Collected Works of Giovanni Boccaccio

by Giovanni Boccaccio

  Charles II == Mary of Hungary (1285-1309)

  Hungary

  Naples

  Durazzo

  Taranto

  Provence

  Charles Martel

  Robert

  John, D. of Durazzo

  Philip, P. of Taranto

  (1309-43)

  Charles Robert

  Charles

  Louis

  Andrew

  == Giovanna

  Maria

  == Charles

  Louis

  Louis

  m. Giovanna

  after Andrew’s

  death

  Philip

  m. Maria

  after Charles

  of Durazzo’s

  death

  (1343-82)

  Margaret

  == Charles III

  K. of Naples

  327 I quote Mr. Hollway-Calthrop’s redaction in his Petrarch (Methuen, 1907), p. 112. He adds: “Knowing nothing of what he was to see, Petrarch was taken to a spectacle attended by the sovereigns in state; suddenly, to his horror, he saw a beautiful youth killed for pastime, expiring at his feet, and putting spurs to his horse, he fled at full gallop from the place.” These gladiatorial games took place in Carbonara.

  328 Baddeley, op. cit.

  329 He received beside his board and lodging 19,000 florins of gold as salary. These were not paid by the Pope, whose servant he was, but by Queen Giovanna and the wretched Neapolitans. The amount was fixed by the Pope. Cf. Baddeley, op. cit.

  330 Cf. Baddeley, op. cit., p. 344. The Pope’s account is as follows: “Immediately he was summoned by them he went into the gallery or promenade which is before the chamber. Then certain men placed their hands over his mouth so that he could not cry out, and in this act they so pressed their iron gauntlets that their print and character were manifest after death. Others placed a rope round his neck in order to strangle him, and this likewise left its mark; others ‘vero receperunt eum pro genitalia, et adeo traxerunt, quod multi qui dicebant se vidisse retulerunt mihi quod transcendebant genua’, while others tore out his hair, dragged him, and threw him into the garden. Some say with the rope with which they had strangled him they swung him as if hanging over the garden. It was further related to us that they intended to throw him into a well, and thereafter to give it out he had left the Kingdom ... and this would have been carried out had not his nurse quickly come upon the scene.” Cf. Baluzius, Vitæ Paparum Avenonensium, 1305-94, Vol. II, p. 86, and Baddeley, op. cit., p. 344 et seq.

  331 e.g. another account states that “a conspiracy was formed against the young Andrew, and it is said, with some truth, that the Queen was the soul of it. One evening in September, 1345, the court being at the Castello of Aversa, a chamberlain entered the royal apartment, where Andrew was with the Queen, to announce to them that despatches of great importance were arrived from Naples. Andrew went out immediately, and as he passed through the salon which separated his room from the Queen’s, he was seized and hanged from the window of the palace by a golden rope said to have been woven by the Queen’s hands, and there he was left for two days. The Queen, who was, or pretended to be, stupefied with horror, returned to Naples. No real attempt, even at the behest of the Pope, was made to find the assassins.” The Queen was within three months of the birth of her child when the murder occurred. She gained nothing by Andrew’s death but exile. The murderers, so far as we can judge now, were undoubtedly the Catanese group in danger of losing their positions at court.

  332 Giovanna’s own account is given in Baddeley, op. cit., p. 345, n. 2. Mr. Baddeley is her ablest English defender. See also a curious book by Amalfi, La Regina Giovanna nella Tradizione (Naples, 1892).

  333 See supra, p. 108, n. 1. All sorts of stories have been current as to Boccaccio’s personal relations with Queen Giovanna. By some he is said to have been her lover, by others to have been in her debt for the suggestion of the scheme of the Decameron so far as it is merely a collection of merry tales. These tales he is supposed to have told her. No evidence is to be found for any of these assertions. But cf. Hortis, op. cit., p. 109 and n. 1.

