Collected Works of Giovanni Boccaccio

by Giovanni Boccaccio

  “Camarlinghi — Marzo-Aprile 1367-68 — Quaderno no. 183 — Uscita di condotta.

  “[30 Aprile]

  “Domino Iohanni Boccaccij

  Mariotto simonis orlandini Barne

  valorini et Bindo domini Iacobi

  de Bardis

  civibus florentinis extractis secundum ordinamenta Comunis flor. in conducterios et ad offitium conducte stipendiariorum Comunis Flor. pro tempore et termino quatuor mensium inceptorum die primo mensis novembris proximi preteriti, pro eorum et cuiuslibet eorum salario quatuor mensium predictorum, initiatorum ut supra, ad rationem libarum vigintiquatuor fl. parv. pro quolibet eorum, vigore extractionis facte de eis, scripte per ser Petrum ser Grifi notarium, scribam reformationum consilii et populi Comunis flor ... etc. etc. (solita formula) in summum, inter omnes, ad rationem predictam ... libras Nonaginta sex fl. parv.”

  493 The embassy of 1365 was not the last Boccaccio was engaged in. It is generally said that he went again to the Pope in November, 1367. Mazzucchelli, Gli Scrittori d’ Italia, p. 1326, n. 77, quoted by Hortis, G. B. Ambasciatore, p. 18, note 3, says: “Ai detta imbasciata del Boccaccio ad Urbano V fatto nel 1367 si conserva notizia nell’ Archivio de Monte, Comune di Firenze, che con gentilezza ci è stata communicata con Lettera del Signor Manni. Quivi si vede come i detti due ambasciatori prima di partirsi prestarmo agli 11 di Novembre di quello anno il giuramento di esercitare con buona fede la detta imbasciata alla presenza di Paolo Accoramboni da Gubbio esecutore in Firenze degli ordini di Giustizia.” But Boccaccio could not have gone to see the Pope in Avignon in November, 1367, for the Pontiff set out for Italy on April 30, as we have seen. In December, 1368, as we shall see, Pope Urban in Rome wrote to the Signoria di Firenze in praise of Boccaccio. It seems certain, then, that Boccaccio went on embassy to Rome in November, 1368.

  494 Cf. E. G. Gardner, S. Catherine of Siena (Dent, 1908), p. 63 et seq. I cannot refrain from recommending this excellent study of the fourteenth century in Italy to all students of the period. It is by far the best attempt yet made to understand the mystical religion of the period in Italy summed up by S. Catherine of Siena.

  495 Cf. Canestrini, in Archivio Stor. Ital., Ser. I, App. VII, p. 430, under date Deci, 1368.

  “Urbanus Episcopus, Servus Servorum Dei, Dilectis filiis Prioribus Artium et Vexillifero Iustitie, ac Comuni Civitatis Florentie, salutem et apostolicam benedictionem.

  “Dilectum filium Iohannem Boccatii, ambassatorem vestrum, contemplatione mittentium, ac suarum virtutum intuitu, benigne recepimus; et exposita prudenter Nobis per eum pro parte vestra, audivimus diligenter; ac sibi illa que, secundum Deum et pro nostro et publico bono, ad quod presertim in Italie partibus, auctore Domino, reformandum et augendum, plenis anhelamus affectibus, convenire credidimus, duximus respondendum; prout ipse oretenus vos poterit informare. Datum Rome, apud Sanctum Petrum, Kalendis decembris, Pontificatus nostri anno sexto.”

  496 See Zardo, Il Petrarca e i Carraresi (Milano, 1867), cap. ii. p. 41 et seq. To this year Signor Zardo would refer the letter of Boccaccio to Petrarch Ut te viderem, in which he describes his visit to Venice, where he saw Tullia and Francesco. If Boccaccio was in Padua in 1368, we have no evidence for it.

