1373-1375

ILLNESS AND DEATH

That illness which brought those lectures on the Divine Comedy so swiftly to an end in the winter of 1373 was no new thing; for long, as we have seen, Boccaccio had had a troubled spirit. If he had recovered from his grief at the death of Fiammetta, he had never wholly been himself since his conversion. The disease which then declared itself was no new thing. In his versatile and athletic spirit there had always been a strain of melancholy that had shown itself even in his earliest childhood, when he imagined he was persecuted; on his arrival in Naples as a boy, when only a kiss could restore his confidence; in the long years of his troubled and unstable love and in the loneliness of his manhood; with old age at his elbow it needed but little for his spirit, so easily joyful, to be lost in a strange darkness.

Already before he had been appointed to that lectureship in Florence he had felt himself seriously ill. Writing at the end of August, 1373, to Messer Maghinardo de' Cavalcanti he had excused himself for his long delay in answering his letter, pleading the "long infirmity which prevented me from writing to you ... and which only in the last few days has given me a little respite. Since the last time I saw you ... every hour of my life has been very like death, afflicted, tedious, and full of weariness to myself.... First of all I was beset by a continuous and burning itching, and a dry scab, to scratch the dry scales and the flakes of which I had scarce nails enough day or night; then I was afflicted by a heaviness, a sluggishness of the bowels, a perpetual agony of the veins, swelling of the spleen, a burning bile, a suffocating cough and hoarseness, heaviness of head, and indeed more maladies than I know how to enumerate; all my body languished, and all its humours were at war. And so it happened that I looked on the sky without happiness; my body was weary, my steps vacillating, my hand trembled; I was deathly pale, cared nothing for food, but held it all in abhorrence. Letters were odious to me, my books, once so delightful to me, could not please me, the forces of the soul were relaxed, my memory almost gone, my energy seemed drugged, and my thoughts were all turned to the grave and to death."[641]

But this was not all. He had scarcely got so far in his letter, he writes, when on August 12 a new ill befell him. At sunset a burning fever attacked him so fiercely that he could not leave his bed. As the night advanced the fever increased, his head ached violently, and without respite he turned and turned again in his bed, wearily looking thus for some relief. He was alone with only an old servant, who could do nothing but weep. Day came and with it some friends, who would have sent for a physician; but Boccaccio, with less gentleness than Petrarch showed, refused, till at last, utterly worn out, he allowed himself to be persuaded. The doctor who came to him was "a country doctor, accustomed to attend the peasants," as he says, "but kind and thoughtful." He told Boccaccio that unless he could rid himself of the poison which was killing him he would be dead in a few days. He brought in a cautery, a furnace, and other terrible instruments used then in medical practice. He then proceeded to use them, burning the patient largely, in many places cutting him with a razor and slashing his skin. He suffered dreadfully, but the doctor told him he was healed. And, it might seem by a direct miracle of God, he was saved out of the hands of this criminal lunatic; he slept, and little by little recovered. He was, however, very feeble. Nothing he can say against doctors can seem absurd, or exaggerated, or less than just when we remember that he had the unhappiness to fall at last into their hands.[642]

It is possible that his friends in Florence heard of his miseries and his poverty—for he was very poor, and it was really on his behalf the Cathedra Dantesca was founded. However that may be, it might have seemed impossible that one in his case could have accepted it, yet in spite of his weakness he left Certaldo and went to Florence, where, as we have seen, in accordance with the decree of the Signoria he began to lecture in October. That he broke down is not surprising; it is only wonderful that he got as far as he did. But that brief burst of energy was his last; in the winter of 1373 he returned to Certaldo really to die.

From that moment all his melancholy seems to have returned to him with fourfold strength: he who had taken his fill of life, now could no more look happily on the sky, he was a dying man and he knew it. He groped about far from Petrarch looking for some appalling certainty. He seems to have thought he could find it in the monastic life, and his solitude must have been not less profound. Death and thoughts about death haunted him, as they are wont to do imaginative people. It must have been in some such darkness as that which then fell upon him that he wrote more than one of the sonnets in which he seems to have sought in verse the power to realise what it was that was about to befall him.

