Then I rejoiced as hoping happy things,
Who rather should have then discerned how God
Had haste to make my lady all His own,
Even as it came to pass. And with these stings
Of sorrow, and with life’s most weary load
I dwell, who fain would be where she is gone.”
Fiammetta’s death is nowhere directly recorded in the sonnets, but in those which he made for her dead we find, as we might expect, that much of his bitterness is past, and instead we have a sweetness and strength as of sorrow nobly borne. Was not death better than estrangement, for who will deny anything to God, who robs us all? And so in that prayer to Dante we have not only the best of these sonnets, but the noblest too, the strongest and the most completely human. No one will to-day weep with Dante for Beatrice, or with Petrarch for Madonna Laura, but these tears are our own: —
“Dante, if thou within the sphere of love,
As I believe, remain’st contemplating
Beautiful Beatrice, whom thou didst sing
Erewhile, and so wast drawn to her above; —
Unless from false life true life thee remove
So far that love’s forgotten, let me bring
One prayer before thee: for an easy thing
This were, to thee whom I do ask it of.
I know that where all joy doth most abound
In the Third Heaven, my own Fiammetta sees
The grief that I have borne since she is dead.
O pray her (if mine image be not drown’d
In Lethe) that her prayers may never cease
Until I reach her and am comforted.”383
Again in sonnet lxxiii. he sees her before God’s throne among the blessed: —
“Sì acceso e fervente è il mio desio
Di seguitar colei, che quivi in terra
Con il suo altero sdegno mi fe’ guerra
Infin allor ch’ al ciel se ne salio,
Che non ch’ altri, ma me metto in oblio,
E parmi nel pensier, che sovent’ erra,
Quella gravezza perder che m’ atterra,
E quasi uccel levarmi verso Dio,
E trapassar le spere, e pervenire
Davanti al divin trono infra i beati,
E lei veder, che seguirla mi face,
Sì bella, ch’ io nol so poscia ridire,
Quando ne’ luoghi lor son ritornati
Gli spiriti, che van cercando pace.”
Like Laura, it is true, but more like herself,384 she visits her lover in a dream (sonnets xix., xxix., and lxxxviii.).385 All these sonnets were not necessarily or even probably written immediately after Fiammetta’s death. The thought of her was present with Boccaccio during the rest of his life,386 and it is noteworthy and moving that at the age of sixty-one he should thus address Petrarch dead in a sonnet (xcvii.): —
“Or sei salito, caro Signor mio
Nel regno, al qual salire ancora aspetta
Ogn’ anima da Dio a quello eletta,
Nel suo partir di questo mondo rio;
Or se’ colà, dove spesso il desio
Di tirò già per veder Lauretta
Or sei dove la mia bella Fiammetta
Siede cui lei nel cospetto di Dio ...
. . . . . .
Deh! se a grado ti fui nel mondo errante,
Tirami dietro a te, dove giojoso
Veggia colei, che pria di amor m’ accese.”
Such was the poet Boccaccio.
In turning now for a moment to look for his masters in verse, we shall find them at once in Dante and Petrarch. In his sonnets he followed faithfully the classic scheme, and only three times did he depart from it, adding a coda formed of two rhyming hendecasyllabic lines. Nor is he more original in the subject of his work. Fiammetta is, up to a certain point, the sister of Beatrice and of Laura, a more human sister, but she remains always for him la mia Fiammetta, never passing into a symbol as Beatrice did for Dante or into a sentiment as Laura for Petrarch.
Finally, in considering his place as a poet, we must admit that it has suffered by the inevitable comparison of his work with that of Dante and of Petrarch. Nevertheless, in his own time the fame of his poems was spread throughout Italy. Petrarch thought well of them, and both Bevenuto Rambaldi da Imola and Coluccio Salutati hailed him as a poet: it was the dearest ambition of his life and that about which he was most modest. Best of all, Franco Sacchetti, his only rival as a novelist, if indeed he has a rival, and a fine and charming poet too, hearing of his death, wrote these verses: —
“Ora è mancata ogni poesia
E vote son le case di Parnaso,
Poichè morte n’ ha tolto ogni valore.
S’ io piango, o grido, che miracolo fia
Pensando, che un sol c’ era rimaso
Giovan Boccacci, ora è di vita fore?”
