perch’ io non spero’, written in exile, is recollected in Neifile’s concluding words: ‘ch’ i’ non disperi’.
TENTH DAY
(Introduction)
1. liberal or munificent deeds Munificence (magnificenzia), the theme of the tenth and last day, was one of the eleven moral virtues of Aristotelian ethics. Dante defines it in the Convivio (IV, 17) as ‘the moderator of great expenditures, making and supporting them within appropriate limits’.
First Story
1. Ruggieri de’ Figiovanni The noble Florentine family of the Figiovanni owned houses and an estate near Certaldo. In the preface to his translation of Ovid’s Heroides, Carlo de’ Figiovanni claims that he often called at B.’s house in Certaldo during the writer’s later years to ask for his assistance and advice, which were freely given.
2. Alphonso of Spain The reference is probably to Alphonso X of Castile and Leon (1221–84), whose generosity became proverbial among poets and chroniclers of the period.
3. two large chests There are numerous antecedents in both classical and medieval literature for the story’s central episode, involving the act of choosing between two or more sealed cases. Portia’s three caskets in The Merchant of Venice represent a further example of the same narrative device.
Second Story
1. Ghino di Tacco A Sienese nobleman exiled from the city around 1295 for seizing the castle of Santafiora in the Tuscan Maremma belonging to the powerful Aldobrandeschi family. His stronghold of Radicofani was strategically situated on the Via Cassia, the main route between Rome and Siena. Like Robin Hood, he had a reputation as a highwayman who stole from the rich to give to the poor. B. follows the example of contemporary chroniclers in presenting Ghino in a favourable light, but another side of his character was revealed by his murder of a judge who had sentenced two of his close relatives to death in Siena. Disguising himself as a pilgrim, Ghino entered the courtroom in Rome where the judge was sitting, stabbed him, and carried off his head in triumph. Ghino himself met a violent end when he was assassinated in the countryside near Siena a few years later.
2. Boniface VIII Mentioned briefly in I, 1 and VI, 2, Boniface VIII was pope from 1296 to 1303. It was his interference in Florentine political affairs that led to Dante’s exile in 1301. Dante never forgave him, and reserved a place for him among the simoniac popes in the lower depths of his Inferno. B. expresses no view about his moral character, simply seeing him as an important figure of recent history.
3. the Abbot of Cluny See I, 7, where B. reinforces the popular belief that he was the richest prelate in Christendom.
4. the baths of Siena The southern region of Sienese territory contained several mineral springs, the best known being Chianciano Terme, about ten miles north of Radicofani.
5. Corniglia A dry white wine named after a town in the Cinque Terre on the Ligurian coast, a few miles north-west of La Spezia.
6. the Order of the Hospitallers Presumably the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, in recognition of Ghino’s proven healing powers! One recent commentator (David Wallace) suggests that Ghino is admitted to the Order ‘as one who can cure the diseased body of the Church hierarchy’.
Third Story
1. various Genoese B.’s account of Nathan and his palace was almost certainly based on the description of Kublai Khan written by Marco Polo, a Venetian. His antipathy towards Venice (see IV, 2) probably accounts for his reluctance to clarify his real source.
2. Cathay The riches and wonders of Cathay, or northern China, were fulsomely described by Marco Polo in II Milione. Coleridge made use of the same ultimate source for the locus amcenus he depicts in the opening lines of Kubla Khan: ‘In Xanadu did Kubla Khan / A stately pleasure dome decree…’
Fourth Story
1. Gentile de’ Carisendi Like the Caccianimico family, the Carisendi were among the most powerful patrician families in medieval Bologna. The famous leaning tower, the smaller of the two towers dominating the centre of the city, is named after the Carisendi.
2. riding without pause The distance separating Modena from Bologna is about twenty-five miles.
3. in Persia there is a custom B. is perhaps using Persia loosely for the Saracen world in general. He had already told this same story in the questioni d’amore episode of his Filocolo, which is coloured throughout by exotic oriental motifs. Interestingly, the description which follows of Cari-sendi’s banquet itself contains a questione concerning how a master should treat his servants, and Caccianimico’s summing-up, although less wordy, is reminiscent of the judgements pronounced by Fiammetta at the conclusion of each of the thirteen questioni in the earlier work.
Fifth Story
1. Friuli By setting the story in the remote north-east corner of Italy, in a region noted for the severity of its winters, B. maximizes the impact of the central episode. Like the previous tale, the story of the magic garden had appeared in an earlier form in the questioni d’amore sequence of the Filocolo. Chaucer tells the same story in The Franklin’s Tale, where the persistent suitor, given the task of removing all the rocks from the coast of Brittany, likewise achieves the impossible with the aid of a magician. The story is oriental in origin, but both writers were possibly using a common French source.
2. to those who are in love… possible The tag has classical antecedents, for instance Cicero’s ‘Nil difficile amanti’ (‘Nothing is difficult to the lover’) (De oratore, 10).
3. a lady who was all but dead See the previous tale.
