[303] See his romance, Leucippe and Clectophon, Lib. VIII, cap. 12.

[304] For the ottava in Italy see Rajna, Le fonti dell' Orlando Furioso (Sansoni, Florence, 1900), pp. 18-19. Baldelli, op. cit., p. 33, however, did not go so far as Trissino and Crescimbeni in such an assertion, contenting himself with assuring us that Boccaccio "colla Teseide aperse la nobile carriera de' romanzeschi poemi, degli epici, per cui posteriormente tanto sopravanzÒ l' Italiana ogni straniera letteratura. Il suo ingegno creatore correggendo, e migliorando l' ottava de' Siciliani, che non usavan comporla con piÙ di due rime e una terza aggiungendone, per cui tanto leggiadramente si chiude e tanto vaga si rende, trovÒ quel metro su cui cantarono e gli Ariosti, e i Tassi vanamente sperando trovarne altro piÙ adeguato agli altissimi e nobilissimi loro argomenti."

[305] Cf. Fiammetta, ed. cit., cap. ii. p. 45, where by the mouth of Fiammetta his apprehensions are expressed. "La tua cittÀ [Florence]," she says to him, "as you yourself have already said, is full of boastful voices and of cowardly deeds, and she serves not a thousand laws, but even as many, it seems, as she has men. She is at war within and without, so that a citizen is like a foreigner, he trembles. She is furnished with proud, avaricious, and envious people, and full of innumerable anxieties. And all this your soul abhors. Now the city you would leave is, as you know, joyful, peaceful, rich, and magnificent, and lives under one sole king; the which things I know well are pleasing to you. And besides all these, I am here; but you will not find me whither you go."

[306] In Ameto, ed. cit., p. 187, when Ibrida tells his story, he says his father was unworthy of such a mistress: "Ma il mio padre siccome indegno di tale sposa traendolo i fati, s' ingegnÒ d' annullare i fatti sacramenti, e le 'mpromesse convenzioni alla mia madre. Ma gli Iddii non curantisi di perdere la fede di sÌ vile uomo, con abbondante redine riserbando le loro vendette a giusto tempo, il lasciarono fare; e quello che la mia madre gli era si fece falsamente d' un altra nelle sue parti. La qual cosa non prima sentÌ la sventurata giovane, dal primo per isciagurata morte, e dal secondo per falsissima vita abbandonata, che i lungamente nascosi fuochi fatti palesi co' ricevuti inganni, chiuse gli occhi e del mondo a lei mal fortunoso, si rendÈ agli Iddii. Ma Giunone nÈ Imeneo non porsero alcuno consentimento a' secondi fatti, benchÈ chiamati vi fossero; anzi esecrando la adultera giovane con lo 'ngannevole uomo, e verso loro con giuste ire accendendosi, prima privatolo di gran parte de' beni ricevuti da lei, e dispostolo a maggiore ruina a morte la datrice, la data e la ricevuta progenie dannarono con infallibile sentenzia, visitando con nuovi danni chi a tali effetti porse alcuna cagione." Cf. also Ameto, ed. cit., p. 252 et seq., and Fiammetta, ed. cit., cap. ii. p. 42.

[307] On the different houses of Boccaccino in Florence, see an unpublished MS. by Gherardi, La Villeggiatura di Maiano, which I believe to be in the Florentine archives. A copy is in the possession of Mrs. Ross, of Poggio Gherardo, near Florence. From this copy I give cap. iv. of the MS. in Appendix III.

[308] Ameto, ed. cit., p. 254.

[309] Fiammetta, ed. cit., cap. v. p. 63: "Quando di piÙ d' un mese essendo il promesso tempo passato."

[310] Ibid., p. 64. Fiammetta asks: "How long ago had you news of him?" "It is about fifteen days," says the merchant, "since I left Florence." "And how was he then?" "Very well; and the same day that I set out, newly entered his house a beautiful young woman who, as I heard, had just married him."

[311] Cf. Baldelli, op. cit., p. 276, n. 1: "26 Januarii, 1349 [i.e. 1350 according to our reckoning]. Dominus Ioannes quondam Boccacci, populi SanctÆ Felicitatis, tutor Iacobi pupilli ejus fratris, et filii quondam et heredis DominiÆ Bicis olim matris suÆ, et uxoris q. dicti Boccaccii et filiÆ q. Ubaldini Nepi de Bosticcis." This document, which gives us the name of Boccaccino's second wife, tells us also that Giovanni was his brother's guardian and governor in January, 1350. Crescini had already suggested (op. cit., p. 102 n.), following Baldelli, that the Lia of the Ameto was a Baroncelli when Sanesi (Un documento inedito su Giovanni Boccaccio in Rassegna Bibliografica della Lett. Ital. (Pisa, 1893), An. I, No. 4, p. 120 et seq.) proved it to be so, giving a genealogical table:—

Gherardo Baroncelli
"
Donna Love = Baldino di Nepo de' Bostichi
"
——————
" "
Gherardo Bice = Boccaccino
"
Jacopo

[312] Cf. Crescini, op. cit., p. 155, note 3. Arch. Stat. Fior. (Archivio della Grascia Prammatica del 1343): "1343. die Maij Domina Bice uxor Boccaccij de Certaldo populi S. Felicitatis habet guarnaccham de camecha coloris purpurini," etc.

[313] See Appendix III, MS. of Gherardi.

[314] See supra, n. 1.

[315] Boccaccino still possessed the house in popolo di S. FelicitÀ when he died. See supra, p. 98, n. 3.

[316] It must be remembered that in 1343 Giovanni was thirty years old.

[317] Cf. Fiammetta, ed. cit., cap. ii. p. 45, already quoted supra, p. 96, note 1.

[318] Gio. Villani, Lib. XI, cap. 137.

[319] See the De Casibus Virorum Illustrium, Lib. IX, cap. 24; cf. Hortis, Studi, etc., pp. 127-8. A translation in verse of the De Casibus was made by Lydgate, The Fall of Princes, first printed by Pynson in 1494; later editions, 1527, 1554 (Tottel), and John Wayland's, 1558. There is no modern edition. It is a disgrace to our two universities that no modern edition of Lydgate has been published.

[320] Cf. W. Heywood, Palio and Ponte (Methuen, 1904), pp. 7-9. These races or palii seem to have originated in the thirteenth century (cf. Villani, Cronica, Lib. I, cap. 60, and Dante, Paradiso, xvi 40-2). Benvenuto da Imola says, "Est de more FlorentiÆ, quod singulis annis in festo Iohannis BaptistÆ currant equi ad brevium in signum festivÆ laetitiÆ..." He goes on to say that the race was run from S. Pancrazio, the western ward of the city, through the Mercato Vecchio, to the eastern ward of S. Piero. Goro di Stazio Dati, who died in 1435, thus describes the palio of S. John in Florence. I quote Mr Heywood's excellent redaction from Dati's Storia di Firenze (Florence, 1735), pp. 84-9, in his Palio and Ponte, u s "... Thereafter, dinner being over, and midday being past, and the folk having rested awhile according to the pleasure of each of them; all the women and girls betake themselves whither the horses which run the palio will pass. Now these pass through a straight street, through the midst of the city, where are many dwellings, beautiful, sumptuous houses of good citizens, more than in any other part thereof. And from one end of the city to the other, in that straight street which is full of flowers, are all the women and all the jewels and rich adornments of the city; and it is a great holiday. Also there are always many lords and knights and foreign gentlemen, who come every year from the surrounding towns to see the beauty and magnificence of that festival. And there, through the said Corso, are so many folk that it seemeth a thing incredible, the like whereof he who hath not seen it could neither believe nor imagine. Thereafter, the great bell of the Palagio de' Signori is tolled three times, and the horses, ready for the start, come forth to run. On high upon the tower, may be seen, by the signs made by the boys who are up there, that is of such an one and that of such an one (quello È del tale, e quello È del tale). And all the most excellent race-horses of the world are there, gathered together from all the borders of Italy. And that one which is the first to reach the Palio is the one which winneth it. Now the Palio is borne aloft upon a triumphal car, with four wheels, adorned with four carven lions which seem alive, one upon every side of the car, drawn by two horses, with housings with the emblem of the Commune thereon, and ridden by two varlets which guide them. The same is a passing rich and great Palio of fine crimson velvet in two palii, and between the one and the other a band of fine gold a palm's width, lined with fur from the belly of the ermine and bordered with miniver fringed with silk and fine gold; which, in all, costeth three hundred florins or more.... All the great piazza of S. Giovanni and part of the street is covered with blue hangings with yellow lilies; the church is a thing of marvellous form, whereof I shall speak at another time...." Boccaccio must often have seen these races. Cf. Decameron, Day VI, Nov. 3.

[321] Lydgate, op. cit., Lib. IX.