  497 Cf. the letter to Niccolò di Montefalcone in Corazzini, op. cit., p. 257 et seq.

  498 Boccaccio does not forget to ask him for the return of his Tacitus, and thus shows us that he possessed the works of this historian, which he not seldom quotes in the De Genealogiis Deorum. Cf. Hortis, Studi, pp. 424-6, and Paget Toynbee, Boccaccio’s Commentary on the Divine Comedy in Modern Language Review (Cambridge, 1907), Vol. II, No. 2, p. 119. Boccaccio was certainly acquainted with the twelfth to the sixteenth books of the Annals and the second and third books of the Histories. How did he come into possession of this treasure? Hortis (loc. cit.) suggests that he found the MS. when he paid his famous visit (when we do not know) to the Badia of Monte Cassino. It is Benvenuto da Imola, Boccaccio’s disciple, who tells us of this visit. “My reverend master Boccaccio,” he says in his Commentary on the Divine Comedy, Paradiso, xxii. 74, “told me that, being once in the neighbourhood of Monte Cassino, he paid the monastery a visit and asked if he might see the library. Whereupon one of the monks, pointing to a staircase, said gruffly, ‘Go up; it is open.’ Boccaccio went up and saw to his astonishment that the library, the storehouse of the monastic treasures, had neither door nor fastening; and on entering in he found grass growing on the windows and all the books and benches buried in dust. When he came to turn over the books, some of which were very rare and of great value, he discovered that many of them had been mutilated and defaced by having leaves torn out or the margins cut — a discovery which greatly distressed him. In answer to his enquiries as to how this damage had been caused, he was told that it was the work of some of the monks themselves. These vandals, desirous of making a little money, were in the habit of tearing out leaves from some of the MSS. and of cutting the margins off others, for the purpose of converting them into psalters and breviaries which they afterwards sold” (see Paget Toynbee, Dante Studies and Researches (Methuen, 1902), p. 233 et seq.) Boccaccio does not seem to have shown his MS. to Petrarch, who nowhere quotes Tacitus or shows us that he knows him.

  499 Urban died 19th December, and Gregory was elected on the 30th December, 1370.

  500 Boccaccio also speaks of his journey elsewhere. In a letter to Jacopo da Pizzinghe (Corazzini, op. cit., p. 189) he says: “Incertus Neapoli aliquamdium fueram vere præterito: hinc enim plurimo desiderio trahebar redeundi in patriam, quam autumno nuper elapso indignans liqueram.” In another to Niccolò degli Orsini, he says: “Laboriosam magis quam longam, anno præterito perigrinationem intraverim, et casu Neapolim delatus sim, ibi præter opinatum amicos mihi ignotos comperi, a quibus frenatæ domesticæ indignationis meæ impetu, ut starem subsidia præstitere omnia.” Cf. Hortis, Studi, u.s., p. 285 note. Hortis is of opinion that the word casu indicates the change of route necessitated by the falsity of Niccolò da Montefalcone. On the dates of these and other letters, see Hortis, u.s. I find myself absolutely in agreement with him.

  501 See letter to Niccolò degli Orsini (Corazzini, op. cit., p. 317).

  502 Corazzini, op. cit., p. 327.

  503 Cf. Corazzini, op. cit., p. 337. We have four letters which Boccaccio wrote during these years: that to Matteo d’ Ambrosio, dated “iv Idus Maias,” which Hortis (op. cit., p. 285) argues belongs to 1371; that to Orsini, which the same critic gives to June, 1371; that to Jacopo da Pizzinghe, which he gives to the summer of the same year; and that to Piero di Monteforte, dated from Certaldo “Nonis Aprilis,” which he gives to 1372. Baldelli, followed by Witte (op. cit., p. xl), thinks the letter to Matteo d’ Ambrosio belongs to 1373, and thus argues that Boccaccio was twice in Naples: in the winter of 1370-1, and again in the autumn of 1372 to May, 1373. But Hortis shows it is impossible that the letter to Ambrosio is of May, 1373, since on 19 March, 1373, Boccaccio was in Certaldo when the Bishop Angelo Acciaiuoli committed to him an office— “confidens quam plurimum de fidei puritate providi viri D. Joannis Boccaccii de Certaldo Civis et Clerici Florentini.” Cf. Manni, Ist. del Decameron, p. 35, and Hortis, op. cit., pp. 208, n. 1, and 284, n. 3.

  504 On all these works cf. Hortis, Studi sulle opere Latine di G. B. (Trieste, 1879), and on the De Montibus see also Hortis, Acceni alle Scienze Naturali nelle opere di G. B. (Trieste, 1877).

  505 Cf. Hauvette, Recherches sur le Casibus, etc. (Paris, 1901).

  506 Cf. Hortis, Le Donne famose discritte da G. B. (Trieste, 1877).

  507 Cf. F. N. Scott, “De Genealog.” of Boccaccio and Sidney’s “Arcadia”, in Modern Language Notes (Baltimore, 1891), VI, fasc. 4, and Toynbee, The Bibliography of B.’s “A Genealogia Deorum,” in Athenæum, No. 3733.