  334 See Lett. 19 del Lib. XXIII, Epist. Familiarum. Fracassetti has translated this letter into Italian: see Lettere di Fr. Petrarca volgarizz. Delle Cose Fam., Vol. V, p. 91 et seq. Petrarch says: “Adriæ in litore, ea ferme ætate, qua tu ibi agebas cum antiquo plagæ illius domino eius avo qui nunc præsidet.” It is Fracassetti who dates this letter 1365 (Baldelli dates in 1362, and Tiraboschi in 1367). If, as we believe, Fracassetti is right, then Boccaccio must have been in Ravenna in 1346, for in 1365 Guido da Polenta ruled there, the son of Bernardino who died in 1359, the son of Ostasio, who died November 14, 1346. Boccaccio had relations in Ravenna. In the proem to the De Genealogiis he tells us that Ostasio da Polenta induced him to translate Livy.

  335 Yet there may be something in it. Baldelli tells us that he wrote the Vita di Dante in 1351, and in 1349 we find him in communication with Petrarch. That Beatrice di Dante was in Ravenna in 1346 seems certain. Pelli, Memorie per servire alla vita di Dante (Firenze, 1823), p. 45, says: “As for the daughter Beatrice ... one knows that she took the habit of a religious in the convent of S. Stefano detto dell’ Uliva in Ravenna.” We know from a document seen by Pelli that in 1350 the Or San Michele Society sent Beatrice ten gold florins by the hand of Boccaccio. What I suggest is that Boccaccio found her in Ravenna in 1346 very poor. He represented the facts to the Or San Michele Society, who, after the Black Death of 1348, had plenty of money in consequence of all the legacies left them and, as is well known, were very free with their plenty.

  I give the document Pelli saw as he quotes it. He says he found it in “un libro d’ entrata ed uscita del 1350 tra gli altri esistenti nella cancelleria de’ capitani di Or San Michele risposto nell’ armadio alto di detta cancelleria.” There, he says, is written the following disbursement in the month of September, 1350: “A Messer Giovanni di Bocchaccio ... fiorini dieci d’ oro, perchè gli desse a suora Beatrice figliuola che fu di Dante Alleghieri, monaca nel monastero di S. Stefano dell’ Uliva di Ravenna,” etc. See also Bernicole in Giornale Dantesco, An. VII (Series III), Quaderno vii (Firenze, 1899), p. 337 et seq., who rediscovered the document which is republished by Biagi and Pesserini in Codice Diplomatico Dantesco, Disp. 5 (1900).

  336 Cf. Ferretus Vicentinus, Lib. VII, in R. I. S., Tom. IX.

  337 Corazzini, op. cit., p. 268. “Tertiæ vero Eclogæ titulus est Faunus, nam cum eiusdam causa fuerit Franciscus de Ordolaffis Forolivii Capitaneus, quem cum summe sylvas coleret et nemora, ob insitam illi venationis delectationem ego sæpissime Faunum vocare consueverim, eo quod Fauni sylvarum a poetis nuncupentur Dei, illam Faunum nominavi. Nominibus autem collocutorum nullum significatum volui, eo quod minime videretur opportunum.”

  338 See Hortis, Studi sulle opere Latine del B. (Trieste, 1879), p. 5 et seq.

  339 Here is part of the Eclogue which will be useful to us: —

  “Fleverunt montes Argum, flevere dolentes

  Et Satyri, Faunique leves, et flevit Apollo.

  Ast moriens silvas juveni commisit Alexo,

  Qui cautus modicum, dum armenta per arva trahebat,

  In gravidam tum forte lupam, rabieque tremendam

  Incidit impavidus, nullo cum lumine lustrum

  Ingrediens, cujus surgens sævissima guttur

  Dentibus invasit, potuit neque ab inde revelli,

  Donec et occulto spirasset tramite vita.