[322] We do not know when, if at all at this time, Boccaccio returned to Naples. The only testimony by which Baldelli, Witte, and Koerting hold that he was in Naples in 1345 is the passage in the De Casibus Virorum Illustrium, Lib. IX, cap. 25, where he narrates, as though he had been present on the occasion, the terrible end of Philippa la Catanese (see infra). Witte, however, wishes to support this evidence by an interpretation of certain words in the letter to Zanobi, Longum tempus effluxit (see Corrazini, op. cit., p. 33). Hortis, Gaspary, and Hauvette, however, assert that in the De Casibus, u.s., Boccaccio does not actually say he was present on the occasion mentioned, but only says, quÆ fere vidi, while the passage in the letter to Zanobi, they say, refers to Acciaiuoli. Lastly, Hecker observes that the words of Boccaccio seem to prove that he was in Naples in 1345. In fact, speaking of the condemnation and torture of the Catanese as accomplice in the assassination of King Andrew he says: "quÆdam auribus, quÆdam oculis sumpta meis describam."

[323] See Arch. St. per la prov. Nap., An. V, p. 617. For an excellent account of King Robert's reign, as of Giovanna's, see Baddeley, King Robert the Wise and His Heirs (Heinemann, 1881). It is a good defence of the Queen.

[324] Gio. Villani, who did not love the Angevins, tells us that King Robert was full of every virtue, admitting, however, that in his last years he was very avaricious; and in this he agrees with Boccaccio. He says, however, that he was the wisest monarch of Christendom after Charlemagne. Boccaccio too calls him Solomon. In a poem attributed to Convenevole da Prato he is hailed as the sovereign of United Italy. But it is to Petrarch he owes his fame. Robert was a great patron of the Franciscans, then utterly rotten. Boccaccio doubtless saw enough in Naples to give him justification for his stories later. See infra.

[325] Petrarch, Egloga, II.

[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:—

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]

[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:—

[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.

[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:—

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,

[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.

[372] Cf. Manicardi e Massera, op. cit., p. 37.

[373] Supra, p. 136, n. 1.

[374] In xl. he writes, "Quella splendida fiamma"; in xli., "Quindi nel petto entrommi una fiammetta"; in xlvi., "Se quella fiamma"; in lxiii., "Amorosa fiamma"; in lxxxiii., "Accese fiamme attingo a mille a mille."

[375] Sonnets xxxi., xxxii., liii. refer without doubt to Fiammetta, but are indeterminate in time.

[376] See supra, p. 38.

[377] See supra, p. 55.

[378]

[379] See supra, p. 56.

[380] Note the "occhi falsi" in sonnet xiv.

[381] But see sonnet lviii.

[382] Sonnet lxvii.

[383] Sonnet lx. Cf. Dante, Paradiso, iv. 28-39.

[384] Cf. supra, p. 16.

[385] Cf. Crescini, op. cit., p. 167, note 3.

[386] Cf. sonnets xxi., li., lxxvii., lxxxiii., and cf. Manicardi e Massera, op. cit., p. 50.

[387] See supra, p. 128.

[388] See Crescini, op. cit., p. 258. He quotes the following from Libro Primo del Monte, Quartiere S. Spirito, cap. 162: "Anno mcccxlviij [=1349 n.s.] Ind j^a die nono mensis Maij positum est dictum creditum ad aliam rationem dicti Boccaccij sive Boccaccini in presenti quarterio ad car 110, ad instantiam eiusdem Bocchaccij per me dinum M^l Attaviani notarium."

[389] Cf. Crescini, op. cit., p. 258. He quotes the following from the Libro Primo above, cap. 110^b: "Mcccxlviiij, Ind iij^a die xxv Ianuarij, de licencia domini Iohannis filij et heredis, ut dixit, dicti Boccaccij hereditario nomine concessa dicto per me Bartalum maÇÇatelli notarium positum est dictum creditum in libro quarterij S^e Crucis et carta 50."

[390] The document is quoted by Manni, op. cit., p. 21. It is as follows: "Mcccxlviiij 26 Ianuarii D. Ioannes q. Boccacci pop. S. Felicitatis tutor Iacobi pupilli eius fratris, et filii quondam, et heredis D. Bicis olim matris suÆ, et uxoris q. dicti Boccaccii, et filiÆ q. Ubaldini Nepi de Bosticcis."

Sanesi, in Rassegna Bib. della Lett. It. (Pisa, 1893), Vol. I, No. 4, p. 120 et seq., publishes a document dated May 17, 1351, in which certain "actores, factores et certos numptios speciales" are appointed to act with Giovanni as guardians of Jacopo, viz. Ser Domenico di Jacopo and Ser Francesco di Vanello notari fiorentini. This leads Sanesi to suggest that Boccaccio was a failure as a guardian. The document, however, by no means deposes him and on the same day he inscribed himself in the Matricoli dell' Arte dei Giudici et Notari. The document speaks of "Iacobi ... pupilli majoris tamen infante," which leads Sanesi to think that Jacopo was out of his infancy. Crescini in Rassegna Bib., cit., An. I, Nos. 8-9, pp. 243-5, disputes Sanesi's conclusions as to the incapacity of Giovanni and the age of Jacopo. I agree with Crescini.

[391] This was about the average loss throughout Europe.

[392] Siena never really recovered, nor did Pisa.

[393] Cf. Tanfani, NiccolÒ Acciaiuoli, studi storici (Firenze, 1863), p. 82.

[394] Supra, p. 120, n. 1.

[395] Mehus, Ambrosii Traversarii Vita (Firenze, 1759).

[396] It has been said by Hortis that the "olim" is unlikely to have referred to so recent an embassy, one which, in fact, was only in being two months before. I do not see the force of this. The "olim" is used in our sense of late, "the late ambassador." In November, as we shall see, Boccaccio was back in Florence. In the sense of "late" we find the "olim" used in the document already quoted in which Giovanni is appointed guardian of his brother Jacopo (supra, cap. x. n. 4): "... et heredis D. Bicis olim matris suÆ," i.e. "and heir of Donna Bice, his late mother."

[397] Baldelli, op. cit., p. 377. Baldelli seems here to have confused himself—at any rate he expresses himself badly. It is difficult to see clearly what he means. He is wrong too when he gives the commission from the Or San Michele as being of the month of December; Landau follows him in this. The commission was of the month of September. See supra, p. 120, n. 1.

[398] See supra, p. 119, n. 1.

[399] Ciampi, Monumenti di un Manoscritto autografo di Messer G. B. (Firenze, 1827), goes further than Baldelli and is in evident error. He connects this embassy of 1350 with the descent of King Louis of Hungary. This is impossible. That Boccaccio did meet King Louis in ForlÌ, and that he accompanied him with "suo signore" Francesco degli Ordelaffi into Campania is certain, as we have seen (supra, p. 124); but that was in 1347, not in 1350, and when he was a visitor at ForlÌ, not when he was Florentine ambassador there. How could he call Ordelaffo "suo signore" when he was the servant of Florence? And how could he follow Ordelaffo and the King, when he was ambassador, without the permission of Florence? Moreover, according to Ciampi, all this occurred, not in 1347, but in 1350. Now in May, 1350, King Louis was in Aversa, and from February, 1350, Ordelaffo was fighting the Papal arms in Romagna, which had been turned against him on account of the rebellion of the Manfredi of Faenza, which he was supposed to have instigated. We see him victor in fight after fight; he took Bertinoro in May, Castracaro in July, Meldola in August, and the war continued throughout 1351 and longer. In 1350 then neither did the King descend into Italy nor did Ordelaffo accompany him. These things happened in 1347. Besides, in February, 1350, Boccaccio was in accord with NiccolÒ Acciaiuoli and, as we have seen, assisted as witness at the donation of Prato. Cf. Tanfani, NiccolÒ Acciaiuoli, pp. 79-82.

[400] Of course, Boccaccio was in Ravenna in September, 1350, and probably saw Bernardino there, for he must have known him very well.

[401] See the letter to the Pope of September 10, 1349, given in Arch. Stor. Ital., Series I, Appendix, Vol. VI, p. 369.

[402] See the letters of February 17, February 23, February 28, 1350, in Arch., cit., u.s., pp. 373-4.

[403] "The luxury, vice, and iniquity of Avignon during the Papal residence became proverbial throughout Europe; and the corruption of the Church was most clearly visible in the immediate neighbourhood of its princely head. Luxury and vice, however, are costly, and during the Pope's absence from Italy the Papal States were in confusion and yielded scanty revenues. Money had to be raised from ecclesiastical property throughout Europe, and the Popes in Avignon carried extortion and oppression of the Church to an extent it had never reached before." (Creighton, History of the Papacy, Vol. I, p. 51.)

[404] Letter of November, 1350, in Arch., cit., u.s., p. 378.

[405] Arch. Stor. It., u.s., p. 376.

