235 Filostrato, ed. cit., part iii. ott. xxvii-xxxii. pp. 88-90, and cf. Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde (Complete Works, ed. Skeat, Oxford, 1901), Bk. III, st. 169-189.
236 Filistrato, ed. cit., part iv. ott. xiv.-xviii. pp. 117-18.
237 Ibid., part iv. ott. xxx.-xxxii. pp. 122-3.
238 Ibid., part iv. ott. xciii.-xcv. pp. 143-4.
239 Filostrato, ed. cit., part iv. ott. lxix. p. 135.
240 Ibid., part iv. clxii.-clxiii. pp. 166-7.
241 Ibid., part v. liv. et seq. The same idea is to be found in the Teseide and the Fiammetta. It is more than worth while comparing these passages.
242 Ibid., part v. xxxiv.-xlii.
243 Filostrato, ed. cit., part vii. ott. vi., xi., xvi., xxxii.-xxxiii. pp. 208, 210, 212, 217.
244 Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, V, 3.
245 Filostrato, ed. cit., part viii. xii.-xvi. pp. 247-8.
246 Ibid., part viii. xxvii.
247 Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde, Book V, st. 258.
248 Filostrato, ed. cit., part vi. ott. xxxiii. p. 205.
249 Filostrato, ed. cit., p. vi, ott. xxix. p. 204.
250 Cf. e.g. Filostrato, ed. cit., p. iii. ott. i. p. 80, with Paradiso, i. 13-27; or Filostrato, ed. cit., p. viii. ott. xvii. p. 249, with Purgatorio, vi. 118-20. There are, however, very many Dantesque passages. See infra, p. 253 et seq.
251 Cf. Hortis, Studi sulle op. Latine del B. (Trieste, 1879), p. 595.
252 See supra, p. 58.
253 Teseide (ed. Moutier), Lib. I, ott. 6, p. 11.
254 Ibid., Lib. I, ott. 74-6, p. 34.
255 Ibid., Lib. II, ott. 2, p. 57.
256 Teseide, ed. cit., Lib. III, ott. 28-9, pp. 99-100.
257 Ibid., Lib. IV, ott. 37, p. 131.
258 Ibid., Lib. V, ott. 48, p. 166.
259 Teseide, ed. cit., Lib. V, ott. 75, p. 175.
260 Ibid., Lib. V, ott. 80, p. 177.
261 Ibid., Lib. V, ott. 97, p. 182.
262 Ibid., Lib. VI, ott. 11, p. 190.
263 Cf. Poliziano, Stanze, Lib. I, st. 69-76.
264 Teseide, ed. cit., Lib. IX, ott. 2-8, pp. 306-8.
265 Ibid., Lib. IX, ott. 83, p. 333.
266 Ibid., Lib. X, ott. 43, p. 348.
267 Ibid., Lib. XII, ott. 69, p. 426.
268 He says there: “E ch’ ella da me per voi sia compilata, due cose fra le altre il manifestano. L’ una si è, che ciò che sotto il nome dell’ uno de’ due amanti e della giovine amata si conta essere stato, ricordandovi bene, e io a voi di me, e voi a me di voi (se non mentiste) potrete conoscere essere stato fatto e detto in parte.” And consider the closing words of the letter: “Io procederei a molti più preghi, se quella grazia, la quale io ebbi già in voi, non se ne fosse andata. Ma perocchè io del niego dubito con ragione, non volendo che a quell’ uno che di sopra ho fatto, e che spero, siccome giusto, di ottenere, gli altri nocessero, e senza essermene niuno conceduto mi rimanessi, mi taccio; ultimamente pregando colui che mi vi diede, allorachè io primieramente vi vidi, che se in lui quelle forze sono che già furono, raccendendo in voi la spenta fiamma a me vi renda, la quale, non so per che cagione, inimica fortuna mi ha tolta.”
269 Supra, p. 58 et seq. Cf. the letter of 1338 or 1339 in which he asks for a codex of the Thebais with a gloss: P. Savi-Lopez, Sulle fonti delle Teseide in Giornale Stor. della Lett. Ital., An. XXIII, fasc. 106-7; and Crescini, op. cit., pp. 220-47.
