1313-1323

BOCCACCIO'S PARENTAGE, BIRTH, AND CHILDHOOD

The facts concerning the life and work of Giovanni Boccaccio, though they have been traversed over and over again by modern students,[3] are still for the most part insecure and doubtful; while certain questions, of chronology especially, seem to be almost insoluble. To begin with, we are uncertain of the place of his birth and of the identity of his mother, of whom in his own person he never speaks. And though it is true that he calls himself "of Certaldo,"[4] a small town at that time in the Florentine contado where he had some property, and where indeed he came at last to die, we have reason to believe that it was not his birthplace. The opinion now most generally professed by Italian scholars is that he was born in Paris of a French mother; and, while we cannot assert this as a fact, very strong evidence, both from within and from without his work, can be brought to support it. It will be best, perhaps, to examine this evidence, whose corner-stone is his assertion to Petrarch that he was born in 1313,[5] as briefly as possible.

The family of Boccaccio[6] was originally from Certaldo in Valdelsa,[7] his father being the Florentine banker and money-changer Boccaccio di Chellino da Certaldo, commonly called Boccaccino.[8] We know very little about him, but we are always told that he was of very humble condition. That he was of humble birth seems certain, but his career, what we know of his career, would suggest that he was in a position of considerable importance. We know that in 1318 he was in business in Florence, the name of his firm being Simon Jannis Orlandini, Cante et Jacobus fratres et filii q. Ammannati et Boccaccinus Chelini de Certaldo. In the first half of 1324 he was among the aggiunti deputati of the Arte del Cambio for the election of the Consiglieri della Mercanzia;[9] in 1326 he was himself one of the five Consiglieri; in the latter part of 1327 he represented the SocietÀ de' Bardi in Naples, and was very well known to King Robert;[10] while in 1332 he was one of the Fattori for the same SocietÀ in Paris, a post at least equivalent to that of a director of a bank to-day. These were positions of importance, and could not have been held by a person of no account.

As a young man, in 1310, we know he was in business in Paris, for on May 12 in that year fifty-four Knights Templars were slaughtered there,[11] and this Boccaccio tells us his father saw.[12] That there was at that time a considerable Florentine business in France in spite of those years of disaster—Henry VII had just entered Italy—is certain. In 1311, indeed, we find the Florentines addressing a letter to the King of France,[13] lamenting that at such a moment His Majesty should have taken measures hurtful to the interests of their merchants, upon whom the prosperity of their city so largely depended.

Boccaccio di Chellino seems to have remained in Paris in business;[14] that he was still there in 1313 we know, for in that year, on March 11, Jacques de Molay, Master of the Templars, was executed, and Giovanni tells us that his father was present.[15] If, then, Boccaccio was speaking the truth when he told Petrarch he was born in 1313, he must have been conceived, and was almost certainly born, in Paris.

Let us now examine such evidence as we may gather from the allegories of his own poems and plays, though there he speaks in parables. In two of his works at least—the Filocolo and the Ameto—Boccaccio seems to be speaking of himself in the characters of Idalagos[16] and Caleone and Ibrida. The Ameto, like the Filocolo, was written to give expression to his love for Fiammetta, the bastard daughter of King Robert of Naples. There he says that Caleone (whom we suppose to be in some sort himself) was born not far from the place whence Fiammetta's mother (whom he has told us was French) drew her origin. Again, in another part of the same book the story is related of a young Italian merchant, not distinguished by birth or gentle breeding, who went to Paris and there seduced a young French widow. The fruit of their intercourse was a boy, who received the name of Ibrida. The evidence to be gathered from the Filocolo is even more precise, but, briefly, it may be said to confirm the story in the Ameto.[17] We find there, however, that the name of the father was Eucomos, which may be bad Greek for Boccaccio; that the name of the mother was Gannai, which might seem to be an anagram for Giovanna or Gianna; and that the father deserted the mother in order to marry Gharamita,[18] which sounds like an anagram for Margherita, and in fact we find that Boccaccio di Chellino did marry almost certainly about 1314 Margherita di Gian Donato de' Martoli.[19]