[406] It seems certain that they had been in correspondence for some years, perhaps for more than fifteen. In the letter to Boccaccio of January 7, 1351, Petrarch speaks of a poem that Boccaccio had long since sent him (? 1349) (Famil., XI, 1); while in the letter to Franceschino da Brossano, written after Petrarch's death in 1374, Boccaccio says "I was his for forty years or more" (Corazzini, op. cit., p. 382). This would seem to mean he had loved his work for so long, and brings us to 1341-4. It still seems to me just doubtful whether this meeting in Florence in 1350 was their first encounter. As I have said, Petrarch came to Florence in October; by November 2 he was in Rome, whence he wrote Boccaccio on that date an account of his journey. Now as we shall presently see, in a letter written much later (Epist. Fam., XXI, 15), he distinctly says that he first met Boccaccio, who had come to meet him when he was hurrying across Central Italy in midwinter. No one, least of all an Italian and a somewhat scrupulous scholar, would call October 15 midwinter. Perhaps then it will be said that he met him on his return from Rome in December. But already in November he is writing to Boccaccio—we have the letter—in the most familiar and affectionate terms. Can it be that they met after all (see supra, pp. 60 and 111) in 1341 or perhaps in 1343? The problem seems insoluble on our present information.

[407] Cf. Hortis, op. cit., pp. 509-10.

[408] I have already shown (supra, p. 153, n. 2) that it is possible to doubt whether the meeting in Florence was their first meeting. It is, however, generally accepted as the first by modern scholars. Cf. Landau and Antona Traversi.

[409] Cf. Epistol. Famil., Lib. XXI, 15.

[410] See Æneid, VIII, 162 et seq.

[411] Horace, EpistolÆ, Lib. I, 14.

[412] Epistol. Famil., Lib. XI, 1.

[413] Cf. M. Villani, in R. I. S., XIV, 18.

[414] The chair was to be in any faculty Petrarch chose. D. Rosetti insists that it was offered at Boccaccio's suggestion (Petrarca, Giulio Celso e Boccaccio (Trieste, 1823), p. 351), and asserts that the short biography of Petrarch which he attributes to Boccaccio was composed to persuade the Government of Florence to repair Petrarch's wrongs. Tiraboschi (op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 253-4), with tears in his voice, cannot decide whether the affair did more honour to Petrarch or to Florence. So far as Florence is concerned, I see no honour in the affair at all. She was asking Petrarch to do her an inestimable service by bolstering up her third-rate university. In order to get him to do this, she was willing to pay back what she had stolen and (a poor gift when she was begging for foreigners as citizens) to repeal the edict of banishment against him. Petrarch treated the whole impudent attempt to get round him in the right way. And Florence, when she found nothing was to be got out of him, repealed the repeal. But surely we know the Florentines!

[415] Corazzini, op. cit., p. 391 and Hortis, Boccaccio Ambasciatore in Avignone (Trieste, 1875)

[416] Epist. Famil., II, xii.

[417] Cf. Corazzini, op. cit., p. 47.

[418] Corazzini, op. cit., p. 47. Letter of July, 1353. Petrarch in May-June, 1353, had accepted the patronage of Giovanni Visconti.

[419] Cf. Crescini, op. cit., p. 258. I quote the document. Camarlinghi del Comune Quad. 75 and 76 Gennaio-Febbraio 1350-1. "In dei nomine amen. Hic est liber sive quaternus In se continens solutiones factas tempore Religiosorum virorum fratris Benedicti caccini et fratris Iacopi Iohannis de ordine fratrum sancti marci de flor. Et discretorum virorum domini Iohannis Bocchaccij de Certaldo pro quarterio Sⁱ Spiritus et Pauli Neri de bordonibus pro quarterio S^e Marie novelle laicorum, civium florentinorum, camerariorum camere comunis florentie pro duobus mensibus initiatis die primo mensis Ianuarij Millesimo trecentesimo quinquagesimo [1351, n.s.] Ind iiij," etc. etc.

[420] In May, as we have seen, he was inscribed in the Arte dei Giudici e Notai. Cf. supra, p. 145, n. 4.

[421] Cf. Hortis, Boccaccio Ambasciatore, cit., p. 8, n. 4, and Docs. 2, 3, 4, 5.

[422] Cf. Hortis, op. cit., p. 9. n. 1. Baldelli, op. cit., pp. 112-13, and Witte are wrong in supposing Ludwig to be Ludovico il Romano, as Hortis shows.

[423] Florence broke off communications after consulting Siena and Perugia. Cf. Arch. Stor. Ital., Ser. I. App. VII, p. 389.

[424] Cf. Arch. Stor. Ital., u.s., p. 389.

[425] Cf. Matteo Villani, Lib. IV. In July (see letter quoted supra) we know Boccaccio to have been in Ravenna. He says to Petrarch, "Pridie quidem IIII ydus julii forte Ravennam urbem petebam, visitaturus civitatis Principem et ut ferebat iter Livii forum intravi...." He arrived, then, on July 12, and it was a friend he met in ForlÌ (Livii) who told him that Petrarch had entered the service of the Visconti. He reproaches him, as we have seen. Nelli, whom he here calls Simonides, was also in Ravenna. He upbraids Petrarch, as we have seen, in allegory, asking how Sylvanus (Petrarch) can desert and betray the nymph Amaryllis (Italy) and go over to the oppressor Egon (Visconti), the false priest of Pan (the Pope), a monster of crime. Cf. Corazzini, op. cit., p. 47.

[426] See docs. cited in Arch. Stor. Ital., u.s., pp. 392-4.

[427] Baldelli, Hortis, Landau, and Koerting are all in agreement that this mission took place in April, 1354, not April, 1353. The instructions of the Republic, which I quote infra, were published by Canestrini in Arch. St. It., u.s., p. 393, but under the erroneous date of April 30, 1353. In April, 1353, Charles was not about to set out.

The letter of instruction is as follows:—

The entry in the Libri d' uscita della Camera dei Camerlinghi del Comune—Quaderno del Marzo-Aprile, 1354, under date April 29, is given by Crescini as follows:—

[428] See Manni, Istoria del Decamerone (Firenze, 1742), p. 144; Antona Traversi in Landau, Gio. Boccaccio sua vita ed opere (Napoli, 1882), p. 523; Koerting, Boccaccio's Leben und Werke (Leipzig, 1880), pp. 244 and 673-4; and cf. Salviati, Avvertimenti della Lingua sopra il Decamerone (Venezia, 1584), Lib. II, cap. 12.

[429] I deal with the form of the Decameron later. See infra, p. 292.

[430] The original MS. has disappeared. The oldest we now possess seems to have been written in 1368 by Francesco Mannelli. The later Hamilton MS., now in Berlin, is, however, the better of the two. Cf. H. Hauvette, Della parentela esistenta fra il MS. Berlinese del Dec. e il codice Mannelli in Giorn. St. d. Lett. It. (1895), XXXI, p. 162 et seq.

[431] Foscolo, Discorso Storico sul testo del Decamerone ... premesso all' edizione delle Cento Novelle fatta in Londra (Lugano, 1828), p. 9.

[432] Cf. Decameron, Proem, where he speaks of his love for Fiammetta and the "discomfort," and "suffering" it brought him, "not indeed by reason of the cruelty of the beloved lady, but through the superabundant ardour engendered in the soul by ill-bridled desire; the which, as it allowed me no reasonable period of quiescence, frequently occasioned me inordinate distress."

[433] We know that Boccaccio had three children, two sons and a daughter. We do not know by whom.

[434] So that when he wrote the Proem (? 1353) he still loved her.

[435] Conclusion to Day IV.

[436] Day II, Nov. 10.

[437] Closing words of Day II, Nov. 7.

[438] Day II, Nov. 10.

[439] Day II, Nov. 9.

[440] That mere fact should enlighten us, for we may well believe such a subject of "jovial discourse" impossible to-day.

[441] Cf. Prologue to the Fourth Day: "Know then, my discreet ladies, that some there are who reading these little stories have alleged that I am too fond of you, and that 'tis not a seemly thing that I should take so much pleasure in ministering to your gratification and solace; and some have found fault with me for praising you as I do."

[442] See the interesting study of the Corbaccio by Hauvette in Bulletin Italien (Bordeaux, 1901), Vol. I, No. I. Boccaccio says in the Corbaccio: "E primieramente la tua etÀ, per la quale, se le tempie giÀ bianche e la canuta barba non m' ingannano, tu dovresti avere li costumi del mondo, fuor delle fasce giÀ sono degli anni quaranta e giÀ venticinque, cominciatili a conoscere" (Ed. Moutier, 183). Hauvette interprets this: "Grown out of swaddling clothes as you are these forty years, you have known the world for twenty-five...." The majority of critics agree that the Corbaccio was written ca. 1355, in which year Boccaccio was forty-two years old. Twenty-five years before brings us to 1330, or almost to the dates on which he (1) deserted trade, and (2) first saw Fiammetta. But in another place in the same book he suggests that the book was written when the new year was about to begin: "l' anno ... È tosto per entrar nuovo," so that we may refer this unfortunate contretemps, and the writing of the Corbaccio in consequence, to December, 1355, i.e. February, 1356, new style, which brings us almost exactly to March, 1331, the day of the meeting with Fiammetta.