270 Crescini, op. cit., pp. 234-5.
271 In looking for the sources of the Teseide one must not forget what Boccaccio himself writes in the letter dedicatory to Fiammetta: “E acciocchè l’ opera sia verissimo testimonio alle parole, ricordandomi che già ne’ dì più felici che lunghi io vi sentii vaga d’ udire, e talvolta di leggere e una e altra storia, e massimamente le amorose, siccome quella che tutta ardeva nel fuoco nel quale io ardo (e questo forse faciavate, acciocchè i tediosi tempi con ozio non fossono cagione di pensieri più nocevoli); come volonteroso servidore, il quale non solamente il comandamento aspetta del suo maggiore, ma quello, operando quelle cose che piacciono, previene: trovata una antichissima storia, e al più delle genti non manifesta, bella sì per la materia della quale parla, che è d’ amore, e sì per coloro de’ quali dice che nobili giovani furono e di real sangue discesi, in latino volgare e in rima acciocchè più dilettasse, e massimamente a voi, che già con sommo titolo le mie rime esaltaste, con quella sollecitudine che conceduta mi fu dell’ altre più gravi, desiderando di piacervi, ho ridotta.”
272 Ameto (in Opere Minori, Milano, 1879), pp. 147-8.
273 Ibid., pp. 246-7.
274 See supra, p. 6.
275 King Robert is always spoken of as living, so that one may suppose the Ameto to have been finished before January, 1343, for the king died on the 19th. This, however, by no means certainly follows.
276 See Appendix IV.
277 Amorosa Visione (Moutier), cap. v. pp. 21-5.
278 Ibid., caps. vii.-xii.
279 Ibid., cap. xiii. p. 53.
280 Ibid., cap. xiv. p. 58.
281 Ibid., cap. xiv. p. 57.
282 Amorosa Visione, ed. cit., cap. xiv. p. 59.
283 Ibid., cap. xxxiii. p. 135.
284 Ibid., caps. xl-xliv. For an explanation consult Crescini, op. cit., pp. 114-41.
285 Ibid., cap. xlv. p. 151
286 “Ecco dunque,” says Crescini (op. cit., p. 136), “il fine della mirabile visione: mostrare che Madonna Maria è dal poeta ritenuta un essere celeste sceso dall’ alto alla salute di lui, che errava perduto e sordo a’ consigli delle ragione fra le mondane vanità. Per farsi degno dell’ amore di lei e delle gioie di questo amore, egli ormai seguirà una virtù finora negletta, la fortezza resisterà, cioè alle passioni e alle vanità mondane; e così per l’ influsso morale della sua donna procederà sulla strada faticosa, che mena l’ uomo al cielo.”
287 He borrows from Brunetto Latini’s Tesoretto (ca. 1294) certain inventions and moral symbols. Cf. Dobelli, Il culto del B. per Dante (Venezia, 1897), pp. 51-9.
288 But see Landau, op. cit. (Ital. Trans.), p. 155.
289 Note the beautiful names Boccaccio always found; especially the beautiful women’s names. We shall find this again in the Decameron.
290 Crescini, op. cit., p. 154.
291 e.g. Landau (op. cit., pp. 346, 404) and Koerting (op. cit., pp. 170-1, 568).
292 Baldelli (op. cit.) thinks, however, that it was written 1344-5, after B.’s return to Naples, and Renier (La Vita Nuova e La Fiammetta, Torino, 1879, pp. 245-6) agrees with him.
293 “... Quantunque io scriva cose verissime sotto si fatto ordine l’ ho disposte, che eccetto colui che così come io le sa, essendo di tutto cagione, niuno altro, per quantunque avesse acuto l’ avvedimento, potrebbe chi io mi fossi conoscere” (cap. i.).
294 “Pamphilius,” writes Boccaccio, “græce, latine totus dicatur amor”; cf. Corazzini, op. cit., p. 269. Panfilo also appears, as does Fiammetta, in the Decameron, as we shall see; cf. Gigli, Il Disegno del Decamerone (Livorno, 1907), p. 24, note 4.