CHAPTER X
1350-1351
BOCCACCIO AS AMBASSADOR — THE MEETING WITH PETRARCH
As we have seen, Boccaccio returned to Florence probably in the end of 1349. His father, who was certainly living in July, 1348, for he then added a codicil to his Will,387 seems still to have been alive in May, 1349,388 but by January, 1350, he is spoken of as dead and Giovanni is named as one of his heirs.389 And in the same month of January, 1350, on the 26th of the month, Boccaccio was appointed guardian of his brother Jacopo,390 then still a child. But these were not the only duties which fell to him in that year, which, as it proved, was to mark a new departure in his life. It is in 1350 that we find him, for the first time as we may think, acting as ambassador for the Florentine Republic, and it is in 1350 that he first met Petrarch face to face and entertained him in his house in Florence.
The condition of Italy at this time was, as may be easily understood, absolutely anarchical. While Florence and Naples were still in the throes of revolution and war, the Visconti of Milan had not been idle. Using every discontent that could be found in Italy, chiefly of Ghibelline origin, they were in the way to threaten whatsoever was left of liberty and independence. In the worst of this confusion the plague had suddenly appeared in 1348 with the same result as an earthquake might have caused. Old landmarks were overthrown, wealth was, as it were, redistributed, and the whole social condition, often bad enough, became indescribably confused.
THE STORY OF GRISELDA. (DEC. X, 10.)
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 economical results of that awful catastrophe, not only for Italy, but for Europe, were not easily defined or realised anywhere, and least of all perhaps in Italy, where the conditions of life were so complex. An enormous displacement of riches had taken place. All those in any way concerned with the ministration to the sick or the burial of the dead were, if they survived, greatly enriched; and among these was such a society as that of the Or San Michele. But individuals also found themselves suddenly wealthy: doctors and druggists, undertakers, drapers, and poulterers, and such, all who had been able to render help were seemingly benefited, but the farmers and the merchants were ruined. Something perhaps of the awful transformation brought about by the plague may berealised when we consider that, according to Boccaccio, Florence lost three out of every five391 of her inhabitants, that is about 100,000 persons, that at Pisa six out of every seven died, that Genoa lost 40,000 people, Siena 80,000, while every one died at Trapani, in Sicily, not a soul escaping. Old Agnola de Tura, the Sienese historian, tells us that he buried five of his sons in the same grave, and this was not extraordinary. The economic result of such disaster may then be better imagined than described in detail. No one realised what had happened: it was inconceivable. Even the governments did not understand the new position. They saw the needy suddenly rich, those who had been clothed in rags went in silks and French fashions, and they came to the conclusion that the state was suffering from too great wealth: they re
vived sumptuary laws, raised taxes, fixed prices, and did, in fact, no good, but much harm. The problem to be solved was that of population and the prices of production. The moral condition was as disastrous as the economic and left a more lasting scar.
In this helpless and disastrous condition of the major part of Italy, from which indeed some of the communes never wholly recovered,392 we find what in fact we might have expected, that those who had suffered least threatened to become dominant. Now, as it happened, of all Italy upper and lower Milan had escaped most easily, and it was in fact a domination of Milan that, with Naples in the grip of the invader and Tuscany almost depopulated, Florence had to face.
Things came to a head when the Visconti, in October, 1350, possessed themselves of Bologna. In such a case Florence might have expected help or at least resentment, one might think, from the Romagna, but the unruly barons of that region were fighting for their lives and their lordships with Duraforte, whom the Pope had sent to bring them to order. Nor were Venice and Genoa able to render her aid, for they had entered on a mortal duel and cared for nothing else. Naples of course was helpless, and Siena and Perugia, the one stricken almost to death by the plague, the other confident in her mountain passes, thought themselves too far for the ambition of Milan.