As to the title of this book we know nothing. If it signifies the Evil Raven and is derived from corbo, corvo, we cannot decide whether it refers to the widow, or her husband, or to Boccaccio himself. On the other hand, it may be derived from corba (Latin, corbis), a basket or trap, and this would be explicable. All we know is that in by far the greater number of MSS., and these the oldest, the work bears the title Corbaccio or Corbaccino; but whether this is owing to Boccaccio or not we cannot decide. The word does not occur in the text. The copyists were certainly unaware of its significance, and have always given it a sub-title, e.g. Corbaccio: libro del rimedio dello amore, ... detto il Corbaccio, or Corbaccius sive contra sceleratam viduam et alias feminas invectivÆ, or Corbaccio nimico delle femmine. The false title Laberinto d' amore does not occur till the sixteenth century. Cf. Hauvette, op. cit., p. 3. n. 1.

[443] The sources of this amazing and amusing book are not far to seek. In the Divine Comedy it had been love which had let Dante out of the selva oscura; here the selva oscura is love and it is reason or experience who delivers Boccaccio. Another source, as Pinelli, Corbaccio in Propugnatore, XVI (Bologna, 1883), pp. 169-92, has shown, is found in Giovenale. "L' imitazione," says Pinelli, "del Boccaccio non È pedestre, ma artifiziosa come quella che cogliendo sempre il solo punto capitale del pensiero, e trascurando la particolaritÀ meno interessanti, aggiunge di suo tante inestimabili bellezze da rendere l' opera originale."

[445] I use the translation of Mr. P. H. Wicksteed, The Early Lives of Dante (Chatto and Windus, 1907).

[446] Cf. Machiavelli, Lettere, Lettera di Dec. 10.

[447] Petrarch, Fam., XVIII, 3 and 4.

[448] But see Lo Parco, Petrarca e Barlaam da nuove ricerche e documenti inediti e rari (Reggio, Calabria, 1905).

[449] See De Nohlac, Les Scholies inÉdites de PÉtrarque sur HomÈre in Revue de Philologie, de LittÉrature et d'Histoire anciennes, Vol. XI (Paris, 1887), p. 97 et seq.; and Idem, PÉtrarque e Barlaam in Revue des Études grecques (Paris, 1892).

[450] Petrarch, Fam., XVIII (Fracassetti, 2nd ed., Vol. II, p. 474).

[451] He says of it: "Libellus, ille vulgo qui tuus fertur, et si cuius sit non constet, tibi excerptus tibique inscriptus tuus utique non est."—Fam., XXIV, 12 (Fracassetti, Vol. III, p. 293). Cf. also Fam., X (Fracassetti, Vol. II, p. 89), and the critical edition of F. Plessis, Italici Ilias Latina (Paris 1885).

[452] Fam., XVIII, 2.

[453] See the letter to Boccaccio, to be quoted later. Var., XXV.

[454] Cf. Petrarch, Fam., XX, 6, 7 (To Francesco Nelli, III, Id. Ap.). This visit of Boccaccio's to Petrarch has been long known to have taken place in the spring of 1359; but the date is fixed for us by a MS. in Petrarch's hand found by De Nohlac in his Apuleius (Vatican MS. 2193, fol. 156). Cf. De Nohlac, PÉtrarque et son jardin in Giornale Storico della Letteratura Italiana, Vol. XI (1887), p. 404 et seq. I give below that part of the MS. which refers to 1359:—

"Anno 1359, sabato, hora quasi nona martie die xvj^o retentare huiusce rei fortunam libuit. Itaque et lauros Cumo [? Como] transmissas per Tadeum nostrum profundis itidem scrobibus seuimus in orto Sancte Valerie Mediolani, luna decrescente; et fuerunt due tenere, tres duriores. Aliquot post dies nubila fuerunt et pars anni melior quam in superioribus (imo et pluviosi mirum in modum crebris et immensis imbribus quotidie, ut sepe de orto quasi lacus fieret; denique usque ad kalendas apriles non appariut sol). Inter cetera multum prodesse deberet et profectum sacrarum arbuscularum, quod insignis vir. d. Io. Boccaccii de Certaldo, ipsis amicissimus et mihi, casu in has horas tunc aduectus satimi intrefuit. Videbimus eventum. Omnibus radices fuerunt, quibusdam quoque telluris patrie aliquantulum, et prÆterea diligentissime obuolute non radices modo sed truncos aduecte sunt, et recentes valde. Denique prÆter soli naturam, nihil videtur adversum, attenta qualitate Æris et quod non diu ante montes nivium adamantinaque glacies omnia tegebant vixque dum penitus abiere.

"Jam nunc circa medium aprilem due majores crescent; alie vero non letos successus spondent. Credo firmiter terram hanc hinc arbori inimicam."

Cf. also Cochin, Un Amico del Petrarca. Le Lettere di Nelli al Petrarcha (Bib. Petrarchesca), Firenze, 1901.

[455] In planting the laurel Petrarch expressed the hope that the presence of Boccaccio might prove "fortunate" to "these little sacred laurels." Boccaccio had protested to Petrarch that he was not worthy of the name of poet. Petrarch insisted that he was. "It is a strange thing," he says, "that you should have aimed at being a poet only to shrink from the name." This affair of the laurel may refer to that incident. "The laurel," says Boccaccio in the Vita di Dante, "which is never struck by lightning, crowns poets...."

[456] He was back in Florence certainly by May. Cf. Hortis, Studi, etc., p. 22 note. Petrarch in his letter to Nelli says that Boccaccio's visit was brief.

[457] Petrarch, Epist. Sen., III, 6, and V, 3.

[458] Boccaccio, De Geneal. Deor., XV, 6.

[459] Epist. Sen., III, 6, and V, 3.

[460] Cf. Hauvette, Le Professeur de Grec de PÉtrarque et de Boccace (Chartres, 1891).

[461] Cf. De Nohlac, Les scholies, u.s., p. 101. He began to lecture in the end of 1359.

[462] Petrarch, Var., XXV. In this year Pino de' Rossi was exiled for conspiracy against the Guelfs. Boccaccio had dedicated the Ameto to him, and now wrote to console him. In that letter (Corazzini, op. cit., p. 67) Boccaccio says he has gone to Certaldo to avoid contact with these vile people (p. 96).

[463] Petrarch, Varie, XXV.

[464] Because Boccaccio's love for Fiammetta was not a passion wholly or almost wholly spiritual, as we may suppose Dante's to have been for Beatrice, we are eager to deny it any permanence or strength. Why? Perhaps a passion almost wholly sensual if really profound is more persistent than any desire in which the mind alone is involved.

[465] Our source of information is Petrarch's letter, quoted below in the text (Ep. Sen., I, 5). The affair is recounted in the life of Beato Pietro Petroni, who died May 29, 1361, by Giovanni Columbini. This life has been conserved and enriched with notes by the Carthusian of Siena, Bartholommeo, in 1619. It is printed in the Acta Sanctorum, May 29 (Tom. VII, Antwerp, 1668, p. 186 et seq.). Boccaccio's story is told at p. 228. There seems to be nothing there not gleaned from Petrarch's letter. Cf. also Traversari, Il Beato Pietro Petroni e la conversione del B. (Teani, 1905), and Graf, Fu superstizioso il B.? in Miti, Leggende e Superstiz. del Medioevo (Torino, 1893), Vol. II, p. 167 et seq.

[466] I quote to some extent the excellent redaction of Mr. Hollway-Calthrop, Petrarch and his Times (Methuen, 1907), p. 237 et seq.

[467] De Geneal. Deorum, I, 31, De Casibus, II, 7.

[468] De Geneal. Deorum, I, 10; III, 22; IX, 4. Comento sopra Dante (Milanesi, Firenze, 1863), Vol. I, p. 480 et seq.

[469] Comento sopra Dante, ed. cit., II, p. 56; i.e. he believed in the evil eye; so did Pio Nono's cardinals.

[470] Ibid., u.s., II, p. 156.

[471] Ibid., u.s., I, p. 216.

[472] Decameron, VI, 10. I deal with Boccaccio's treatment of monks and friars and the clergy generally in my chapter on the Decameron (see infra).

[473] Comento, ed. cit., Vol. II, p. 19.

[474] Baldelli tells us that Pilatus left Boccaccio in 1362, but this is not so, for they went together to see Petrarch in Venice in 1363 (see infra). Baldelli's assertion is probably founded on the obscure and doubtful letter of Boccaccio to Francesco Nelli (Corazzini, p. 131), from which we learn that Boccaccio went to Naples on the invitation of Acciaiuoli, as we suppose, in 1362. This letter, which is very long, is dated, according to Corazzini, August 28, 1363. Now before September 7, 1363, Nelli was dead of the plague in Naples, as appears from Petrarch's letter (Sen., III, i., September 7, 1363). Hortis (Studi, p. 20, n. 3) is of opinion that this letter is apocryphal. Todeschini (Opinione sulla epistola del priore di S. Apostolo [sic] attribuita al Boccaccio, Venice, 1832) convinced Hortis of this. Todeschini does not believe in this visit to Naples, and in fact the only notice we have of it is contained in the letter he discards. His arguments are as follows. Until May, 1362, Boccaccio dwelt certainly in Tuscany, where in 1361, or more probably in 1362, Ciani visited him, and whence he wrote Petrarch the letter we have lost to which Petrarch replied in the noble letter I have cited above (Sen., I, 5) on May 28, 1362. (Cf. Fracassetti's note to this letter.) It is not possible that Boccaccio can have been in Naples between the autumn of 1361 and May, 1362, because he himself tells us that for three years he was with Pilatus, who enjoyed his hospitality and from whom he learned to understand Homer. Now it is certain that he did not know Pilatus before 1360, and was with him till 1363, when, as we shall see, they visited Petrarch together in Venice. (Cf. Fracassetti his note to Fam., XVIII, 2.)