In the summer of 1374 a new blow fell upon him. Petrarch was dead.[644] He heard the news first as a rumour, and then, some three months after his friend had passed away, in a letter from Francesco da Brossano, the poet's son-in-law, whom he had met at Venice. That he had already heard of his loss when he got Franceschino's letter we gather from his reply, written in the beginning of November:—

"I received your sorrowful letter, most well beloved brother, on the 31st October,"[645] he writes, "and not knowing the writing I broke the seal and looked for the name of the writer, and as soon as I read your name I knew what news you had to tell me, that is to say, the happy passing of our illustrious father and master, Francesco Petrarch, from the earthly Babylon to the heavenly Jerusalem. Although none of my friends had written me save you, since every one spoke of it I had known it for some time—to my great sorrow—and during many days I wept almost without ceasing—not at his ascension, but for myself thus unhappy and abandoned. And that is not wonderful, for no one in the world loved him more than I. And so to acquit myself, my intention was to go at once to mix my tears with yours, to lament with you and to say a last farewell at the tomb of this illustrious father. But more than ten months ago now[646] a malady, rather long and wearying than dangerous, surprised me in my native city [patria], where I was publicly expounding the Comedy of Dante. And because for four months, at the request of my friends, I followed the advice, I will not say of the doctors, but of charlatans [fabulonum], my malady did nothing but increase. The potions and the diet so upset all nutrition that unless you saw me you would not believe how weak I am become, and my appearance only too well confirms it. Wretched man that I am, you would no longer recognise him whom you saw in Venice. My skin, lately well filled, is empty now, my colour is changed, my sight dulled, while my knees shake and my hands tremble. It follows that, far from crossing the proud summits of the Apennine, on the advice of some of my friends I have just been able to return from my native city into the country of my ancestors at Certaldo. It is there I am now, half dead and restless, utterly idle and uncertain of myself, waiting only on God, who is able to heal me. But enough about myself.

"The sight and the reading of your letter having renewed my sorrow, I wept anew almost all night long. It is not Petrarch for whom I weep, for in recalling his integrity, his way of life, his youth, his old age, his prayers, his innate piety, his love of God and of his neighbour, I am assured that, delivered from the anguish of this miserable life, he has flown away to the heavenly Father, where he joys in Christ and the glory everlasting; it is for myself I weep and for his friends left in this tempestuous world like ships without rudders, driven by the winds and the waves into the midst of rocks. And in considering thus the innumerable agitations of my soul, I can easily divine what are your feelings and those of Tullia, my dear sister and your wife, whom I will always honour. I am sure you must feel a still keener bitterness than I ... but this you know too if you are wise, as I believe you to be, that we are all born to die. Our Silvanus has done what we shall do too in a little while. He is dead who was full of years. What do I say? He is not dead, but he has gone before us. Seated among the just, he pities our miseries, praying the Father of Mercy that He will give us strength to combat our faults during our pilgrimage, that when death comes He will give us a perfect end pleasing to Him; and that notwithstanding the snares of our adversary, He will lead us to Himself. I will say no more, for, as you will think I am sure, those who love this great man ought not only to cease from weeping, but to think only of the joy and hope of their coming salvation. I pray you then, in the name of your fidelity and of our friendship, offer this consolation to Tullia. For women are less able to support such shocks as this than we, and have therefore need of the firmer stay of men. But you have without doubt already done so.

"You say that he has ended his days at the village of ArquÀ in the contado of Padua; that he wished his ashes to remain always in that village, and that, to commemorate him for ever, a rich and splendid tomb is there to be built. Alas, I admit my crime, if it can be called a crime. I who am a Florentine grudge ArquÀ this shining good fortune that has befallen her rather through his humility than through her merit: the guardianship of the body of the man whose soul has been the favourite dwelling-place of the Muses and of all Helicon, the sanctuary of philosophy, the splendid ornament of the liberal arts,—of the man who above all others was possessed of Ciceronian eloquence as his writings show, has been confided to her. It follows that not only ArquÀ, almost unknown even to the Paduans, will now be known by all foreign nations however far off, but that her name will be held in honour by the whole universe. One will honour thee, ArquÀ, as, without seeing them, we honour in our thoughts the hill of Posilipo, at the foot of which are placed the bones of Virgil; ... and Smyrna, where Homer sleeps, and other like places.... I do not doubt that the sailor returning laden with riches from the farthest shores of the sea, sailing the Adriatic and seeing afar the venerable summits of the Euganean Hills, will say to himself or to his friends: 'Those hills guard in their breast the glory of the universe, him who was once the triumph of all knowledge, Petrarch the poet of sweet words, who by the Consular Senate was crowned in the Mother City with the laurel of triumph, and whose many beautiful works still proclaim his inviolable renown.' The black Indian, the fierce Spaniard ... seized with admiration for this sacred name, will one day come and before the tomb of so great a man salute with respect and piety the ashes which it holds, complaining the while of their misfortune that they should not have seen him living whom dead they visit. Alas, my unhappy city, to whom it has not been given to guard the ashes of so illustrious a son, to whom so splendid a glory has been refused, it is true that thou art unworthy of such an honour, thou hast neglected to draw him to thee when he was alive and to give him that place in thy heart which he merited. Ah, had he been an artisan of crimes, a contriver of treasons, a past master in avarice, envy, and ingratitude, thou wouldst have called him to thee. Yet even as thou art I should prefer that this honour had been accorded thee rather than ArquÀ. But it is thus is justified the old saying, 'A prophet is not without honour save in his own country.' For he always knew how to avoid it, that he might imitate Christ his Master and Redeemer in humility, Who preferred to be born according to the flesh at Nazareth rather than at Jerusalem, and Who loved better to have for mother a poor virgin who was holy than the most proud and powerful queens of His time. And so, since God has wished it, let the name of ArquÀ live through the centuries and let her inhabitants preserve always an honour for which they should indeed be thankful.