  Hoc fertur, plerique volunt quod silva leones

  Nutriat haec, dirasque feras, quibus ipse severus

  Occurrens, venans mortem, suscepit Adonis

  . . . . . . . sed postquam Tityrus ista

  Cognovit de rupe cava, quæ terminat Istrum,

  Flevit, et innumeros secum de vallibus altis

  Danubii vocitare canes, durosque bubulcos

  Infrendes coepit, linquensque armenta, suosque

  Saltus, infandam tendit discerpere silvam

&
nbsp; Atque lupam captare petit, flavosque leones,

  Ut poenas tribuat meritis, nam frater Alexis

  Tityrus iste fuit. Nunquid vidisse furentum

  Stat menti, ferro nuper venabula acuto

  Gestantem manibus, multos et retia post hunc

  Portantes humeris, ira rabieque frementes,

  Hac olim transire via.”

  Eclog. III, p. 267 (ed. Firenze, 1719).

  340 Petrarch also calls him Argo in his third Eclogue. See Hortis, op. cit., p. 6, n. 2.

  341 The lions — biondi leoni — according to Hortis, refer to Niccolò Acciaiuoli, whose coat was a lion, but for me they are the Conti della Leonessa. Cf. Villani, op. cit., Lib. XII, cap. 51. When then did Boccaccio quarrel with Acciaiuoli?

  342

  “... multi per devia Tityron istum

  Ex nostris, canibus sumptis, telisque sequuntur.

  Inter quos Faunus, quem tristis et anxia fletu

  Thestylis incassum revocat, clamoribus omnem

  Concutiens silvam. Tendit tamen ille neglectis

  Fletibus....” Eclog. III, p. 268, ed. cit.

  343 It is well known, of course, that King Louis made two descents into Italy: one in 1347 before the Black Death, and one after it in 1350. Hortis tells us that this Eclogue is certainly dated 1348 (op. cit., p. 5, n. 4). It therefore must allude to the first descent. This is confirmed, as Hortis points out, by the poems themselves. (1) By the chronological order in which Boccaccio treats of events in the Eclogues. The first two deal with his love, and those immediately following the third, of the events of 1348. (2) By the contents of the third Eclogue itself, which deals first with the happiness of Naples under King Robert, with his death, the murder of Andrew, and the descent of King Louis, his passage, as we shall see, through Forlì in 1347, whence Francesco degli Ordelaffi set out with him for Lower Italy: all of which happened not in the second, but in the first (1347) descent of King Louis.

  344 Villani, Cronica, Lib. XII, cap. 107.

  345 Cf. Annales Cæsenates R. I. S., Tom. XIV, col. 1179, and Hortis, op. cit., p. 8, n. 3. The latter argues long and successfully for the departure of Ordelaffo with King Louis at this date: to which he also ascribes the letters of Boccaccio to Zanobi (Quam pium, quam sanctum), by some considered apochryphal (Corazzini, op. cit., p. 447), where Boccaccio says: “Varronem quidem nondum habui: eram tamen habiturus in brevi, nisi itinera instarent ad illustrem Hungariæ regem in estremis Brutiorum et Campaniæ quo moratur, nam ut sua imitetur arma iustissima meus inclitus dominus et Pieridum hospes gratissimus cum pluribus Flamineæ proceribus præparetur; quo et ipse, mei prædicti domini jussu non armiger, sed ut ita loquar rerum occurrentium arbiter sum iturus, et præestantibus Superis, omnes in brevi victoria habita et celebrato triumpho dignissime proprias [sic] revisuri.” The letter is dated Forlì.

  346 Cf. Fracassetti, in a note to Lett. 3 of Lib. XXI, Lett. Fam. of Petrarch; and as regards Boccaccio, see Baldelli, in note to Sonnet xcix., written for Cecco (Moutier, Vol. XVI, p. 175).

  347 Cf. Hortis, op. cit., pp. 8 and 267-77. Cf. Corazzini, op. cit., p. 447.

  348 That he met King Louis is certain. In the third Eclogue he says: —

  “Nunquid vidisse furentem

  Stat menti.”