[475] This visit must have been between March 13 and September 7, 1363, on both of which dates Petrarch wrote to him. The letter of September 7 seems to have been written immediately after his departure (Senili, II, 1, and III, 1). Cf. also De Nohlac, op. cit., p. 102. Cf. also Boccaccio's letter to Pietro di Monteforte, which Hortis, op. cit., thinks refers to this visit. Corazzini, op. cit., p. 337.

[476] Senili, III, 1.

[477] Ibid., III, 6 (March, 1365).

[478] Ibid., VI, 1.

[479] Senili, VII, 5. Fracassetti gives this letter the wrong date of 1365 in his translation, but in a note to Fam., XVII, 2 (q.v. for the visit of Boccaccio), he adopts the right year.

[480] Senili, VII.

[481] Ibid., VI, 1.

[482] Ibid., VI, 2.

[483] De Nohlac, op. cit., p. 102.

[484] Epist. Fam., XXIV, 12.

[485] Sen., III, 1.

[486] On August 9 and 16 the Republic had written letters to the Maestri della FraternitÀ and to Francesco Bruni rebutting the charges the Pope had made against her. These letters were to be shown to the Pope. On August 20 the instructions of the Republic to Giovanni Boccaccio were drawn up in a long memorandum. See Arch. Stor. Ital., Ser. I, App., Vol. VII, p. 413 et seq. The Pope replies more than a year later on September 8, 1366, thanking the Republic for the letters with which Francesco Bruni had acquainted him, especially for soliciting him to return to Italy. He says he is determined to return for the good of the Church and of Italy, and particularly of Florence, who has shown herself so devoted to the Holy See. Ibid. See also Corazzini op. cit., p. 395, and Hortis, G. B. Ambasciatore in Avignone (Trieste, 1875).

[487] Hortis (G. B. Ambasciatore) has published this letter.

[488] Senil., V. 1. Boccaccio had received instructions to hurry back to Italy. "Vos autem domine Johannes sollicitetis commissionem vestrum et rescribentes vestrum etiam reditum festinetis."

[489] Cf. Hortis, G. B. Ambasciatore.

[490] For the following particulars see Boccaccio's letter to Petrarch. Ut te viderem, Corazzini, op. cit., p. 123.

[491] The Eclogue XIV tells us much that otherwise we should never have known as to Boccaccio's children. It is there we hear of his little daughter Violante, whom he there calls Olympia, and who died "at an age when one goes straight to heaven." "Pro Olympia," he says, in the letter already quoted, to Matteo da Signa, "intelligo parvulam filiam meam olim mortuam, ea in Ætate, in qua morientes coelestes effici cives credimus; et ideo ex Violante cum viveret, mortuam coelestem idest Olympiam voco." Boccaccio conceived this Eclogue in a wood, and therefore he calls himself Silvio. The Eclogue roughly is as follows: Boccaccio in a sleepless and restless night full of unhappy regrets longs for the day. Suddenly a light illumines all and he hears a singing. It is the voice of Violante (Olympia), who salutes her father. "Fear not," she says, "I am thy daughter. Why should you be afraid? Canst thou doubt? Dost thou think that Violante would deceive her father? I come to thee to sweeten thy sorrow." To her Boccaccio (Silvio) answers: "I recognise thee, love does not deceive me nor my dreams; O my great delight, only hope of thy father. What god has taken thee from me, O my little daughter? They told me when I returned to Naples thou wert dead, and believing this, how long, how long I wept for thee, how long, how long I mourned thee, calling thee back to me. But what splendour surrounds thee; who are thy companions? O marvel, that in such a little space of time you should have grown so, for you seem, little daughter mine, to be already marriageable." And Violante answers: "It was but my earthly vesture that, dear, you buried in the lap of earth. These vestments, this form, this resplendent body the Madonna herself has given me. But look on my companions, have you never seen them?" And Boccaccio: "I do not remember them, but neither Narcissus, nor Daphnis, nor Alexis were more beautiful." And Violante: "And dost thou not recognise thy Mario, thy Giulio, and my sweet sisters? They are thy children." And Boccaccio: "Come, O children mine, whom I have held in my arms, on my breast, and with glad kisses heal my heart. Let us make a joyful festa, and intone a hymn of joy. Let the wood be silent, and let Arno run noiselessly." Then follows a hymn sung by Violante in honour of Jesus Christ (Codro) and of the Blessed Virgin: the most beautiful of all Boccaccio's Latin songs. And Violante departs promising, when her father will hardly let her go, that he shall soon be with her for ever in heaven.

We see here that Boccaccio had two sons, Giulio and Mario, and at least three daughters, Violante and her sisters.

[492] Cf. Crescini, op. cit., p. 259. I give the document he quotes:—

"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 Corazzini, 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 [1374]." 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).

[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 foeminÆ destinandum fore, exquirenti dignorem, ante alias, venit in mentem, Italicum jubar illud perfulgidum, ac singulare nomen non tantum foeminarum, 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 ito Englissh by John Ludgate moke of the monastery of Seint Edmundes Bury at the comaÑdemet 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 S^r 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, 1857), 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."

[567] The record is preserved in the Libro delle Provvisioni, and is printed by Milanesi, op. cit., Vol. I, p. ii:—

"Super qua quidem petitione ... dicti domini Priores et Vexellifer habita invicem et una cum officio gonfaloneriorum Sotietatum populi et cum officio Duodecim bonorum virorum Comunis Florentie deliberatione solempni, et demum inter ipsos omnes in sufficienti numero congregatos in palatio populi Florentie, premisso et facto diligenti et secreto scruptineo et obtento partito ad fabas nigras et albas per vigintiocto ex eis pro utilitate Comunis eiusdem ... deliberaverunt die VIIII mensis augusti anno dominice Incarnationis MCCCLXXIII indictione XI, quod dicta petitio et omnia et singula in ea contenta, admictantur, ... et observentur, ... secundum petitionis eiusdem continentiam et tenorem....

"Item supradicto Preposito, modo et forma predictis proponente et partitum faciente inter dictos omnes consiliarios dicti consilii in ipso consilio presentes, quod cui placet et videtur suprascriptam quartam provisionem disponentem pro eligendo unum ad legendum librum Dantis, que sic incipit: 'Pro parte quamplurium civium etc.' ... admicti et observari ... et executioni mandari posse et debere ... det fabam nigram pro sic; et quod cui contrarium seu aliud videretur, det fabam pro non. Et ipsis fabis datis recollectis, segregatis et numeratis ... et ipsorum consiliariorum voluntatibus exquisitis ad fabas nigras et albas, ut moris est, repertum fuit CLXXXVI ex ipsis consiliariis repertis dedisse fabas nigras pro sic. Et sic secundum formam provisionis eiusdem obtentum, firmatum et reformatum fuit, non obstantibus reliquis XVIIII ex ipsis consiliariis repertis dedisse fabas albas in contrarium pro non."

It will be seen that they voted with beans—a white bean for "No," a black bean for "Yes."

[568] Cf. Milanesi, op. cit., u.s., Vol. I, p. iii, and Toynbee, op. cit., p. 99. The record in the Libro delle Provvisioni ad annum 1373 has been destroyed since 1604, when Filippo Valori (cf. Gamba, Serie dei Testi di Lingua, ed. quarta, p. 554, col. a. No. 2006), saw it. He says: "Il qual Boccaccio, oltre al dirsi Maestro dell' Eloquenza, fu stimato di tal dottrina, che e' potesse dichiarare quella di Dante, e perciÒ, l' anno mille trecento settanta tre, lo elesse la CittÀ per Lettor pubblico, con salario di cento fiorini, che fu notabile; e vedesi questo nel Libro delle Provvisioni." Cf. Manni, Istoria del Decamerone, p. 101. The facts are, however, recorded in the Libro dell' uscita della Camera, now in the Archivio di Stato di Firenze. Milanesi, op. cit., p. iii, quotes this document: "1373, 31 Decembris. Domino Johanni de Certaldo honorabili civi florentino electo per dominos Priores Artium et Vexilliferum Justitie dicti populi et Comunis, die XXV mensis augusti proxime preteriti ad legendum librum qui vulgariter appellatur il Dante, in civitate Florentie, pro tempore et termino unius anni incepti die decimo ottavo mensis ottubris proxime preteriti et cum salario centum florenorum auri pio anno quolibet, solvendorum secundum formam reformationis consilii dicti populi et Comunis de hac materia loquentis, pro ipsius domini Johannis salario et paga primorum sex mensium dicti temporis, initiatis die decimo ottavo mensis ottubris proxime preteriti, pro dimidio totius dicti salarii, vigore electionis de eo facte, in summa florenorum quinquaginta auri."