295 Crescini, op. cit., pp. 155-6.
296 “Amorous Fiammetta, where is sette doune a catalogue of all and singular passions of Love and Jealosie incident to an enamoured young gentlewoman” ... done into English by B. Giovano [i.e. B. Young]. London, 1587. The only example I can find of this translation is in the Bodleian Library; the British Museum has no copy.
297 Carducci, Ai Parenteli di G. B. in Discorsi Letterari e Storici (Bologna, 1889), p. 275.
298 Ninfale Fiesolano (Moutier), p. 1. ott. xiv.-xxxiii.
299 Ibid., p. vi. ott. i.-v.
300 Ninfale Fiesolano, ed. cit., p. vi. ott. xxx.-xlv.
301 Ibid., p. vii. ott. iii.-vi. and ix.-xiii. The Mensola and the Affrico are two small streams that descend from Monte Ceceri, one of the Fiesolan hills, and are lost in the Arno, one not far from the Barriera Settignanese, the other by Ponte a Mensola, near Settignano.
302 Ibid., p. vii. ott. xxxiii.-xlix.
303 Se
e his romance, Leucippe and Clectophon, Lib. VIII, cap. 12.
304 For the ottava in Italy see Rajna, Le fonti dell’ Orlando Furioso (Sansoni, Florence, 1900), pp. 18-19. Baldelli, op. cit., p. 33, however, did not go so far as Trissino and Crescimbeni in such an assertion, contenting himself with assuring us that Boccaccio “colla Teseide aperse la nobile carriera de’ romanzeschi poemi, degli epici, per cui posteriormente tanto sopravanzò l’ Italiana ogni straniera letteratura. Il suo ingegno creatore correggendo, e migliorando l’ ottava de’ Siciliani, che non usavan comporla con più di due rime e una terza aggiungendone, per cui tanto leggiadramente si chiude e tanto vaga si rende, trovò quel metro su cui cantarono e gli Ariosti, e i Tassi vanamente sperando trovarne altro più adeguato agli altissimi e nobilissimi loro argomenti.”
305 Cf. Fiammetta, ed. cit., cap. ii. p. 45, where by the mouth of Fiammetta his apprehensions are expressed. “La tua città [Florence],” she says to him, “as you yourself have already said, is full of boastful voices and of cowardly deeds, and she serves not a thousand laws, but even as many, it seems, as she has men. She is at war within and without, so that a citizen is like a foreigner, he trembles. She is furnished with proud, avaricious, and envious people, and full of innumerable anxieties. And all this your soul abhors. Now the city you would leave is, as you know, joyful, peaceful, rich, and magnificent, and lives under one sole king; the which things I know well are pleasing to you. And besides all these, I am here; but you will not find me whither you go.”
306 In Ameto, ed. cit., p. 187, when Ibrida tells his story, he says his father was unworthy of such a mistress: “Ma il mio padre siccome indegno di tale sposa traendolo i fati, s’ ingegnò d’ annullare i fatti sacramenti, e le ‘mpromesse convenzioni alla mia madre. Ma gli Iddii non curantisi di perdere la fede di sì vile uomo, con abbondante redine riserbando le loro vendette a giusto tempo, il lasciarono fare; e quello che la mia madre gli era si fece falsamente d’ un altra nelle sue parti. La qual cosa non prima sentì la sventurata giovane, dal primo per isciagurata morte, e dal secondo per falsissima vita abbandonata, che i lungamente nascosi fuochi fatti palesi co’ ricevuti inganni, chiuse gli occhi e del mondo a lei mal fortunoso, si rendè agli Iddii. Ma Giunone nè Imeneo non porsero alcuno consentimento a’ secondi fatti, benchè chiamati vi fossero; anzi esecrando la adultera giovane con lo ‘ngannevole uomo, e verso loro con giuste ire accendendosi, prima privatolo di gran parte de’ beni ricevuti da lei, e dispostolo a maggiore ruina a morte la datrice, la data e la ricevuta progenie dannarono con infallibile sentenzia, visitando con nuovi danni chi a tali effetti porse alcuna cagione.” Cf. also Ameto, ed. cit., p. 252 et seq., and Fiammetta, ed. cit., cap. ii. p. 42.