  349 In the letters to Zanobi, spoken of above, beginning Quam pium, quam sanctum, he says he is going to the illustrious King of Hungary in the confines of the Abruzzi and of Campania: “Ad illustrem Hungariæ regem in estremis Brutiorum et Campaniæ.”

  350 Villani, op. cit., Lib. XII, cap. 51, believed in the guilt of Giovanna, but he was writing from hearsay. He says the Queen lived in adultery with Louis of Taranto and with Robert of Taranto and with the son of Charles d’Artois and with Jacopo Capano.

  351 Boccaccio was and remained all his life a keen Guelf and supporter of the House of Anjou. Of that no doubt is possible. Cf. Hortis, op. cit., p. 109.

  352 See especially Sacchetti, Nov. XXI and CLVIII.

  353 M. Villani, Cronica, Lib. I, cap. ii.

  354 Cf. G. Villani, Lib. XII, cap. 84. After the horrible slaughters and wars in Florence, and indeed in all Tuscany, the disgraceful state of affairs in Naples, it is not wonderful that pestilence broke out and found a congenial soil.

  355 G. Morelli, Cronica, p. 280. Cf. G. Biagi, La vita privata dei Fiorentini (Milano, 1899), pp. 77-9.

  356 W. Heywood, The Ensamples of Fra Filippo (Torrini Siena, 1901), p. 80 et seq.

  357 In the Commentary on the Divine Comedy (Moutier, Vol. XI, p. 105) he says: “E se io ho il vero inteso, perciocchè in que’ tempi io non ci era, io odo, che in questa città avvenne a molti nell’ anno pestifero del MCCCXLVIII, che essendo soprappresi gli uomini dalla peste, e vicini alla morte, ne furon più e più, i quali de’ loro amici, chi uno e chi due, e chi più ne chiamò, dicendo, vienne tale e tale; de’ quali chiamati e nominati assai, secondo l’ ordine tenuto dal chiamatore, s’ eran morti, e andatine appresso al chiamatore....” This might seem evidence enough that Boccaccio was not in Florence in 1348, for he expressly says so. There is a passage, however, in the Decameron Introduction where he seems to say that he was in Florence; but as we shall see, we misunderstand him. He says: “So marvellous is that which I have now to relate that had not many, and I among them, observed it with their own eyes I had hardly dared to credit it....” He then goes on to tell us (assuring us again that he had seen it himself) that one day two hogs came nosing among the rags of a poor wretch who had died of the disease, and immediately they “gave a few turns and fell down dead as if from poison....” But this might have happened in Naples or Forlì quite as well as in Florence. It is only right to add that the Moutier edition of the Comento sopra Dante notes that the MS. from which it is printed reads 1340 instead of 1348 in the passage already quoted. This may or may not be an error. There was a plague in Florence in 1340. See Villani, op. cit., Lib. XII, cap. lxxiii.

  358 See the letter in Corazzini, op. cit., p. 23. It is written in the Neapolitan dialect, and in all the versions I have been able to see bears the date of no year at all. It is signed thus: “In Napoli, lo juorno de sant’ Anniello — Delli toi Jannetto di Parisse dalla Ruoccia.”

  359 Cf. Manni, Istoria del Decamerone (Firenze, 1742), p. 21. See also Koerting, op. cit., p. 179, and especially Crescini, op. cit., p. 257 et seq.

  360 Cf. Manni, u.s.

  361 Cf. Antona Traversi, Della realtà e della vera natura dell’ amore di Messer Gio. Boccaccio (Livorno, 1883), and Ibid., Della verità dell’ amore di Gio. Boccaccio (Bologna, 1884); also Renier, Di una nuova opinione sull’ amore del B. in Rassegna Settimanale, Vol. VI, No. 145, pp. 236-8.