So Florence faced the enemy alone, and while we admire her courage we must admit that she had no choice, for she would never have moved at all, nor in her condition would she have been justified in moving, but that she was directly threatened; for with Bologna in the hands of Milan her northern trade routes were at the mercy of the enemy. Thus it became necessary before all else to secure the Apennine passes, and this she foresaw so well that in February, 1350, she bought Prato from the Queen of Naples, who held her rights by inheritance from her father, Charles of Calabria; and not content with this, for Prato was no use without Pistoia, she tried to seize Pistoia also. There, however, she was not wholly or at first successful, but she was allowed to garrison the citadel as well as two important fortified places after guaranteeing full freedom to the Pistolese. In the former of these transactions, the donation of Prato, carried out by Niccolò Acciaiuoli, we catch a glimpse of Boccaccio, who was present as a witness in Florence.393
Just before the sale of Bologna to the Visconti we find Boccaccio in Romagna at Ravenna, whither he had gone apparently in September, as we have seen,394 on the delicate and honourable mission entrusted to him by the Society of Or San Michele, of presenting a gift of ten gold florins to the daughter of Dante, a nun in the convent of S. Stefano dell’ Uliva in that city. Thence he seems to have gone as ambassador for the republic to Francesco degli Ordelaffi of Forlì, who was of course already known to him. This, however, is unfortunately but conjecture. We know in fact almost nothing of what, for reasons which will presently appear, I consider to have been Boccaccio’s first embassy. All that we can assert is that before November 11, 1350, he went as ambassador into Romagna, and this we know from a document cited by the Abate Mehus,395 bearing that date which says, “Dominus Johannes Boccacci olim ambasciator transmissus ad partes Romandioliæ.”396 Baldelli tells us397 without supporting his assertions by a single document that Boccaccio went three times as ambassador for the republic into Romagna: first in the time of Ostasio da Polenta; later in October, 1350; and again a few months after. The first of these embassies, that to Ostasio, he bases on Petrarch’s letter of 1365, which we have already quoted and used.398 There Petrarch says: “Ortus est Adriæ in litore ea ferme ætate, nisi fallor, qua tu ibi agebas cum antiquo plagæ illius Domino ejus avo, qui nunc præsidet.” That is to say, he says to Boccaccio: “Unless I am mistaken, you were on the shores of the Adriatic in the time of the grandfather of him who now rules there.” He is speaking of Ravenna, not of Rimini, and quite apart from the fact that he says, “unless I am mistaken” — and he may have been mistaken — there is no mention there of an embassy, but only of a visit, a visit to Ostasio da Polenta, who died in 1346, and was the grandfather of Guido da Polenta, who ruled in Ravenna when that letter was written in 1365. We have already used this letter to prove the date of that visit, in doing which we are making legitimate use of it, but to try to prove an embassy from it is to use it improperly.
The second embassy, Baldelli tells us, was to Francesco degli Ordelaffi, in October, 1350, “after the sale of Bologna on the 14th of that month.” This again is pure conjecture, the only document which supports it being that quoted above, discovered by Mehus. We have, however, reason to suppose that Baldelli may be right here,399 and may possibly have been in possession of a document or documents since lost to us, which unfortunately he has not quoted or even named. We know at least that Boccaccio was ambassador in Romagna before November 11, 1350. Now until late in 1349 we have seen him in Naples, and in January and February, 1350, in Florence. In October, 1350, we know him to have been in Florence again, for he there entertained Petrarch, as he did in December. What was he doing between February and October in that year? Well, in September he was in Romagna, in Ravenna fulfilling his mission from the Or San Michele to the daughter of Dante. It seems likely, therefore, that it was at this time he was acting as Florentine ambassador at the court of the Ordelaffi of Forlì.