The result then of these allegorical allusions in the Ameto and the Filocolo is to support the theory based on the few facts we possess, and to supplement it. That theory absolutely depends, so far as we rely upon facts for its confirmation, on Boccaccio's own statement, as reported by Petrarch, that he was born in 1313. If he was born in 1313, he was conceived and born in Paris, for we know that Boccaccio di Chellino was there in the years between 1310 and 1313. The Filocolo and the Ameto bear this out, and lead us to believe that his mother was a certain Gianna or Gannai (Jeanne, Giovanna), that he was born out of wedlock, and that his father deserted his mother, and not long after married Gharamita, as we suppose Margherita di Gian Donato de' Martoli.

Turning now to the evidence of his contemporaries, we shall find that just this was the opinion commonly received, so much so that the Italian translator of Filippo Villani's Lives actually changed the words of that author and forced him to agree with it. "His father," says this adapter,[20] "was Boccaccio of Certaldo, a village of the Florentine dominion. He was a man distinguished by excellence of manners. The course of his commercial affairs brought him to Paris, where he resided for a season, and being free and pleasant in the temper of his mind, was no less gay and well inclined to love by the complexion of his constitution. There then it befell that he was inspired by love for a girl of Paris, belonging to the class between nobility and bourgeoisie, for whom he conceived the most violent passion; and, as the admirers of Giovanni assert, she became his wife and afterwards the mother of Giovanni."

As his admirers assert! But others were not slow to say that his father and mother were never married; and indeed, this without doubt was the ordinary opinion.

In the true version of Filippo Villani's Lives,[21] written in Latin, we read that he was the son of his natural father,[22] and that he was born at Certaldo. Domenico Aretino[23] agrees that Certaldo was his birthplace, and adds that in his opinion Boccaccio was a bastard. Again, Salvini and Manni, following perhaps the well-known sonnet of Acquettino, say he was born in Florence.[24] In all this confusion we are like to lose our way, and it is therefore not surprising that modern scholars are divided in opinion. Tiraboschi[25] remains undecided. Baldelli[26] thinks he was born in Paris and was illegitimate; GinguenÉ, Witte, Carducci, Landau, Hortis, Antona Traversi, and Crescini agree with Baldelli—and, indeed, we find only two modern students who give Florence as his birthplace, to wit Corazzini[27] and Koerting[28], who agree, however, that he was a bastard.

It will thus be seen that the weight of opinion is on the side of the evidence, and that it certainly seems to have been shown that Boccaccio was born out of wedlock in Paris in 1313, and that his mother's name was Jeannette or Jeanne[29].It is probable that Boccaccio was brought still a tiny baby to Florence, but we cannot be sure of this, for though his father seems to have returned in 1314,[30] and almost at once to have married Margherita di Gian Donato de' Martoli, it is not certain that Giovanni accompanied him. Indeed the Filocolo seems to suggest that he did not.[31] However that may be, he was "in his first infancy" when he came to Tuscany, as he tells us in the Ameto, "fanciullo, cercai i regni Etrurii." The first river he saw was the Arno, "mihi ante alios omnes ab ipsa infantia cognitus"; and his boyhood was spent on that little hill described in the Filocolo, "piccolo poggio pieno di marine chiocciole," and covered with "salvatichi cerri," in the house of his father, "nel suo grembo," as he says in the Fiammetta.

Where was this hill dark with oaks where one might find sea-shells, the tiny shells of sea-snails? We do not know for certain. Some have thought it to be the hill of Certaldo,[32] but this seems scarcely likely, for we know that old Boccaccio was resident in Florence in 1318, and Boccaccio himself tells us that his boyhood was spent not in a house belonging to his father, but "nel suo grembo," literally in his father's lap.[33] Again, the country which he loved best and has described with the greatest love and enthusiasm is that between the village of Settignano and the city of Fiesole, north and east of Florence. As though unable to forget the lines of just those hills, the shadows on the woods there, the darkness of the cypresses over the olives, he returns to them again and again. The Ninfale Fiesolano is entirely devoted to this country, its woods and hills and streams; he speaks of it also in the Ameto,[34] it is the setting of the Decameron; while the country about Certaldo does not seem to have specially appealed to him, certainly not in the way the countryside of one's childhood never ceases to do.