[569] Cf. Gerola, Alcuni documenti inediti per la biografia del Boccaccio in Giornale Stor. della Lett. Ital., Vol. XXXII (1898), p. 345 et seq.

[570] So Guido Monaldi tells us in his Diario (ed. Prato, 1835): "Domenica a dÌ ventitrÈ di ottobre cominciÒ in Firenze a leggere il Dante M. Giovanni Boccaccio."

[571] Cf. Boll. di Soc. Dant. Ital., n.s., III, p. 38 note. Milanesi in his Introduction to the Comento tells us, mistakenly, that Boccaccio lectured in S. Stefano al Ponte Vecchio. This church, since the church of S. Cecilia was destroyed in Piazza Signoria at the end of the eighteenth century, has been called SS. Stefano e Cecilia, but from the thirteenth century till then it was called S. Stefano ad portam ferram. That it was not here but at S. Stefano della Badia that Boccaccio lectured we know from Monaldi's diary, and it is confirmed for us by Benvenuto da Imola: "In interiori circulo est Abbatia monachorum sancti Benedicti, cuius ecclesia dicitur Sanctus Stephanus, ubi certius et ordinatius pulsabantur horÆ quam in aliqua alia ecclesia civitatis; quÆ tamen hodie est inordinata et neglecta, ut vidi, dum audirem venerabilem prÆceptorem meum Boccaccium de Certaldo legentem istum nobilem poetam in dicta ecclesia" (Comentum (ed. Vernon), Vol. V, p. 145). Dr. Toynbee thinks that S. Stefano is the ancient dedication of the Badia, which was later placed under the protection of S. Mary. If this was so, then it was in the Badia itself that Boccaccio lectured. Mr. Carmichael, however (On the Old Road through France to Florence (Murray), p. 254), states that Boccaccio lectured not in the abbey, but in the little church of S. Stefano ad Abbatiam, formerly adjoining the abbey, and indeed almost a part of it. Unfortunately he gives no authority for this important statement, nor can he now give any. It is, however, a very interesting suggestion, worth examining closely.

[572] It will be remembered that Dante was not only expelled from Florence, but condemned by the Florentines to be burned alive, "igne comburatur sic quod moriatur," should he be taken. This sentence bears date March 10, 1302.

[573] See supra, p. 20.

[574] De Blasiis, op. cit., p. 139 et seq.

[575] Filocolo, ed. cit., II, p. 377. Cf. Dobelli, Il culto del Boccaccio per Dante in Giornale Dantesca (1897), Vol. V, p. 207 et seq. Signor Dobelli seems to me to lay far too much emphasis on the sheer imitations of Boccaccio. Now and then we find a mere copying, but not often. This learned article of Dobelli's is traversed, and I think very happily, by a writer in the Giornale Stor. della Lett. Ital., XXXII (1898), p. 219 et seq.

[576] For instance, in the opening of the third part, Filostrato, ed. cit., Pt. III, p. 80, which may be compared with Paradiso, I, vv. 13 et seq.

Or, again, compare Filostrato, Pt. VIII, p. 249, with Purgatorio, VI, vv. 118 et seq.

Or, again, compare Filostrato, Pt. II, p. 58, with Inferno, II, vv. 127 et seq.

Nor are these by any means the only instances; there are very many others. I content myself, however, with a comparison between Filostrato, Pt. VII, p. 238, and the Convito, Trattato IX, which would seem to show that before 1345 Boccaccio knew this work as well as the Comedy.

[577] See supra, p. 183, n. 1.

[578] For date of composition see supra, p. 183, n. 2.

[579] He seems to have copied too the Vita Nuova. Barbi in his edition of the Vita Nuova, p. xiv et seq., speaks of Boccaccio's MSS. relating to Dante, and notes in a MS. Laurenziano (xc, sup. 136), "scripto per lo modo che lo scripse Messere Giovanni Boccaccio da Certaldo."

[580] The Carme is given by Corazzini, op. cit., p. 53.

[581] Fam., XXI, 15.

[582] Here we see Petrarch's absurd hatred of the vulgar tongue. How a man so intelligent and so far in advance of his age in all else could deceive himself so easily as to believe that Latin in his day could be anything but a tongue for priests to bark in is difficult to understand. Apart from the Liturgy and the Divine Office and a few hymns and religious works maybe, no work of art has been produced in it. Had Petrarch been an ecclesiastic, it might be comprehensible; but he was the first man of the modern world. No doubt he was dreaming of the Empire.

[583] ? The Carme.

[584] It must be observed that the Vita appears in many forms, but it will be enough for us to consider the two principal, both of which claim to be by Boccaccio. The whole question is thoroughly dealt with by Macri Leone in his edition of the Vita (Firenze, 1888), and more briefly by Witte, The two versions of Boccaccio's life of Dante in Essays on Dante (London, 1898), p. 262 et seq., and by Dr. E. Moore, Dante and his early Biographers (London, 1890).

Of these two versions the longer we shall call the Vita, the shorter the Compendio, but the latter is by no means a mere epitome of the former, for some of the episodes are more fully treated in it, while others are ignored. We shall find ourselves in agreement with the great majority of modern critics if we regard the Vita as the original and the Compendio as a modification of it executed either by Boccaccio or by another, and if we assert that the Vita is by Boccaccio and the Compendio an unauthorised redraft of it, we shall be supported not only by so great an authority as Macri Leone, but by Biscioni, Pelli, Tiraboschi, Gamba, Baldelli, Foscolo, Paur, Witte (who hesitates to condemn the Compendio altogether), Scartazzini, Koerting, and Dr. Moore. On the other hand, Dionisi and Mussi held that the Compendio was the original and the Vita a rifacimento; while Schaeffer-Boichorst thought both to be the work of Boccaccio, the Vita being the original; and the editors of the Paduan edition of the Divine Comedy (1822) thought both to be genuine, but the Compendio the first draft. Dr. Witte enters into the differences between the two, printing passages in parallel columns; Macri Leone is even fuller in his comparison; Dr. Moore also compares them. Briefly we may say that the Compendio is shorter, that it "hedges" when it can and softens and abbreviates the denunciation of Florence, and omits much: e.g. the Vita's assertion of Dante's devotion to Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and Statius, while inserting certain personal suggestions: e.g. that in his later years Dante having quite recovered from his love for Beatrice ran after other women especially in his exile in Lucca, where he became enamoured of a young girl called Pargoletta, and in the Casentino of another who "had a pretty face but was afflicted with a goitre." As for Pargoletta, it is not a proper name at all, as Boccaccio knew, for in the same chapter of the Vita he writes: "in sua pargoletta etÀ." He was incapable of falling into this error, which apparently arose from a confusion of Purgatorio, XXIV, 34-6, and XXXI, 59. In the Compendio the attacks on marriage are not less bitter, only whereas in the Vita they are only against marriage in general, in the Compendio we get an amusing description of the hindrances to Dante's studies caused by his wife's complaints of his solitary habits and her absurd interruptions of his meditations by asking him to pay nurse's wages and see to children's clothes. The Compendio too in all matters concerning Dante's contemporaries is more vague. Thus the Vita (possibly wrongly) tells us that in Verona Dante took refuge with Alberto della Scala; the Compendio, more cautious, says with the "Signore della terra." It also omits the stories concerning Dante at Siena and Paris, and entirely remodels the digressions in chapters ix. and x. of the Vita on Poetry. It omits the extremely characteristic excuse for lechery of the Vita and omits all dates: e.g. that Dante began the Vita Nuova in his twenty-sixth year, as well as the assertion that he was in his later years ashamed of it. There are many other differences also. But it might seem impossible in the face of the evidence brought forward by Macri Leone and others to doubt that the Vita is Boccaccio's work and not the Compendio. We shall therefore here leave the latter and devote ourselves to the former, only remarking that if Boccaccio wrote the Vita it is improbable that he wrote another work on the same subject, since, if he did so, it must have been written in the last two years of his life, for only one work is referred to by him in the Comento, viz. the Trattatello in lode di Dante. We consider then the Compendio as a rifacimento not from Boccaccio's hand. The evidence is thoroughly sifted by Macri Leone, op. cit., whom the reader should consult for a complete treatment of the matter.

[585] The Early Lives of Dante, tr. by P. H. Wicksteed, m.a. (King's Classics, Chatto and Windus, 1907). This little book, besides preface and introduction, contains Boccaccio's Vita in English, as well as Leonardo Bruni's and three appendices.

[586] Cf. Mr. Wicksteed's translation, p. 41.