  508 Cf. Mussafia, Il Libro XV della Genealogia Deorum, in Antol. della Critic. Mod. of Morandi (Città di Castello, 1885), p. 334 et seq.

  509 Cf. De Genealog Deorum, XIV, 10, 11, 19; XV, 4, 6. Letter to Niccolò degli Orsini in Corazz
ini, op. cit., p. 317; Comento sopra Dante, cap. 1.; and cf. Petrarch, Senil., I, 4.

  510 Cf. the letter to Petrarch’s son-in-law (Corazzini, op. cit., p. 382).

  511 As we have seen, Petrarch had been in Naples in 1341, and was there again in 1343. See supra, pp. 60 and 111.

  512 See supra, p. 152 et seq.

  513 Cf. Epistol. Fam., XXI, 15. Petrarch’s first letter to Boccaccio is Fam., XI, 1, of November 2, 1350. See supra, p. 156.

  514 Cf. supra, p. 160.

  515 Cf. supra, p. 203.

  516 Cf. supra, p. 212.

  517 Epist. Fam., XVIII, 4. He also copied Terence with his own hand, lest copyists should mutilate the text. The MS. exists in the Laurentian Library. Cf. Novati in Giornale St. della Lett. It., X, p. 424. The thought of comparing ancient MSS. to form a text was Boccaccio’s.

  518 See Senil., XVII, 3, under date “In the Enganean Hills, June 8 717717.” Petrarch there says: “The book you have composed in our maternal tongue, probably during your youth, has fallen into my hands, I do not know by what chance. I have seen it, but if I should say I had read it I should lie. The work is very long, and it is written for the vulgar, that is to say in prose. Besides, I have been overwhelmed with occupations, and I have had only very little time, for as you know, one was then at the mercy of all the troubles of the war, and although I was not interested in them, I could not be insensible to the troubles of the republic. I have, then, run through this volume like a hurried traveller who just looks but does not stop.... I have had much pleasure in turning its leaves. Certain passages, a little free, are excused by the age at which you wrote it — the style, the idiom, the lightness of the subject and of the readers you had in view. It is essential to know for whom one is writing, and the difference in the characters of people justifies a difference in style. Besides a crowd of things light and pleasant, I have found there others both edifying and serious; but not having read the complete work, I cannot give you a definite judgment on it.” We shall consider this letter again later in my chapter on the Decameron (see infra, p. 311).

  519 As for Petrarch’s contempt for Italian, see Senil., V, 2. Petrarch there says to Boccaccio, that Donato degli Albanzani “tells me that in your youth you were singularly pleased to write in the vulgar, and that you spent much time on it.” He adds that Boccaccio had then composed the same kind of work as he himself had done, apparently referring to the Rime. He seems to refuse to consider the prose works in the vulgar as being literature at all. It is probable even that the accusation that he disliked and envied Dante, from which he so warmly defends him (cf. Fam., XXI, 15), had this much truth, that he disliked the language of the Divine Comedy in his absurd worship of Latin. But though he could not see it, the Divine Comedy is the first work of the Renaissance just because it is written not in Latin, the language of the Church, but in Italian, the language of the people. There lay the destruction of the Middle Age and the tyranny of the Ecclesiastic. For with the rise of the vulgar rose Nationalism, which, with the invention of printing, eventually destroyed the real power of the Church. It was a question of knowledge, of education, of the power of development and life.

  520 See De vita et moribus domini Francisci Petrarchæ de Florentia secundum Iohannem Bochacii de Certaldo, in Rossetti, Petrarca, etc., pp. 316-99.

