1363-1372

THE EMBASSIES TO THE POPE—VISITS TO VENICE AND NAPLES—BOCCACCIO'S LOVE OF CHILDREN

Boccaccio returned from Venice to Tuscany some time before September, 1363, not long before, as we may think, for the letter Petrarch wrote him on September 7[485] seems to have followed close on his heels. It appears that as he was on the eve of leaving Petrarch, for the last time as it proved, he had learned that the plague which was raging in Central and Southern Italy had carried off Lello di Pietro Stefano and Francesco Nelli, their common friends, Lelius and Simonides, as Petrarch calls them. Disliking to be the bearer of ill-tidings, Boccaccio had departed from Venice, leaving Petrarch to learn of this disaster from others, and a good part of the letter Petrarch wrote him, immediately after he was gone, it seems, is devoted to deploring the death of their friends.

"An hour after your departure," he writes, "the priest whom I had charged to carry a letter to my friend Lelius returned bringing me my letter unopened. It was not necessary for him to speak; his face told me the news.... But while with my hand I soothed this new wound, and tried to catch my breath, a second blow fell upon me. He in whose arms he expired told me of the death of our Simonides.... You are almost the only companion in learning left to me.... This year 1363, which is the sixteenth from the beginning of our miseries [from the plague of 1348], has renewed the attack on many noble cities, among others on Florence.... To this disaster is added the fury of a war against the Pisans ... of which the issue is still uncertain."

Petrarch might well be uneasy. Though never a good patriot as Boccaccio always was, he could not but be moved at the misfortunes of Florence, which had only escaped the attentions of Pandolfo Malatesta by placing herself almost at the mercy of Hawkwood and his White Company of Englishmen, fighting in the Pisan service. That winter, to the astonishment of all, a campaign was fought, for the English laughed at the Italian winter, colder maybe, but so much drier than their own, and by the spring Visconti had made peace with the Pope and with the Marquis of Montferrat, so that they were able to send Baumgarten's German company, 3000 strong, to the assistance of the Pisans, who had now not less than 6000 mercenaries in their service. Those were very anxious times in Florence, the whole contado being at the mercy of Hawkwood, and when, by the intervention of the Pope, peace was signed in the autumn of 1364, she must have been thankful, more especially as Pisa engaged to pay her 100,000 florins indemnity within ten years.

The Pope, however, was far from satisfied with Florence. He found her to have been lukewarm in the service of the Church when Romagna and the Marche rebelled, which, if true, was not surprising, for he had played fast and loose with her liberty, and now accused her of neglecting his interests and of attempting to detach other cities from his cause. These among other accusations; in return he threatened no longer to grant her his goodwill.

The whole situation was serious. The temporal power of the Church with the victories of Albornoz was again growing in Italy; it was now certain that the Pope would one day return. It was necessary to placate him. And again in this delicate mission the Florentines employed Boccaccio.

It cannot have been with very great enthusiasm that Boccaccio learned he was once more to cross the Alps on a mission as difficult as any he had handled. He had returned from Venice in 1363 quieted, altogether reconciled, for a time at any rate, with himself, determined not to abandon his work. Ever since 1359, certainly, he had devoted himself to learning, to the study of Greek and the Latin classics, of the great early Christian writers, and to the accumulation of knowledge. For ten years now, ever since the failure of his mission in 1354, he had not been asked to undertake diplomatic business, and whether or no that neglect had been due to his failure or to his intercourse with Pino de' Rossi, who in 1360 was implicated in a conspiracy against the Guelfs, it cannot have been anything but distressing, we may think, to one so patriotic, so interested in politics too, as Boccaccio, to have been so long neglected, only to be made use of again in his old age. But the true patriot is always ready to serve his country, be she never so neglectful, and so, in spite of the interference with his plans, and the hardness and trials of the journey, it was not altogether, we may be sure, without a sort of pride and gladness that he set out for Avignon in August, 1365.[486] His business was to convince the Pope that the Florentines were "the most faithful and most devout servants of Holy Church." Besides the letters which he bore for Francesco Bruni and others in Avignon, Boccaccio also carried one from the Republic to the Doge of Genoa,[487] and he remained in that city for a season. It is to his stay there that, as he tells us in the argomento, his thirteenth Eclogue refers. In that poem he tells us that he and the poet called Dafni had a discussion with a merchant Stilbone, of which Criti was judge. Stilbone eagerly praises riches at the expense of poetry, reminding Dafni how many are the perils that menace that fragile glory which poets value so highly, such as fire and war, which may easily destroy their works. Dafni, on the other hand, celebrates the power of poetry, which recalls the minds of men from the depths of Erebus. Criti praises both riches and poetry, but does not decide between them.