[587] As Mr. Wicksteed's translation is the version of the Vita most likely to come into the hands of English readers, I propose here to traverse his "warnings" and "cautions." Whatever scholars may "appear to be settling down to," this at least is certain, that of writers upon Dante, Boccaccio is the only one who in professing to write a life can have had absolutely first-hand evidence. The points that Mr. Wicksteed wishes to warn us against are three. Boccaccio asserts that Dante was licentious, that he was a bitter political partisan, and that when he had once left Gemma he never returned to her or allowed her to follow him. In order that we may be quite sure what Boccaccio says, as well as what Mr. Wicksteed thinks he says, I quote Mr. Wicksteed's translation (p. 79): "... there was no fiercer Ghibelline than he, nor more opposed to the Guelfs. And that for which I most blush, in the interest of his memory, is that in Romagna it is matter of greatest notoriety that any feeble woman or little child who had but spoken, in party talk, in condemnation of the Ghibelline faction would have stirred him to such madness as to move him to hurl stones at such, had they not held their peace; and in such bitterness he lived even until his death. And assuredly I blush to be forced to taint the fame of such a man with any defect; but the order of things on which I have begun in some sort demands it; because that if I hold my peace concerning those things in him which are less worthy of praise, I shall withdraw much faith from the praiseworthy things already recounted. So do I plead my excuse to him himself, who perchance, even as I write, looketh down with scornful eye from some lofty region of heaven. Amid all the virtue, amid all the knowledge that hath been shown above to have belonged to this wondrous poet, lechery found most ample place not only in the years of his youth, but also of his maturity; the which vice, though it be natural and common and scarce to be avoided, yet in truth is so far from being commendable that it cannot even be suitably excused. But who amongst mortals shall be a righteous judge to condemn it? Not I. Oh, the impurity, oh, the brutish appetite of men." The passage as to Gemma will be found at the end of the interpolation against marriage (p. 27), at the end of which he says: "Assuredly I do not affirm that these things chanced to Dante; for I do not know it; though true it is that (whether such like things or others were the cause) when once he had parted from her [Gemma] who had been given him as a consolation in his sufferings! never would he go where she was, nor suffer her to come to where he was, albeit he was the father of several children by her." Let us take these things in order.

Boccaccio asserts, much to Mr. Wicksteed's distress, it seems, that Dante was a bitter and intolerant politician. He will have none of it. Well, let Dante speak for himself. When he hails as the "Lamb of God" a German king whom the Guelfs defeated and most probably poisoned; when he speaks of Florence, the Guelf city, as "the rank fox that lurketh in hiding, the beast that drinketh from the Arno, polluting its waters with its jaws, the viper that stings its mother's heart, the black sheep that corrupts the whole flock, the Myrrha guilty of incest with her father," according to Mr. Wicksteed, we ought not to consider him a bitter politician at all; indeed only an "ill-informed" and "superficial" person like Boccaccio would call him so. To ordinary men, however, such semi-scholastic, semi-Biblico-classical language sounds like politics, and fierce party politics too, and one cannot conceive what other explanation Mr. Wicksteed would offer us of it. Mr. Wicksteed tells us that when Boccaccio declares that it was well known in Romagna that he would have flung stones at any who "in party talk had but spoken in condemnation of the Ghibelline cause" he was speaking figuratively. Perhaps so; but I doubt if Mr. Wicksteed, had he had the happiness to be a Guelf, would have cared to put Dante to the proof. And we may well ask what would have deterred the man, who in hell thought it virtuous to cheat Frate Alberigo and leave him blinded by his frozen tears, from hurling a few stones on behalf of his cause?

Nor is Mr. Wicksteed any more ready to believe that Dante was a lover of women. When Boccaccio tells us that Dante fell into the sin of lechery not only in his youth but in his maturity, it is on the face of it certain that he is compelled to say so, that he has irrefutable evidence for it, since he excuses himself for the necessity of his assertion. Nor is there a tittle of evidence to refute Boccaccio. Mr. Wicksteed, like a good Protestant, prefers his own private judgment. He prefers to think of Dante as in all respects what he would have him. "On the whole," he says, "I think the student may safely form his own judgment from the material in his hands [viz. Dante's own works, I think] without attaching any authoritative significance whatever to Boccaccio's assertion. It is safe to go even a step further and to say that the dominating impression which that assertion leaves is definitely false...!" It is clear that Mr. Wicksteed is not going to allow Boccaccio to involve Dante in any of his Decameron stories!

Mr. Wicksteed is equally indignant that Boccaccio should have asserted that Dante when he parted from Gemma never returned to her nor suffered her to come to him. It seems, then, that Dante too must become a respectable and sedate person in the modern middle-class manner. He was not a bitter party politician; he was not a lover of women; far from it: he lived as peaceably and continuously as circumstances allowed him with his wife, whom he cherished with all the tenderness we might expect of a nature so docile, so well controlled, and so considerate of the sin and weakness of others. "What was Boccaccio's source of information as to Dante and Gemma never having met after the former's exile," Mr. Wicksteed angrily declares, "it is impossible to say." But that does not invalidate the statement. What is Mr. Wicksteed's source of doubt? Is there any evidence that they did meet? And if they did not, why curse Boccaccio? Boccaccio tells us they never did meet. Yet having no evidence at all to offer us in the matter Mr. Wicksteed has the extraordinary temerity to close his tirade, one cannot call it an argument, by this weird confession: "It would be straining the evidence [? what evidence] to say that we can establish a positive case on the other side." I agree with him; it would, it would. But enough! Such is the virtue of certain prepossessions that, though the sun be as full of spots as a housewife's pudding is full of raisins, if it please us not we will deny it.

[589] But it is also Boccaccio who seems to suggest that Dante may have come to England, to Oxford. This visit Tiraboschi supposed to stand merely on the assertion of Giovanni di Serravalle (1416-17), who says Dante had studied "PaduÆ, BononiÆ, demum Oxoniis et Parisiis"; but in the Carme, which accompanied the copy of the Divine Comedy Boccaccio sent to Petrarch (Corazzini, op. cit., p. 53), he shows us Dante led by Apollo:—

Cf. Mazzinghi, A Brief Notice of Recent Researches respecting Dante (1844), quoted by Paget Toynbee, Dante in English Literature (Methuen, 1909), Vol. II, p. 696 et seq.

[590] See supra, p. 185 et seq. As we have seen, this tirade is not altogether original, but is founded on a passage of Theophrastus, translated by Jerome, and copied out by Boccaccio. Cf. Macri Leone, Vita di Dante (Firenze, 1888).

[591] Mr. Wicksteed's translation, p. 53.

[592] On what Boccaccio has to say on Dante's pride see pp. 58 and 77 of Mr. Wicksteed's translation.

[593] He treats of the Divine Comedy more fully than of the rest. "The question is moved at large by many men, and amongst them sapient ones," he writes, "why Dante, a man perfectly versed in knowledge, chose to write in the Florentine idiom so grand a work, of such exalted matter and so notable as this comedy; and why not rather in Latin verses, as other poets before him had done. In reply to which question, two chief reasons, amongst many others, come to my mind. The first of which is that he might be of more general use to his fellow-citizens and the other Italians; for he knew that if he had written metrically in Latin, as the other poets of past times had done, he would only have done service to men of letters, whereas writing in the vernacular he did a deed ne'er done before, and (without any let to men of letters whereby they should not understand him) showing the beauty of our idiom and his own excelling art therein, gave delight and understanding of himself to the unlearned, who had hitherto been abandoned of every one. The second reason which moved him thereto was this: seeing that liberal studies were utterly abandoned, and especially by the princes and other great men, to whom poetic toils were wont to be dedicated (wherefore the divine works of Virgil and the other poets had not only sunk into neglect, but well nigh into contempt at the hands of many), having himself begun, according as the loftiness of the matter demanded, after this guise—

he abandoned it; for he conceived it was a vain thing to put crusts of bread into the mouths of such as were still sucking milk; wherefore he began his work again in style suited to modern tastes, and followed it up in the vernacular." He adds that Dante, "as some maintain," dedicated the Inferno to Uguccione della Faggiuola, the Purgatorio to Marquis Moruello Malespina, and the Paradiso to Frederic third King of Sicily; but as others assert, the whole poem was dedicated to Messer Cane della Scala. He does not resolve the question.

[594] Cf. Dr. Moore, op. cit.

[595] Cf. Paget Toynbee, Life of Dante (Methuen, 1904), pp. 130 and 147.

[596] Cf. Comento, ed. cit., Lez. 2, Vol. I, p. 104.

[597] Cf. Comento, ed. cit., Lez. 33, Vol. II, p. 129.

[598] He tells us this in the Comento as well as in the Vita, where he gives certain facts as "as others to whom his desire was known declare" (Wicksteed, op. cit., p. 18).

[599] Cf. supra, p. 257, n. 1.

[600] Cf. Macri Leone, op. cit., cap. ix., who describes twenty-two in Italy.

[601] The Compendio has been printed four times—first in 1809 in Milan, before the Divine of Comedy as published by Luigi Mussi.