307 On the different houses of Boccaccino in Florence, see an unpublished MS. by Gherardi, La Villeggiatura di Maiano, which I believe to be in the Florentine archives. A copy is in the possession of Mrs. Ross, of Poggio Gherardo, near Florence. From this copy I give cap. iv. of the MS. in Appendix III.
308 Ameto, ed. cit., p. 254.
309 Fiammetta, ed. cit., cap. v. p. 63: “Quando di più d’ un mese essendo il promesso tempo passato.”
310 Ibid., p. 64. Fiammetta asks: “How long ago had you news of him?” “It is about fifteen days,” says the merchant, “since I left Florence.” “And how was he then?” “Very well; and the same day that I set out, newly entered his house a beautiful young woman who, as I heard, had just married him.”
311 Cf. Baldelli, op. cit., p. 276, n. 1: “26 Januarii, 1349 [i.e. 1350 according to our reckoning]. Dominus Ioannes quondam Boccacci, populi Sanctæ Felicitatis, tutor Iacobi pupilli ejus fratris, et filii quondam et heredis Dominiæ Bicis olim matris suæ, et uxoris q. dicti Boccaccii et filiæ q. Ubaldini Nepi de Bosticcis.” This document, which gives us the name of Boccaccino’s second wife, tells us also that Giovanni was his brother’s guardian and governor in January, 1350. Crescini had already suggested (op. cit., p. 102 n.), following Baldelli, that the Lia of the Ameto was a Baroncelli when Sanesi (Un documento inedito su Giovanni Boccaccio in Rassegna Bibliografica della Lett. Ital. (Pisa, 1893), An. I, No. 4, p. 120 et seq.) proved it to be so, giving a genealogical table: —
Gherardo Baroncelli
|
Donna Love = Baldino di Nepo de’ Bostichi
|
—— —— ——
| |
Gherardo Bice = Boccaccino
|
Jacopo
312 Cf. Crescini, op. cit., p. 155, note 3. Arch. Stat. Fior. (Archivio della Grascia Prammatica del 1343): “1343. die Maij Domina Bice uxor Boccaccij de Certaldo populi S. Felicitatis habet guarnaccham de camecha coloris purpurini,” etc.
313 See Appendix III, MS. of Gherardi.
314 See supra, n. 1.
315 Boccaccino still possessed the house in popolo di S. Felicità when he died. See supra, p. 98, n. 3.
316 It must be remembered that in 1343 Giovanni was thirty years old.
317 Cf. Fiammetta, ed. cit., cap. ii. p. 45, already quoted supra, p. 96, note 1.
318 Gio. Villani, Lib. XI, cap. 137.
319 See the De Casibus Virorum Illustrium, Lib. IX, cap. 24; cf. Hortis, Studi, etc., pp. 127-8. A translation in verse of the De Casibus was made by Lydgate, The Fall of Princes, first printed by Pynson in 1494; later editions, 1527, 1554 (Tottel), and John Wayland’s, 1558. There is no modern edition. It is a disgrace to our two universities that no modern edition of Lydgate has been published.