It is, then, to the hills about Settignano, to the woods above the Mensola and the valley of the Affrico, that we should naturally turn to look for the scenes of his boyhood. And indeed any doubt of his presence there might seem to be dismissed by a document discovered by Gherardi, which proves that on the 18th of May, 1336, by a contract drawn up by Ser Salvi di Dini, Messer Boccaccio di Chellino da Certaldo, lately dwelling in the parish of S. Pier Maggiore and then in that of S. FelicitÀ, sold to NiccolÒ di Vegna, who bought for NiccolÒ the son of Paolo his nephew, the poderi with houses called Corbignano, partly in the parish of S. Martino a Mensola and partly in that of S. Maria a Settignano.[35] This villa of old Boccaccio's exists to-day at Corbignano, and bears his name, Casa di Boccaccio, and though it has been rebuilt much remains from his day—part of the old tower that has been broken down and turned into a loggia, here a ruined fresco, there a spoiled inscription.[36] Here, doubtless, within sound of Mensola and Affrico, within sight of Florence and Fiesole, "not too far from the city nor too near the gate," Giovanni's childhood was passed.

Of those early years we have naturally very little knowledge. Before he was seven years old, as he himself tells us,[37] he was set to learn to read and write. Then he was placed in the care of Giovanni di Domenico Mazzuoli da Strada, father of the more famous Zanobi, to begin the study of "Grammatica."[38] With Mazzuoli he began Latin then,[39] but presently his father, who had already destined him for the counting-house, took him from the study of "Grammatica" and, as Giovanni tells us, made him give his time to "Arismetrica."[40] Then, if we may believe the Filocolo, he took him into his business, where he learned, no doubt, to keep books of account and saw some of the mysteries of banking and money-lending. Against this mode of life he conceived then a most lively hatred, which was to increase rather than to diminish as he grew older. Such work, he assures us in his Commentary on the Divine Comedy, cannot be followed without sin. Great wealth, he tells us in the Filocolo, prohibits, or at least spoils virtue: there is nothing better or more honest than to live in a moderate poverty; while in the De Genealogiis Deorum he says poverty means tranquillity of soul: for riches are the enemy of quietness and a torment of the mind.

But we know nothing of his childhood, only it seems to have been unhappy. Till his return from Naples many year later, in spite of his hatred for business, he seems always to have got on well with his father.[41] In remembering words which he then wrote concerning him[42] we must remind ourselves that Boccaccino was at that time an old man, and had probably lost those "excellent manners" of which Villani speaks; and by then, too, Giovanni had altogether disappointed him, by forsaking first business, and later the study of Canon Law. His childhood seems to have been unhappy then not from any fault or want of care on his father's part, though no doubt his hatred of business had something to do with it; but the true cause of the unhappiness, and even, as he says, of the fear which haunted his boyhood, was almost certainly Margherita, his stepmother, with whom he doubtless managed to live well enough till her son Francesco was born.

We have already relied so much on the Filocolo and the Ameto that it will only confuse us to forsake them now. In the former,[43] he tells us that one day the young shepherd, Idalagos (himself), following his father, saw two bears, who glared at him with fierce and terrible eyes in which he saw a desire for his death, so that he was afraid and fled away from the paternal fields to follow his calling in other woods. These two bears who chased Giovanni from home, not directly but indirectly, by causing the fear which hatred always rouses in the young, were, it seems, Margherita and her son Francesco, born about 1321.

It may well be that Boccaccino had come to the conclusion about this time that Giovanni would never make a banker, and hoping yet to see him prosperous in the Florentine manner, sent him to Naples to learn to be a merchant. If we add to this inference the evidence of the allegory of the two bears in the Filocolo, we may conclude that his father, disappointed with him already, was not hard to persuade when Margherita, loath to see the little bastard beside her own son Francesco, urged his departure.

All this, however, is conjecture. We know nothing of Boccaccio's early years save that his father sent him to Naples to learn business while he was still young, as is generally believed in 1330, but as we may now think, not without good reason, in 1323, when he was ten years old.[44]