While Boccaccio was in Genoa, it seems, Petrarch thought he should have visited him in Pavia on his way to Avignon, but owing to the need for haste, the fatigue of the way, and the difficulties he feared to encounter at his age on the route, he was compelled not to do so. Later, on December 14, Petrarch wrote him of his disappointment:—[488]

"You have done well to visit me at least by letter, since you did not care, or you were unable, to visit me in person. Having heard that you were crossing the Alps to see the Babylon of the West, far worse than that of the East, because she is nearer to us, I was uneasy about the result of your voyage until I heard that you had returned. Knowing now for many years, by my frequent journeys, the difficulties of the roads, and remembering the weightiness of your body and the gravity of your spirit, friends of a studious leisure, and by consequence enemies of such cares and of such business, not a day, not a night has passed tranquilly for me. I thank God that you have remained safe and sound.... Assuredly, if you had not been very pressed, it would not have been difficult, since you were in Genoa, to come on here. It is only two days' journey. You would have seen me ... and you would have seen what you have not seen it seems to me—the town of Pavia (Ticinum) on the banks of the Ticino.... But since circumstances have willed that I should be deprived of your greeting, as you say, because of the fatigue of the journey and your mistrust of your strength, and because of the shortness of the time at your disposal and the order of the fatherland which awaits your return, I could have desired at least that you should have met my friend Guido [Guido Settimo], Archbishop of Genoa. In seeing him you would have seen me, for since infancy I have lived with him in perfect conformity of will and sentiment. And, believe me, you would have seen a man who, though weak in body, has a spirit of great energy; you would have said you had never seen any one more full of vitality...."

Petrarch was evidently hurt that Boccaccio had not been able to go to Pavia. It was necessary, however, for him to reach Avignon with all speed. And there, indeed, he was welcomed by Petrarch's friends. For that letter, so full of regrets, continues:—

"But to end my complaints with a congratulation, I am glad that in Babylon itself you have seen those friends that death has left me, and, above all, him who, as you say, is a veritable father: my dear Filippo, Patriarch of Jerusalem. To paint him in a few words, he is a man as great as his title, and indeed he is worthy of the Papacy if one day that should add itself to his merits. You write me that without having known you till then, he held you in a long embrace and pressed you closely and affectionately, even as I myself would have done, in the utmost friendship, in the presence of the sovereign pontiff and his astonished cardinals...."

Boccaccio seems to have remained in Avignon till November. His mission did not meet with much success: the Pope was hard to persuade and to convince. For all this trouble and fatigue Boccaccio received from the Republic ninety florins of gold, at the rate of four florins a day. This certainly could by no means have met all his expenses. Poor as he was, he had to pay for the honour of serving his country.[489]

That was probably the most important, though, as we shall see, not the last of Boccaccio's missions. It was the eve of the Pope's return to Rome, and once more Italy seemed to be in sight of a kind of peace.

The year 1366 was probably spent by Boccaccio at Certaldo in meditation and work; but in 1367, troubled again in spirit, as it seems, and very poor, he suddenly decided to set out for Venice to see Petrarch.

He left Certaldo on March 24,[490] but coming to Florence, "the continual rains, the dissuasions of friends, and the fear of the dangers of the way," added to the tales of those who had made the journey from Bologna, caused him to hesitate. Then he learned that Petrarch had left Venice for Pavia, and was once more a guest of the Visconti, so that he was on the point of giving up his journey. But the desire to see again some of those friends he had met before in Venice, and, above all, the thought of seeing Petrarch's daughter and her husband, "Thy Tullia and her Francesco," whom he had not met before, decided him to continue a journey he accomplished not without much weariness.

On the way, as it happened, he met Petrarch's son-in-law Franceschino da Brossano di Amicolo, whose character, voice, and beauty he praises so highly. "After festive and friendly greetings, after learning from him that you were safe and sound, and much other good news concerning you, I began to consider him, his form and beauty (coepi aliquandiu mecum meditari pregrandem hominis formam), his quiet and pleasing face, his calm words ... how I praised your choice. Finally he left me, for he had business to do. And I in the earliest dawn went aboard my little boat (naviculam) and immediately set out for the Venetian shore, where I landed and would have sent at once to announce myself, but some of our brother citizens were already about me and offering me hospitality.... In spite, however, of Donato's pressing invitation, I went off with Francesco Allegri.... I tell you all this in all these words to excuse myself for not having accepted the offer you made me so warmly by letter; but if my friends had not been there to meet me I should have gone to an inn rather than have dwelt in the house of Tullia while her husband was absent. However, although you know in this and in many other things the integrity of my heart towards you, all others would not know it, and some would have jeered in spite of my white hair (canum caput) and my age and my fatness and feebleness, which should surely shut their mouths. This kind of thing is easily and willingly believed by evil-minded scandal-mongers, who prefer a lie to the truth.