"But I am glad that a tomb is to be erected, for the splendour of his name and the magnificence of his works render him worthy of it. It is very probable, however, that it will seem of little importance to the eyes of the learned, who consider rather the qualities of the dead than the honours done to their bodies, to whom he has manifested himself in many volumes, outshining the sun. But that tomb will be a means of impressing the ignorant, whose books are sculptures and paintings....

"As for his generosity towards his friends and to myself, I cannot briefly tell it over, and so I leave it for another time, should it offer, contenting myself for the moment with these words. I have known by his many benefits towards me in time past how much he loved me while he lived. I see now by his actions[647] that his friendship has followed me even in his death, and unless in a better life after this passage that we call death one loses one's friends, I think he will love me still. He will love me not because I have merited it, but because he is always faithful to him whom he has once adopted for his own, and I have been his during forty years and more.[648] And now, when he can no longer show his affection by words or by writings, he has wished to number me among his heirs, so you write me, leaving me a very ample portion of his wealth. How happy I am, and how I rejoice that he has acted as he has done, but I regret to be forced to come so soon into possession of his legacy that I shall accept with joy. I should like better to see him live and to be deprived of his gift; but this is a pious wish, and in thanking you for your affection I accept as the supreme gift and legacy of his kindness what you sent me some days ago.

"This letter should have finished there, but friendship constrains me to add something more. I should have learned with pleasure what has been done with the library—so very precious as it is—of this illustrious man, for with us opinion is divided. But what worries me most is to know what is become of the works he composed, and especially his Africa, which I consider as an inspired work. Does it still exist, and will it be preserved, or has it been burned, as when he was alive you know well this severe critic of his own work threatened? I learn that the examination of this work and of others has been confided, by I know not whom, to certain persons. I am astonished at the ignorance of him who has had the management of this affair, but still more do I wonder at the temerity and lightness of those who have undertaken the examination. Who would dare to criticise what our illustrious master has approved? Not Cicero himself, if he returned, nor Horace, nor Virgil, would dare to do so. Alas, I fear that this examination has been confided to the jurists, who because they know law, just those by which they impudently live, imagine they know everything. I pray God that He take notice of it, and that He protect the poems and other sacred inventions of our master. Let me hear if the cause is yet submitted to these judges, and if those who desire can approach these men. Tell me too what is become of the other works, and especially of the book of the Trionfi, which, according to some, has been burnt on the advice of the judges ... than whom learning has no more ignorant enemies. Besides, I know how many envies still attack the reputation of this most eminent man. Certainly, if they can, they will spoil his works, they will hide them, they will condemn them; they do not understand, and they will make every effort that they may be lost to us. Prevent this with all your vigilance, for the best men now and in the future of Italy will be deprived of a great advantage if all these works remain at the mercy of the ignorant and the envious....

"I have finished this letter at Certaldo, the 7th November,[649] and as you see, I cannot say I have written in haste, I have taken almost three whole days to write this short epistle, with a few intervals to allow me to rest my exhausted body.

"Your Giovanni Boccaccio, if he still exists."

That letter was in truth his swan song. In the previous August he had made his Will,[650] and lonely in the dark house in Certaldo,[651] he had little else to do than to pray "the Father of Mercy to lead him to Himself." In those last months, at any rate, he seems to have given himself up almost with passion to religious contemplation. He who had been so scornful of relics filled his house with them, eagerly collecting them whenever he could in spite of his poverty.[652] He seems too to have consoled himself, as many another has done, with the perfect beauty of the Divine Office, for a Breviary was among his books, and is named in his Will. That is almost all we know or may conjecture concerning those last days, which he passed, it seems, almost in solitude[653] on that hill of Certaldo—a magician, as was said of Virgil and Ovid by the folk of Naples and Sulmona, knowing all the secrets of Nature.

Infirm and ill as he was, he must often have looked from his room over the world that lay there as fair as any in Tuscany, a land of hills about a quiet valley where the olives are tossed to silver in the wind, and the grapes are kissed by the sun into gold and purple, where the corn whispers between the vines—till for him too at last the grasshopper was become a burden. There, on December 21, 1375, he died and was buried, as he had ordained in his testament, in the church of SS. Jacopo e Filippo, leaving, as it is said, the following verses for his epitaph:—

There beside the quiet waters of the Elsa, which puts all to sleep, lies the greatest story-teller in the world.