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 jea
lous 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.
212 Ameto, ed. cit., p. 254.
213 Cf. Corazzini, op. cit., p. 17. This letter seems to be a translation from the Latin.
214 Possibly on the occasion of his father’s second marriage (cf. Fiammetta, infra), which was probably made for purely financial reasons. The lady died possibly in the Black Death of 1348, certainly before 1349. See infra.
215 I write Filocolo rather than Filocopo: see A. Gaspary, Filocolo oder Filocopo in Zeitschrift für Rom. Phil., III, p. 395.
216 See supra, p. 43, and Appendix I. The view that it was begun in 1336 is defended by Renier, La Vita Nuova e la Fiammetta (Torino, 1879), p. 238 et seq. That this was his first book we might assert from the evidence of its form and style. He himself, however, says in the Introduction: “E se le presenti cose a voi giovani e donzelle generano ne’ vostri animi alcun frutto o dilletto, non siate ingrati di porgere divote laudi a Giove e al nuovo autore” (Filocolo, ed. cit., Lib. I, p. 9).
217 Filocolo, ed. cit., ii., Lib. V, p. 376.
218 He takes the name of Filocolo because, as he tells us at the end of Book III, Filocolo, ed. cit., I, 354, “such a name it is certain suits me better than any other.” He goes on to explain: “Filocolo è da due greci nomi composto, da philos e da colos; philos in greco tanto viene a dire in nostra lingua quanto amatore; e colos in greco similmente tanto in nostra lingua resulta quanto fatica: onde congiunto insieme, si può dire trasponendo le parti, Fatica d’ Amore: e in cui più che in me fatiche d’ amore sieno state e siano al presente non so; voi l’ avete potuto e potete conoscere quante e quali esse sieno state, sicchè chiamandomi questo nome l’ effetto suo s’ adempierà bene nella cosa chiamata, e la fama del mio nome cosi s’ occulterà, nè alcuno per quello spaventerà: e se necessario forse in alcuna parte ci fia il nominarmi dirittamente, non c’ è però tolto.”
219 Cf. Virgil. Æneid, VI, 232 et seq.
“At pius Æneas ingenti mole sepulcrum
Inponit, suaque arma viro remumque tubamque
Monte sub aereo, qui nunc Misenus ab illo
Dicitur æternumque tenet per sæcula nomen.”
220 Supra, p. 6 et seq. See Filocolo, ed. cit., II, Lib. V, 236 et seq.
221 In the French romance on which the Filocolo is founded the hero on his return imposes Christianity on his people, and those who will not be converted he burns and massacres. Boccaccio has none of this barbarism. Italy has never understood religious persecution. It has always been imposed on her from outside — by Spain, for instance. I do not forget the rubrics de hereticis in so many of the Statutes of the free Communes.
222 Floire et Blanceflor, poèmes du XIII. siècle, pub. d’après les MSS., etc., par Edélestand du Méril (Paris, 1856). I say from whom he had the story, because it seems to me certain that in Naples he must have seen or heard these poems. The Provençal troubadours, especially Rambaldo di Vaqueiras, sang the loves of Florio and Biancofiore, and Boccaccio himself in the Filocolo affirms that the legend was known and popular in Naples. It has been contended by Clerc, Discours sur l’état des lettres au XIV. siècle in Hist. Littér., II, 97, that Boccaccio’s work is only an imitation of the French poems. This cannot be upheld. The legend was everywhere in the Middle Age. It was derived from a Greek romance, and many of the happenings and descriptions used by Boccaccio are to be found in the Greek romances. Cf. Zumbini, Il Filocolo, in Nuova Antologia, December, 1879, and January, 1880.
223 It is perhaps unnecessary to remind the reader that it is seven ladies and three gentlemen who tell the tales of the Decameron. Cf. Rajna, L’ Episodio delle Questioni d’ Amore nel “Filocolo” del B. in Romania, XXXI (1902), pp. 28-81.
224 Bartoli, I precursi del B. (Firenze, 1876), p. 64.
225 An English translation of these Questioni appeared in 1567 and was reprinted in 1587. The title runs: “Thirteen | Most pleasaunt and | delecable Que | stions: entituled | a Disport of Diverse | noble Personages written in Itali | an by M. John Boccacce Flo | rentine and poet Laure | at, in his booke | named | Philocopo: | English by H. G[rantham] | Imprinted at Lon | don by A.J. and are | to be sold in Paules Church | yard, by Thomas | Woodcocke | 1587.”
226 The order of the production of these youthful works is extremely uncertain. I do not believe it possible to give their true order, because they were not necessarily begun and finished in the same sequence. We may be sure that the Filocolo is the first work he began: it seems almost equally certain that the Filostrato is the first of his long poems. That no work was completed in Naples I think equally certain; but it is possible that the Ameto, begun in Florence, was finished before any other book. The Fi
lostrato was begun in Naples, but it s so much finer than the Filocolo or the Ameto, and is perhaps the finest work of his youth, that many critics have wished to place it later.
227 He writes in the dedication: “Filostrato è il titolo di questo libro; e la cagione è, perchè ottimamente si confà cotal nome con l’ effetto del libro. Filostrato tanto viene a dire, quanto uomo vinto ed abbattuto d’ amore come vedere si può che fu Troilo, dell’ amore del quale in questo libro si racconta: perciocchè egli fu da amore vinto si fortemente amando Griseida, e cotanto si afflisse nella sua partita, che poco mancò che morte non le sorprendesse.”
228 Filostrato (ed. Moutier), parte i. ott. viii.-ix. p. 14.
229 Ibid., p. i. ott. xi.
“Una sua figlia vedova, la quale
Sì bella e si angelica a vedere
Era, che non parea cosa mortale,
Griseida nomata, al mio parere
Accorta, savia, onesta e costumata
Quanto altra che in Troia fosse nata.”
230 So had Boccaccio seen Fiammetta in S. Lorenzo di Napoli. Criseyde was also “in bruna vesta,” ott. xix.
231 Filostrato, ed. cit., p. ii. ott. xix.-xx., pp. 37-8.
232 Ibid., p. ii. ott. xxiii.-xxiv., p. 39.
233 Ibid., p. ii. ott. lxiv.-lxvi., pp. 52-3.
234 Filostrato, ed. cit., p. ii. ott. cxxxvi. et seq. Her protestations, too long to quote here, are exquisite. They might be Fiammetta’s very words, or any woman’s words.
Collected Works of Giovanni Boccaccio Page 489