"After reposing myself a little I went to salute Tullia, who had already heard of my arrival.... She met me joyfully, blushing a little, and looking on the ground, with modesty and filial affection, and she saluted and embraced me....

"Presently we were talking in your charming little garden with some friends, and she offered me with matronly serenity your house, your books, and all your things there. Suddenly little footsteps—and there came towards us thy Eletta, my delight, who, without knowing who I was, looked at me smiling. I was not only delighted, I greedily took her in my arms, imagining that I held my little one (virgunculam olim meam) that is lost to me. What shall I say? If you do not believe me, you will believe Guglielmo da Ravenna, the physician, and our Donato, who knew her. Your little one has the same aspect that she had who was my Eletta, the same expression, the same light in the eyes, the same laughter there, the same gestures, the same way of walking, the same way of carrying all her little person; only my Eletta was, it is true, a little taller when at the age of five and a half I saw her for the last time.[491] Besides, she talks in the same way, uses the same words, and has the same simplicity. Indeed, indeed, there is no difference save that thy little one is golden-haired, while mine had chestnut tresses (aurea cesaries tuÆ est, meÆ inter nigram rufamque fuit). Ah me! how many times when I have held thine in my arms listening to her prattle the memory of my baby stolen away from me has brought tears to my eyes—which I let no one see."

That love of children so characteristic in an Italian, and yet so surprising in Boccaccio to those who without understanding the real simplicity of his nature have been content to think of him as a mere teller of doubtful stories, is one of the most natural and beautiful traits in his character. The little Eletta, "my delight," appears like a ray of sunshine in a lonely and even gloomy old age, which we may think perhaps, had Violante lived, might have been less bitter, less hard to bear than it proved to be. Nor is this by any means the only glimpse he gives us of his interest in children. Apart from the neglected portraits of the Decameron, we find him referring to them, their health and upbringing, in the Commentary on the Divine Comedy, when he speaks of the danger they are in from careless or neglectful nurses, who put them to rest or sleep in the light and thus hurt their eyes and induce them to squint; and yet he can believe, though probably with less than the common conviction, that a squint is the sign of an evil nature dangerous alike to the afflicted person and to those whom he may encounter.

The letter to Petrarch, however, does not end with Eletta. Boccaccio proceeds to speak of Tullia and her husband Francesco, who presently returned to Venice, and finding him there would have made him his guest, and when he refused insisted on his daily presence at his table. Nor was this all, for Boccaccio tells us that on the eve of his departure, Francesco, knowing him to be very short of money, managed to get him into a quiet corner, and putting his strong hand on the feeble arm of his guest, would not let him depart till he had given him succour, rushing away before he could thank him. "Knowing me to be poor," Boccaccio writes, "on my departure from Venice, the hour being already late, he led me into a corner (in secessu domus me traxit) and in a few words, his great hands on my feeble arm (manibus illis giganteis suis in brachiolum meum injectis), forced me in spite of my embarrassment to accept his great liberality and then escaped, saying good-bye as he went, leaving me to blame myself. May God render it him again!"

It is perhaps in that letter we see Boccaccio better than in any other of his writings; the greatest man then in Italy playing with a little child, obliged in his poverty to accept assistance from one who was almost a stranger. It was on the 30th June that Boccaccio wrote that letter to Petrarch from Florence, so that he would seem to have arrived home about midsummer.

In the following year we catch sight of him again in the service of the Republic, first, as one of the Camarlinghi,[492] later, on an embassy to the Pope, who had set out for Italy in April, and had entered Rome in October, 1367.[493]

In 1365 Urban had been besieged in Avignon by Duguesclin on his way to Spain, and had had to pay an enormous ransom as well as to absolve his enemy and his followers from all censures. This mishap, coupled with the invitation of the Romans, the passionate exhortations of Peter of Aragon, the eloquent appeal of Petrarch, and the urgent call of Albornoz, seems to have induced the Pope to undertake this adventure, which he had always looked forward to. He sailed, in spite of the opposition of the King of France, for Corneto, and at last came safely to Viterbo, which he entered in state on June 9, 1367, "with such grace and exultation that it seemed the very stones would cry, 'Blessed is he who cometh in the name of the Lord.'"[494] In Viterbo the Pope began to arrange a league against the Visconti, but he was already having trouble with Siena, and on August 20 the great Albornoz died. In September, too, a French tumult broke out in the city, and though Florence, Siena, and even Rome sent aid, Urban was besieged for three days, and was doubtless very glad to set out under the escort of the Marquis of Ferrara on October 14 for Rome. Two days later he entered the City in triumph riding on a white mule; he was received with "universal joy and acclamation."