  362 Villani says B. wrote in the vulgar tongue in verse and prose “in quibus lascivientis iuventutis ingenio paullo liberius evagavit.” Bandino says almost as little; but see Crescini, op. cit., p. 164, n. 3. Manetti says: “in amores usque ad maturam fere ætatem vel paulo proclivior.” Squarciafico speaks of the various opinions current on the love of B. for Fiammetta, but does not give an opinion himself; he seems doubtful, however, whether the daughter of so great a king could be induced to forget her honour by mere verses and letters. Sansovino, however, thinks B. was a successful lover of Fiammetta. Betussi came to think the same, so did Nicoletti, and so did Zilioli. Mazzuchelli, however, does not believe it. Tiraboschi does not believe the so-called confessions of B. Baldelli, however, does believe them (op. cit., p. 364 et seq.).

  363 I confess that the dissenters seem to me to be merely absurd. They are not worth any fuller answer than that given above. Of course, in speaking of Fiammetta, I mean Maria d’Aquino. It would seem to be impossible to doubt her identity after the acrostic of the Amorosa Visione. I do not hope to convert the dissenters by abusing them. I would not convert them if I could. They are too dangerous to any cause.

  364 Baldelli, Rime di Messer Gio. Boccacci (Livorno, 1802). This text was reprinted in Raccolta di Rime Antiche Toscane (Palermo, 1817), Vol. IV, pp. 1-157, which was used by Rossetti for his translation of six
of the sonnets, and again in the Opere Volgari (Moutier, 1834), Vol. XVI.

  365 Cf. Manicardi e Massera, Introduzione al testo critico del Canzoniere di Gio. Boccacci con rime inedite (Castelfiorentino, La Società Stor. di Valdelsa, 1901), p. 20. This book contains the best explanation we yet have of the sonnets and their order. It is a masterly little work. On it cf. Crescini in Rassegna bibliogr. della letter. it., Vol. IX, p. 38 et seq.

  366 Cf. Manicardi e Massera, op. cit., p. 21.

  367 Cf. Manicardi e Massera, op. cit., p. 27, note i.

  368 See Antona Traversi, Di una cronologia approssimativa delle rime del Boccaccio in Preludio (Ancona, 1883), VII, p. 2 et seq.

  369 See infra, p. 181 et seq.

  370 In sonnet xlii. he says the arch of his age is passed: —

  “Perchè passato è l’ arco de’ miei anni,

  E ritornar non posso al primo giorno;

  E l’ ultimo già veggio s’ avvicina.”

  Manicardi e Massera, op. cit., think this would mean he was thirty-five; but in my opinion it would mean he was already forty or forty-five. For according to an old writer of 1310 (Cod. Nazionale di Firenze, II, ii. 84), “They say the philosophers say there are four ages; they are adolescence, youth, age, and old age. The first lasts till twenty-five or thirty, the second till forty or forty-five, the third till fifty-five or sixty, the fourth till death. Cf. Della Torre, op. cit., p. 87. In sonnet lxiv. B. says he, growing grey,

  “... ed ora ch’ a imbiancare

  Cominci, di te stesso abbi mercede.”

  371 As to sonnet ci., both Crescini and Koerting point out that it is written to a widow (perhaps the lady of the Corbaccio, see infra, p. 181 et seq.); but they consider it a mere fantasy, not referring to any real love affair. Cf. Crescini, op. cit., p. 166, note 2. Cf. a similar question to that put in the sonnet in Filocolo (Moutier), Lib. IV, p. 94. Sonnet c. also deals with a widow: “il brun vestire ed il candido velo.” Who this widow really may be is an insoluble problem. If it be the lady of the Corbaccio, she would seem to be the wife of Antonio Pucci, for sonnet ci. is dedicated “ad Antonio Pucci.” Sonnets lxiv., lxv., seem to refer to the same affair. As to sonnets xii. and xvii., the first is a fantasy and the second refers to Fiammetta in my judgment.