  521 Cf. Senil., XV, 8, written in 1373.

  522 Cf. Corazzini, op. cit., p. 123.

  523 Cf. the Epilogue to the De Montibus.

  524 Cf. Fam., XVIII, 15.

  525 In the letter to Jacopo Pizzinghe in Corazzini, op. cit., p. 189.

  526 De Genealog. Deorum, XIV, 19.

  527 Cf. Fam., XVIII, 4.

  528 Cf. Petrarch’s will in Fracassetti, op. cit., Vol. III, p. 542.

  529 Cf. Corazzini, op. cit., p. 377. We shall return to this later. See infra, p. 282 et seq.

  530 Cf. Elogium di Petrarca, l.c., pp. 319, 324.

  531 See Voigt, Pétrarque, Boccacce et les débuts de humanisme, cap. ii. (Paris, 1894).

  532 Ep. Sen., XV, 5. Letter to Charles IV.

  533 Cf. De Genealog., VI, 24. Cf. Voigt, op. cit., p. 167.

  534 Comento sopra Dante, ed. cit., cap. iv. p. 249.

  535 Cf. De Casibus Virorum, pp. 59, 66, 67.

  536 Cf. Vita di Dante, ed. cit., p. 56.

  537 Cf. Vita di Dante, ed. cit., p. 40.

  538 Cf. Voigt, op. cit., p. 168.

  539 Cf. Senil., III, 1; VIII, 1, 8.

  540 Cf. Vita di Dante, ed. cit., p. 55; Comento, ed. cit., cap. 1. pp. 5, 7; and cf. Hortis, Acceni alle Scienze, etc., p. 14.

  541 The best study and the fullest of these Latin works is that of Hortis, Studi sulle opere Latine di Giovanni Boccaccio (Trieste, 1879). It runs to some 950 quarto pages. I do not propose here to give more than a sketch of these Latin works of Boccaccio.

  542 It was apparently finished about 1362. Cf. Hortis, Studi, p. 89, n. 2, and p. 164.

  543 Cf. F. Villani (ed. Galletti), Liber de civitatis Florentiæ famosis civibus ex codice Mediceo Laurentiano nunc primum editus (Firenze, 1847), p. 17.

  544 Cf. Comento, ed. cit., cap. xii. Vol. II, p. 334.

  545 Cf. the dedication to “Mulieri clariss. Andrese Acciauolis,” which begins: “Pridie, mulierum egregia, paululum ab inerti vulgo semotus, et a cæteris fere solutus curis, in eximiam mulieribus sexus laudem, et amicorum solatium, potius quam in magnum reipublicæ commodum, libellum scripsi.” This dedicatory letter appears in all the editions, and is printed too by Corazzini, op. cit., p. 231.

  546 Cf. Boccaccio’s own love story, supra, p. 51 et seq.

  547 Decameron, IV, 2.

  548 Cap. 87.

  549 Caps. 77, 71, 81.

  550 Cf. Decameron, II, 9, and supra, p. 176 et seq.

  551 Cf. Rodoconachi, Boccacce (Hachette, 1908), p. 163, and Hortis, Studi, p. 102 et seq.

  552 So he says in the dedication to the wife of Andrea Acciaiuoli, but he feared to do it. “Verum dum mecum animo versarem, cuinam primum illum transmitterem, ne penes me marcesceret otio, et ut alieno fultus favore, securior iret in publicum, adverteremque satis, non principi viro, sed potius cum de mulieribus loqueritur, alicui insigni fœminæ destinandum fore, exquirenti dignorem, ante alias, venit in mentem, Italicum jubar illud perfulgidum, ac singulare nomen non tantum fœminarum, sed regum gloria, Iohanna serenissima Hierusalem et Siciliæ regina,” etc.

  553 See supra, p. 121 et seq. Cf. Hortis, Le Donne famose descritte da G. B. (Trieste, 1877).

  554 An English version of the De Claris Mulieribus was made by Henry Parker, Lord Morley (1476-1556), but this has never been printed. It is entitled “John Bocasse His Booke intitlede in the Latyne Tunge De Praeclaris Mulieribus, that is to say in Englyshe, of the Ryghte Renoumyde Ladyes.” It was done about 1545 and was dedicated to King Henry VIII. Extracts from it have appeared in Waldron’s Literary Museum, 1792.

  555 Cf. Proem to Lib. VIII.

  556 Cf. Hauvette, Recherches sur le Casibus, etc. (Paris, 1901).

  557 Cf. supra, p. 117. The History of the Dukes of Athens too is excellent. John Lydgate in some sort translated the work into English verse: his work is entitled “Here begynnethe the Boke calledde John Bochas descrivinge the falle of princis princessis and other nobles traslatid īto Englissh by John Ludgate mōke of the monastery of Seint Edmundes Bury at the cōmañdemēt of the worthy prynce Humfrey Duke of Gloucestre beginnynge at Adam and endinge with Kinge John made prisoner in fraunce by prince Eduarde” (London, Richard Pynson, 1494). For the story of Filippa la Catanese in English see “Unhappy Prosperitie expressed in the Histories of Sejanus and Philippa the Catanian written in French by P. Mathieu and translated in English by Sr Th. Hawkins” (printed for Io. Haviland for Godfrey Esmondson, 1632).