Sixth Story
1. Charles the Old Founder of the Angevin dynasty, Charles I was King of Naples and Sicily from 1266 to 1285. B. depicts him in a favourable light not only in this tale and in the story of Madonna Beritola (II, 6), but also in the Amorosa visione and De casibus. In reality his reign was marked by acts of cruelty, and he was a notorious womanizer. At the time the story is set, not long after his ‘glorious victory’ over Manfred at Benevento in 1266, Charles was not exactly ‘the Old’, for he was born in 1226.
2. Neri degli Uberti The Uberti were a powerful Florentine Ghibelline family, of whom the most famous was Farinata degli Uberti, victor with the assistance of King Manfred over the Florentine Guelphs at the battle of Montaperti (1260). Farinata died in Florence in 1264, but other leading Ghibellines were expelled by the Guelphs in the aftermath of Manfred’s defeat at Benevento. It is unlikely that King Charles, ruthless pursuer of Ghibellines in the Kingdom, who gave orders for Farinata’s children to be imprisoned and murdered, would have displayed the kind of tolerance and courtesy that he is reported in B.’s tale to have shown towards the historically unidentifiable Neri degli Uberti.
3. Castellammare di Stabia A resort in the south-east corner of the Bay of Naples, noted for its hot mineral springs and baths and for its fine beaches. The royal villa Domus Sana, of which B. had some personal knowledge, was built there as a summer residence for the Angevin cou
rt in 1310.
4. Guy de Montfort Son of Simon de Montfort, he was the éminence grise of King Charles, who appointed him his vice-regent in Tuscany. In 1270, in revenge for the killing of his father at Evesham in 1265, he murdered Prince Henry, nephew to King Henry III of England, during High Mass in the Cathedral at Viterbo. Dante placed his soul in the Phlegethon, the river of boiling blood, among the souls of those who committed acts of violence against their neighbours (Inferno, XII, 119–120).
5. Conradin Manfred’s nephew (1252–68), also known as Conrad V, was the last representative of the Hohenstaufen dynasty. He led an expedition into Italy in 1267 to regain Sicily from Charles I, was unexpectedly defeated at Tagliacozza on 23 August, and delivered to Charles, who had him tried for treason in Naples. After being convicted he was beheaded in the public marketplace in 1268.
6. Maffeo da Palizzi… Guiglielmo delta Magna According to the chronicler Giovanni Villani, the Palizzi were the most powerful family in Messina and acknowledged as the leaders of the large Italian community in the island of Sicily. A Guiglielmo d’Alemagna is recorded in 1306 as one of the nobles attending the son of Charles II, Raimondo Berengario.
Seventh Story
1. when the French were driven from Sicily The reference is to the uprising against French rule known as the Sicilian Vespers, which took place on 31 March 1282.
2. Peter of Aragon Famous for his great stature and physical strength, Peter III of Aragon invaded Sicily in August 1282 and was proclaimed king in Palermo. Since he was a supporter of the imperial, Ghibelline cause, this tale of his magnanimity forms a nice counter-balance to the previous story concerning Charles I, champion of the Guelphs and the papacy.
3. in the Catalan style That is, according to the rules prescribed for tournaments held in Catalonia, which was united with Aragon in 1137.
4. Minuccio d’Arezzo B. was thought until fairly recently to have invented the name of the musician to impart a Tuscan flavour to his narrative, but it has now been established that a troubadour of that name was active in the Sicilian court in the latter part of the fourteenth century.
5. Mico da Siena There is no record of a versifier of this name. Whether or not his identity, like that of Minuccio, eventually comes to light, the author of the verses is B. himself. Mico’s song, composed in Sicily for the benefit of the Tuscan apothecary’s daughter, contains certain lexical and thematic features typical of the poets of the so-called Sicilian school, many of whom came originally from Tuscany.
6. the Queen The wife of Peter III was Constance, heiress of Manfred, but she did not accompany her husband on his Sicilian expedition.
7. Perdicone The name, similar to that of the first of Alatiel’s lovers, Pericone (see II, 7), is of Provençal origin.
8. Cefalu and Caltabellotta Now situated in the administrative divisions of Palermo and Agrigento respectively.
Eighth Story
1. Octavianus Caesar The adoptive son and heir of Julius Caesar, who governed Rome as one of three triumvirs after Caesar’s assassination in 43 Be, the other triumvirs being Mark Antony and Lepidus. After disposing of Lepidus in 32 BC and Mark Antony in 31 BC, he ruled as consul until 23 BC, when he was proclaimed the first Roman emperor with the title of Augustus Caesar. He died at Nola, near Naples, on 19 August AD 14.
2. Publius Quintus Fulvius The father’s name is an amalgam of three familiar names from Roman history, the second being that of one of the most famous and powerful families of the Roman republic. B. chooses another familiar Roman first name for the son, Titus, but the name of the other main character, the Greek Gisippus, is B.’s own invention, perhaps by analogy with the name of his tutor, Aristippus. The second part of B.’s story is a reworking of the legend of Damon and Pythias, versions of which are found in classical authors with whose writings B. was familiar, for example Cicero and Valerius Maximus. B. possibly derived the first part of the story from a tale in the Disciplina clericalis of Peter Alphonsi. But B.’s story is really a refined rhetorical exercise, at times verging on parody, on a topos, friendship, which was extremely popular in medieval schools of rhetoric.