320 Cf. W. Heywood, Palio and Ponte (Methuen, 1904), pp. 7-9. These races or palii seem to have originated in the thirteenth century (cf. Villani, Cronica, Lib. I, cap. 60, and Dante, Paradiso, xvi 40-2). Benvenuto da Imola says, “Est de more Florentiæ, quod singulis annis in festo Iohannis Baptistæ currant equi ad brevium in signum festivæ laetitiæ...” He goes on to say that the race was run from S. Pancrazio, the western ward of the city, through the Mercato Vecchio, to the eastern ward of S. Piero. Goro di Stazio Dati, who died in 1435, thus describes the palio of S. John in Florence. I quote Mr Heywood’s excellent redaction from Dati’s Storia di Firenze (Florence, 1735), pp. 84-9, in his Palio and Ponte, u s “... Thereafter, dinner being over, and midday being past, and the folk having rested awhile according to the pleasure of each of them; all the women and girls betake themselves whither the horses which run the palio will pass. Now these pass through a straight street, through the midst of the city, where are many dwellings, beautiful, sumptuous houses of good citizens, more than in any other part thereof. And from one end of the city to the other, in that straight street which is full of flowers, are all the women and all the jewels and rich adornments of the city; and it is a great holiday. Also there are always many lords and knights and foreign gentlemen, who come every year from the surrounding towns to see the beauty and magnificence of that festival. And there, through the said Corso, are so many folk that it seemeth a thing incredible, the like whereof he who hath not seen it could neither believe nor imagine. Thereafter, the great bell of the Palagio de’ Signori is tolled three times, and the horses, ready for the start, come forth to run. On high upon the tower, may be seen, by the signs made by the boys who are up there, that is of such an one and that of such an one (quello è del tale, e quello è del tale). And all the most excellent race-horses of the world are there, gathered together from all the borders of Italy. And that one which is the first to reach the Palio is the one which winneth it. Now the Palio is borne aloft upon a triumphal car, with four wheels, adorned with four carven lions which seem alive, one upon every side of the car, drawn by two horses, with housings with the emblem of the Commune thereon, and ridden by two varlets which guide them. The same is a passing rich and great Palio of fine crimson velvet in two palii, and between the one and the other a band of fine gold a palm’s width, lined with fur from the belly of the ermine and bordered with miniver fringed with silk and fine gold; which, in all, costeth three hundred florins or more.... All the great piazza of S. Giovanni and part of the street is covered with blue hangings with y
ellow lilies; the church is a thing of marvellous form, whereof I shall speak at another time....” Boccaccio must often have seen these races. Cf. Decameron, Day VI, Nov. 3.
321 Lydgate, op. cit., Lib. IX.
322 We do not know when, if at all at this time, Boccaccio returned to Naples. The only testimony by which Baldelli, Witte, and Koerting hold that he was in Naples in 1345 is the passage in the De Casibus Virorum Illustrium, Lib. IX, cap. 25, where he narrates, as though he had been present on the occasion, the terrible end of Philippa la Catanese (see infra). Witte, however, wishes to support this evidence by an interpretation of certain words in the letter to Zanobi, Longum tempus effluxit (see Corrazini, op. cit., p. 33). Hortis, Gaspary, and Hauvette, however, assert that in the De Casibus, u.s., Boccaccio does not actually say he was present on the occasion mentioned, but only says, quæ fere vidi, while the passage in the letter to Zanobi, they say, refers to Acciaiuoli. Lastly, Hecker observes that the words of Boccaccio seem to prove that he was in Naples in 1345. In fact, speaking of the condemnation and torture of the Catanese as accomplice in the assassination of King Andrew he says: “quædam auribus, quædam oculis sumpta meis describam.”
323 See Arch. St. per la prov. Nap., An. V, p. 617. For an excellent account of King Robert’s reign, as of Giovanna’s, see Baddeley, King Robert the Wise and His Heirs (Heinemann, 1881). It is a good defence of the Queen.
324 Gio. Villani, who did not love the Angevins, tells us that King Robert was full of every virtue, admitting, however, that in his last years he was very avaricious; and in this he agrees with Boccaccio. He says, however, that he was the wisest monarch of Christendom after Charlemagne. Boccaccio too calls him Solomon. In a poem attributed to Convenevole da Prato he is hailed as the sovereign of United Italy. But it is to Petrarch he owes his fame. Robert was a great patron of the Franciscans, then utterly rotten. Boccaccio doubtless saw enough in Naples to give him justification for his stories later. See infra.
325 Petrarch, Egloga, II.
326 Here is the genealogical table: —
Charles I of Anjou, K. of Naples (1226-85)
Collected Works of Giovanni Boccaccio Page 490