  558 Cf. Hortis, Accenni alle scienze naturali nelle opere di G. B. (Trieste, 1877), p. 38 et seq.

  559 Cf. Voigt, op. cit., cap. ii.

  560 Cf. Voigt, op. cit., cap. ii., and Schuck, Zur charakteristik der ital. Humanisten des XIV und XV Jahrh. (Breslau, 1
857), and F. Villani, op. cit. (ed. Galletti), p. 17. Rodocanachi, op. cit., p. 177 et seq., thinks he sees in the De Genealogiis a progress beyond the knowledge and judgment of Boccaccio in the Filocolo and the Amorosa Visione. It may well be so, but he has not convinced me that it was anything to boast of.

  561 Cf. De Genealogiis, XV, 9; Comento, cap. 1.

  562 Cf. De Genealogiis, XIV, 7: “Mera poesis est, quicquid sub velamento componimus et exquisitur [? exprimitur] exquisite.” Cf. also Comento, cap. i.

  563 De Genealogiis, XIV, 10.

  564 Indeed in Laura he seems to have seen an allegory of Petrarch’s desire for the laurel. See Rosetti, Petrarca, etc., p. 323, Elogium: “Et quamvis in suis compluribus vulgaribus poematibus in quibus perlucide decantavit se Laurettam quamdam ardentissime demonstravit amasse, non obstat; nam piout ipsemet et bene puto, Laurettam illam allegorice pro Laurem corona quam post modum est adeptus, accipiendam existimo.”

  565 Cf. F. N. Scott, “De Genealogiis” of Boccaccio and Sidney’s “Arcadia” in Modern Language Notes (Baltimore, 1891), VI, fasc. 4, and Toynbee, The Bibliography of B.’s A Genealogia Deorum in Athenæum, No. 3733, also Mussafia, Il Libro XV della Genealogia Deorum in Antol. della Critic. Mod. of Morandi (Città di Castello, 1885), p. 334 et seq. The work was finished about 1366, for in Book XV he calls Bechino et Paolo il Geometra to witness as living. Paolo made his will in 1366; we know nothing of Bechino after 1361.

  566 Cf. Milanesi, Il Comento di G.B. sopra la Commedia di Dante (Firenze, 1863), in two volumes. This is the best edition of Boccaccio’s Comento. The redaction of the petition I borrow from Dr. Paget Toynbee’s excellent article already alluded to, on Boccaccio’s Commentary on the Divina Commedia in Modern Language Review (Cambridge, 1907), Vol. II, No. 2, pp. 97 et seq., to which I am much indebted. I give the Latin text of the petition from Milanesi, u.s., Vol. I, p. 1 et seq.: “Pro parte quamplurium civium civitatis Florentie desiderantium tam pro se ipsis, quam pro aliis civibus aspirare desiderantibus ad virtutes, quam etiam pro eorum posteris et descendentibus, instrui in libro Dantis, ex quo tam in fuga vitiorum, quam in acquisitione virtutum, quam in ornatu eloquentie possunt etiam non grammatici informari; reverenter supplicatur vobis dominis Prioribus artium et Vexillifero Justitie populi et comunis Florentie, quatenus dignemini opportune providere et facere solempniter reformari, quod vos possitis eligere unum valentem et sapientem virum in huiusmodi poesie scientia bene doctum, pro eo tempore quo velitis, non maiore unius anni, ad legendum librum qui vulgariter appellatur el Dante in civitate Florentie, omnibus audire volentibus, continuatis diebus non feriatis, et per continuatas lectiones, ut in similibus fieri solet; et cum eo salario quo voletis, non majore centum florenorum auri pro anno predicto et cum modis, formis, articulis et tenoribus, de quibus vobis videbitur convenire. Et quod camerarii Camere comunis predicti ... debeant dictum salarium dicto sic electo dare et solvere de pecunia dicti Comunis in duobus terminis sive paghis, videlicet medietatem circa finem mensis decembris, et reliquam medietatem circa finem mensis aprilis, absque ulla retentione gabelle; habita dumtaxat apodixa officii dominorum Priorum; et visa electione per vos facta de aliquo ad lecturam predictam et absque aliqua alia probatione vel fide fienda de predictis vel aliquo predictorum vel solempnitate aliqua observanda.”