3. to study philosophy in Athens Athens was the recognized finishing school for the sons of the Roman nobility.
4. Chremes The name almost certainly derives from a character in one of B.’s favourite Latin comedies, Terence’s Phormio.
5. Aristippus The Greek philosopher of that name was born some four centuries before the events recounted in B.’s story. Possibly B. chose him anachronistically as the tutor of Titus and Gisippus because in the story their altruistic actions reflect some of the philosopher’s teachings, for instance that the infliction as well as the suffering of pain should be avoided.
Ninth Story
1. Saladin The most powerful and most generous ruler in the Muslim world, Saladin died in 1193. See also the story of the three rings (I, 3).
2. the Emperor Frederick I Frederick I (‘Barbarossa’) was German king and Holy Roman Emperor from 1152 to 1190, the year in which he drowned while trying to cross the Saleph River during the Third Crusade, launched in the spring of 1189.
3. Messer Torello, of Strà in the province of Pavia The thirteenth-century chronicler Salimbene da Parma records that a ‘Torellus de Strata de Papia’ served as governor (podestà) for Frederick II in several cities of northern Italy and southern France between 1221 and 1237. B. frequently applies the names of known historical figures to his characters, at times anachronistically, to lend an air of authenticity to his narratives. Pavia, the ancient capital of Lombardy, lies on the left bank of the Ticino River, some twenty miles south of Milan.
4. which never closed its gates Torello had earlier implied that Saladin could not arrive in Pavia before the city’s gates were closed for the night, his intention being to mislead him into accepting his hospitality.
5. Acre The last Christian stronghold in the Holy Land, lying on the Mediterranean coast, Acre was conquered in 1104 by the Crusaders, who named the city Saint Jean d’Acre. B.’s claim that the Christian armies were defeated there in 1189 through being weakened by illness reflects accounts of the battle found in Giovanni Villani’s chronicle, but is unsupported by later historical evidence.
6. San Pietro in Ciel d’Oro The famous cathedral in the centre of Pavia.
7. Digne A town in the Alpes de Haute Provence, once feudatory to the Angevins of Naples.
8. one of his magicians In general (see II, 1, III, 8, VI, 10, VIII, 3, VIII, 7 and VIII, 9) B. adopts a sceptical or derisive attitude towards all forms of magic and superstition, but both in the present story and in X, 5 the resolution of the plot depends on the successful application of the magical arts. The explanation for this apparent inconsistency lies in his treatment of the theme of the Tenth Day’s stories. In their attempts to surpass the previous speaker with their own version of a magnanimous deed, the narrators resort to increasingly improbable examples, culminating in the wholly implausible tale of Griselda.
9. Adalieta A name used in patrician families as an affectionate alternative to Adelaide.
Tenth Story
1. the werewolf’s tail Dioneo is referring back to the formula used by Lotteringhi’s wife for exorcizing the werewolf (VIII, 1). After telling his story, he uses another scurrilous expression (‘scuotere il pilliccione’, ‘to shake one’s skin-coat’) that had appeared earlier in the tale of the scholar and the widow (VIII, 7). It could be argued that the narrator’s light-hearted attitude towards his narrative indicates that this, the most problematical story in the whole of the Decameron, should be read rather as an elaborate parable on obedience to the Lord’s will rather than as a literal, realistic account of a husband’s sadistic cruelty. Parallels with the biblical story of the patience of Job are evident, both in the text and in the narrative itself. The Clerk’s Tale, Chaucer’s version of the same story, was almost certainly based on Petrarch’s Latin translation of B.’s novella, as can be seen for instance in its bowdlerization of the episode in which Griselda is s
tripped naked in the presence of all the bystanders, men and women alike. Both in Petrarch and in Chaucer, she is stripped of her peasant’s garb and regally re-clothed in private by the ladies of the court.
2. Saluzzo A town at the foot of the Alps about thirty miles south of Turin, the seat of the marquises of Saluzzo from 1142 to 1548.
3. Griselda The name appears to be an invention of B.’s own, perhaps constructed from that of a very different character, Criseida (Cressida), the heroine of his narrative poem Filostrato, on which Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde is based.
4. My lord, deal with me as you think best Griselda’s words recall the response of the Virgin Mary to the Angel Gabriel in Luke i, 38: ‘Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuurn (‘Be it unto me according to thy word’).
5. do exactly as your lord… has instructed you Griselda’s apparent sacrifice of her daughter (and later of her son) at her lord’s command forms part of a long tradition of such intensely dramatic moments in classical and biblical literature, for instance Agamemnon’s sacrifice of his daughter Iphigenia, Idomeneo’s sacrifice of his son Idamante and God’s command to Abraham (as a test of his obedience) that he sacrifice his only son, Isaac.
6. naked as on the day I was born Griselda’s submissive reply to her husband’s announcement echoes the words of Job: ‘Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away’ (Job i, 21).
The Decameron Page 117