In the spring of 1368 the Emperor, in accordance with his long unfulfilled promise to the league, came into Italy with an army to bridle the Visconti. The Papal forces and those of Giovanna of Naples joined his, but achieved nothing. Then the Emperor came into Tuscany. The rising of the Salimbeni followed in Siena, and the Emperor passed through Siena on his way to Viterbo. On October 21 he entered Rome leading the Pope's mule on foot.

It seems to have been at this moment that the Florentines thought well to send an embassy to Urban and to choose Boccaccio once more as their ambassador. All we know about the affair is, however, that on December 1, 1368, Urban wrote to the Signoria of Florence that he understood from their ambassador Giovanni Boccaccio that they desired to assist him in reforming the affairs of Italy, and that Boccaccio, whom he praises, bears his reply viva voce.[495]

The truth of the matter was that all Italy was uneasy. The advent of the Emperor had ruined the peace of Tuscany, Lombardy was ablaze with war, the Papacy was divided against itself. The French party—five French cardinals had altogether refused to leave Avignon—now ceased urging the Pope to return. Helpless and disillusioned, Urban was at the mercy of the circumstances in which he found himself, and a year later he in fact abandoned Italy again, setting out for Avignon in September, and dying there in December, 1369.

It has been said that in 1368 Boccaccio went to Padua to see Petrarch.[496] But this seems extremely unlikely, for quite apart from the fact that his growing infirmities made such a journey difficult, as we have seen in the previous year the circumstances of the time made such a journey almost impossible. Even Petrarch, a born traveller, a man who delighted in journeying, found it extremely difficult to make his way from Milan in July of that year, where he had been present at the marriage of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, to Violante, Duke Galeazzo Visconti's daughter, to Padua. "He chartered a boat," we read, "coaxed a half-frightened company of boatmen to work her, with no weapons to defend himself, and sailed down the Po. The adventure had an astonishing success. Through the river-fleets and between the manned squadrons of both armies sailed this invalid old man of a perfect courage, and the officers of both hosts vied with one another in doing him honour. His voyage was a triumphal progress...." But Boccaccio was not the world-famed Petrarch.

What does seem certain is that in 1370 he went to Naples, where he remained till 1371. This journey southward seems to have been undertaken at the invitation of a certain Abbate NiccolÒ di Montefalcone, who, probably during a sojourn in Tuscany, having borrowed his Tacitus of Boccaccio, invited the poet to visit him in his convent, the Certosa di S. Stefano, in Calabria.[497]He set out from Certaldo much charmed by the affection which the Abbate had professed for him, and delighted at the prospect of visiting his convent, with its shady woods and tranquil country-side watered by limpid streams; a place rich in books and in peace. But he had not reached his destination before he learned that the Abbate had left Calabria, as he suspected on purpose to avoid him. He was compelled to turn aside in the winter rains and to take refuge in Naples. There, justly angry at the treatment he, a poor and old man, famous too, and the friend of Petrarch, had received at the hands of a rascal, he wrote the wretched monk a letter which, that posterity may add its indignation to his, has happily come down to us. In that letter, so full of just resentment, Boccaccio accuses this blackguard of being a liar and a hypocrite. It is in fact impossible to excuse this unworthy but too common son of the Church from the accusations of Boccaccio. He must have known that the poet was old and infirm and very poor, yet apparently to amuse himself he put him to the great expense of energy and money which such a journey entailed.[498] In Florence it was said Boccaccio had gone to make him a monk.

That letter to the Abbate bears the date of xiii. Kal. Feb. and was written in Naples. The year is indicated by the fact that Boccaccio speaks there of the death of Urban V and the election of his successor, Gregory XI.[499] It seems certain then that in January, 1371, Boccaccio was in Naples.[500] There he was befriended by Conte Ugo di S. Severino, who as soon as he heard of his arrival and his poverty came to salute him and to offer to maintain him during his stay, and on his departure presented him with gifts "more worthy of the giver than the receiver."

While he was in Naples he also met a friar minor, by name Ubertino di Corigliano, who had been sent by Frederic of Sicily to conclude peace with Queen Giovanna. He was a professor of theology, a learned man and good talker. Boccaccio spoke with him of the revival of learning. "God," he says, "has been moved to compassion for the Italian name.... For in our days great men have descended from heaven, unless I am mistaken, gifted with great souls, who have brought back poetry from exile to her ancient throne."[501] Who were these men but Dante, "worthy to be named before all," and his master Petrarch. He does not add himself, as he well might.[502]

He seems to have left Naples in the autumn of 1371 and to have returned to Certaldo, where we find him in 1372, for he writes thence to Piero di Monteforte a letter dated "Nonis Aprilis."[503] From that quiet retreat, save to go to Florence, where indeed he had yet to hold the most honourable post of his whole life, he did not stir again, during the few years that remained to him.