As to the third embassy of which Baldelli speaks, that to Bernardino da Polenta “a few months after” the second, we know nothing of it, and it remains absolutely in the air — a mere conjecture.400
Putting aside Baldelli’s assertion, we may take it on the evidence as most probable that Boccaccio was the ambassador of Florence in Romagna at some time between March and October, 1350. If we are right in thinking so, his mission was of very great importance. What Florence feared, as we have seen, was the growing power of Milan, and, after the sale of Bologna, the loss of her trade routes north, and finally perhaps even her liberty. Already, in the latter part of 1349,401 she had offered again and again to mediate between the Pope and Bologna and Romagna, fearing that in their distraction Milan would be tempted to interfere for her own ends. In the first months of 1350 she had written to the Pope, to Perugia, Siena, and to the Senate of Rome, that they should send ambassadors to the congress at Arezzo to form a confederation for their common protection.402 In September she wrote the Pope more than once explaining affairs to him; but he had touched Visconti gold, and far away in Avignon cared nothing and paid but little heed. The sale of Bologna, however, brought things to a crisis so far as the policy of Florence was concerned, and having secured Prato, Pistoia, and the passes, her ambassadors in Romagna had apparently induced the Pepoli to replace Bologna under the protection of the communes of Florence, Siena, and Perugia, till the Papal army was ready to act. But the Papal army was not likely to be ready so long as Visconti was willing to pay,403 and we find the Pope, while he thanks Florence effusively, refusing to acknowledge the claim of the League to protect Bologna. The sale of Bologna to Milan, its seizure by the Visconti, brought all the diplomacy of Florence to naught for the moment, and in another letter, written on November 9, 1350,404 she returns once more to plead with the Pope and to point out to him the danger of the invasions of the Visconti in Lombardy and in Bologna, which placed in peril not only the Parte Guelfa, but the territories of the Church and the Florentine contado. By the time that letter was written Boccaccio was back in Florence, and it must have been evident to the Florentines that the Pope had no intention of giving them any assistance and that they must look elsewhere for an ally.
That year, so troubled in Italy, incongruous as it may seem to us, had been proclaimed by the Pope a year of Jubilee, not without some intention that the Papal coffers should benefit from the faithful, then eager to express their piety and their thankfulness for the passing of the plague. To gain the indulgence of the Jubilee it was necessary to spend fifteen days in Rome. On April 17, 1350, the commune of Florence prayed the Papal Legate, partly, no doubt, on account of the unsettled condition of the City, and partly, perhaps, that Florence itself might not be long without as many citizens as possible, to reduce the term of f
ifteen days to eight for all Florentines and for those who dwelt in the contado.405
THE STORY OF GRISELDA. (DEC. X, 10.)
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.
Now Petrarch, always a man of sincere piety, and especially at this time when he was mourning for Laura, had spent the earlier months of the year in Padua, Parma, and Verona. On February 14, the feast of S. Valentine, he had been present at the translation of the body of S. Anthony of Padua from its first resting-place to the church just built in its honour — Il Santo. On June 20 he had taken formal possession of his archdeaconry in Parma; and so it was not till the beginning of October that he set out, alone, on pilgrimage for Rome to win the indulgences of the Jubilee. As it happened, he travelled by way of Florence, entering that city for the first time about the middle of the month, and there, as is generally supposed, for the first time too, he met Boccaccio face to face.406
Petrarch, born in Arezzo on July 20, 1304, was nine years older than Boccaccio, and differed from him so much both in intellect and character that the two friends may almost be said to complement one another. Of a very noble nature, Petrarch was nevertheless introspective, jealous of his reputation, and absolutely personal in his attitude towards life, of which, as his work shows, he was in many ways so shy. Nor was he without a certain puritanism which was his weakness as well as his strength. As a scholar he was at this time, as he always remained, incomparably Boccaccio’s superior. For Boccaccio the ancient world was a kind of wonder and miracle that had no relation to himself or to the modern world. But Petrarch regarded antiquity almost as we do, and, though necessarily without our knowledge of detail, such as it is, with a real historic sense — as a living thing with which it was possible, though hardly, to hold communion, by which it was possible to be guided, governed, and taught, a reality out of which the modern world was born. Moreover, in 1350, at the time of his meeting with Boccaccio, Petrarch was indubitably the most renowned poet and man of letters in Europe. Every one knew his sonnets, and his incoronation as Laureate on the Capitol had sufficed in the imagination of the world, quite apart from the intrinsic and very real value of his work, to set him above all other poets of his time. He was the Pope’s friend, and was honoured and welcomed in every court in Italy — at the court, for instance, of King Robert of Naples, where he had left so splendid a memory on his way to the triumph of the Capitol, at the courts of the signorotti of the Romagna. The youth of Italy had his sonnets by heart; all women read with envy his praise of Madonna Laura; the learned reverenced him as the most learned man of his time and thought him the peer of Virgil and of Cicero. Nor was the Church behind in an admiration wherein all the world was agreed, for she saw in the lettered canonico the glory of the priesthood, and would gladly have led him forward to the highest honours.407 It was this man, one of the most famous and as it happened one of the best of the age, that Boccaccio met in Florence in 1350.
Collected Works of Giovanni Boccaccio Page 466