[602] Printed by Lord Vernon at Florence in 1846 under title Chiose sopra Dante.

[603] Cf. their Vocabolario, eds. 1612, 1623, 1691. Mazzuccheli also in the eighteenth century accepted it. Yet Betussi knew it was incomplete in 1547. Cf. his translation of De Genealogiis.

[604] Mr. Paget Toynbee, whose learned article on the Comento in Modern Language Review, Vol. II, No 2, January, 1907, I have already referred to, and return to with profit and pleasure, says: "It is not unreasonable to suppose that though too ill to lecture publicly, Boccaccio may have occupied himself at Certaldo in continuing the Commentary in the hope of eventually resuming his course at Florence."

[605] Cf. Manni, Istoria del Decamerone, pp. 104-6, who prints all the documents of the lawsuit.

[606] Cf. Appendix V, where I print the Will.

[607] He valued the MS. at 18 gold florins.

[608] The best edition is Milanesi's (Florence, Le Monnier, 1863). He divided it first into sixty lezioni which do not necessarily accord with Boccaccio's lectures.

[609] Cf. Paget Toynbee, op. cit., p. 112. It is significant too, as Dr. Toynbee does not fail to note, that Boccaccio often uses scrivere instead of parlare in speaking of his lectures. Cf. Lez. 2 and Lez. 20; Milanesi, Vol. I, 120 and 148, also Lez. 52, Vol. II, 366.

[610] Cf. De Genealogiis, XIV, 7 and 10, and supra, p. 247.

[611] For instance, he explains that an oar is "a long thick piece of wood with which the boatman propels his boat and guides and directs it from one place to another" (Comento, I, 286). Cf. Toynbee, op. cit., p. 116.

[612] Through the medium of Chalcidius, whom he does not name. In this form the medieval world knew the TimÆus. Cf. Toynbee, op. cit., p. 113.

[613] Æneid, II, 689-91.

[614] Cf. Comento, I, 82-5, and Epist., X, par. 8, 9, 15, 10, and see Toynbee, op. cit., p. 113 and n. 7.

[615] Nor was all this original matter. "To the discussion of these points," says Dr. Toynbee, "he devotes what amounts to some ten printed pages in Milanesi's edition of the Commentary (Comento, I, p. 92 et seq.), at least half of the matter being translated word for word from a previous work of his own, the De Genealogiis Deorum...."

[616] Cf. supra, p. 262.

[617] Comento, II, 454.

[618] Ibid., II, 139.

[619] Ibid., I, 304 et seq.

[620] Ibid., I, 347-50.

[621] Rime, ed. cit., sonnets vii. and viii.

[622] In Rossetti's beautiful translation.

[623] Cf. Comento, I, 143-4, 214, 359, 361, 362, 367, 437, 448-51, 451-6, 457-62, 463-6, 498, and II, 190, 435.

[624] Cf. Comento, I, 177, 180, 362, 435, and II, 18, 36, 65.

[625] Cf. Comento, I, 479, and II, 51, 149, 184, 220, 368, 385, 448-9; and see Paget Toynbee, op. cit., p. 117 and notes.

[626] From this book Boccaccio translated more than three times as much as from any other. Cf. Comento, I, 92-5, 99-101, 123-6, 128-35, etc. etc.

[627] Dr. Toynbee has long promised to publish a paper on this matter. It will be very welcome.

[628] Cf. Comento, I, 347, 462, 467, 511.

[629] Cf. Comento, I, 97, 466.

[630] See supra, p. 205 et seq.

[631] At caps. 56-7 and 69-70.

[632] Cf. Comento, I, 333-4.

[633] Cf. Comento, I, 397-402. See Paget Toynbee, op. cit., pp. 118-19. He notes that Boccaccio "nowhere employs the title Annals ... but uses the term storie ... even when he is quoting from the Annals" as in Comento, I, 400. He seems to have made no use of the Histories in his Comento.

[634] As to this see Paget Toynbee, op. cit., p. 105.

[635] Eight times in all. Besides these quotations he uses him freely.

[636] Cf. Paget Toynbee, op. cit., 110. All trace of Boccaccio's own MS. about which there was the lawsuit has vanished.

[637] Cf. Milanesi, Comento, Vol. I, p. v.

[638] At Naples (imprint Florence), two vols., 1724, in Opere Volgari in Prosa del Boccaccio, published by Lorenzo Ciccarelli (Cellurio Zacclori).

[639] In Opere Volgari (1827-34, Florence, Magheri), Vols. X, XI, XII.

[640] Rime, ed. cit., cviii. (Rossetti's translation).

[641] Cf. Corazzini, op. cit., p. 281. The disease which Boccaccio thus describes has been thought to be a form of diabetes. Cf. Cochin, Études Italiennes Boccace, p. 167, n. 1. Petrarch too suffered from la scabbia.

[642] In a letter to Maghinardo, September 13, 1373, he thanks him with effusion for sending him a vase of gold full of gold pieces. Thanks to that, he says, he can buy a cloak for his poor feverish body. Cf. Corazzini, op. cit., p. 287. Villani is apparently wrong when he says he had many friends, but that none came to his assistance. One did. All the early biographies agree about his poverty.

[643] Rime, ed. cit., sonnet xxxvi. "It is a hard thing and a very horrible to wait for death; it is a thing which fills one with fear: yet death is more certain and infallible than anything else that has been, that is, or that will ever be. The course of life is short and one cannot return along it, and on earth there is no joy so great that it does not end in tears and regrets. Then why should we not seek to extend by work our renown, and by that to make long our days so short? This thought gives me and keeps me in courage. It spares me the regret of the years which are fled away, it gives me the splendour of a long life."

[644] Petrarch died at ArquÀ on July 18, 1374. The news was known in Florence on July 25, when Coluccio Salutati wrote to Benvenuto da Imola and mentioned it.

[645] Cf. Corazzini, op. cit., p. 377. He received Franceschino's letter "pridie XIII kalendas novembris," that is October 31.

[646] "Verum jam decimus elapsus est mensis, postquam in patria publice legentem Comoediam Dantis magis longa, atque tÆdiosa, quam discrimine aliquo dubia Ægritudo oppressit...." The letter was written about November 7, ten months before which was January 7. Thus we know it was in the winter of 1373 (Fl. St.), or January, 1374, that he broke down.

[647] This refers doubtless to Petrarch's Will, by which he left Boccaccio fifty florins of gold with which to buy a warm cloak to cover himself in the nights of study.

[648] This is hard to explain. So far as we know, Boccaccio first met Petrarch in 1350 in Florence, but see supra, p. 153, n. 2.

[649] "Scribendi finis Certaldi datus tertio nonas novembris."

[650] See Appendix V.

[651] Cf. Rossellini, Della casa di G. B. in Certaldo in Antologia (1825), n. lix.

[652] He leaves to the Friars of Santa Maria di Santo Sepolchro dal Pogetto or della Campora outside the walls of Florence "all and singular Holy Relics which the said dominus Johannes in a great while and with much labour has procured from divers parts of the world." (S. Maria della Campora is outside the Porta Romana of Florence; there are still frescoes of the school of Giotto there.) To the church of S. Jacopo of Certaldo he leaves an alabaster plaque of the Blessed Virgin, a chasuble, stole, and maniple of red silk, and a small altar pallium of red Lucca cloth, an altar cushion of the same cloth, and three cases for corporals; a vase of pewter for holy water, and a small cloak of yellow silk and cloth. He leaves a diptych in which is painted on the one side Our Lady with her Son in her arms and on the other a skull to Madonna Sandra, "who to-day is wife of Franciesco di Lapo Buonamichi." This extraordinary collection of things, which would only be in place in the house of a priest one might think, leads us to ask whether Boccaccio had received any Order. We cannot answer. Suares says he saw a papal bull that permitted him to receive Holy Orders in spite of his illegitimacy, and in his Will he is called "Dominus" and "Venerabilis." It is perhaps in place to note that, like Dante and S. Francis, Boccaccio has been claimed as a Protestant born out of due time. This amazing nonsense was set forth in a book by one Hager, entitled Programmata III de Joanne Boccatio veritatis evangelicÆ teste (Chemnic, 1765).

[653] He may not have been utterly alone. In his Will he leaves to "Bruna, daughter of the late Ciango da Montemagno, who has long been with me, the bed she was used to sleep in at Certaldo," and other things.

[654] The title Il Decameron is badly composed from two Greek words, d??a, ten, and ???a, day—ten days. Cf. Teza, La parola Decameron in Propugnatore (1889), II, p. 311 et seq., and Rajna, op. cit., who shows that the proper form is Decameron, not Decamerone. Later some one added the sub-title "cognominato il Principe Galeotto"; cf. Inferno, V, 137.

[655] Cf. Albertazzi, I novellatori e le novellatrici del Dec. in Parvenze e Sembianze (Bologna, 1892); Gebhart, Le prologue du Dec. et la Renaissance in Conteurs Florentins (Hachette, 1901), p. 65 et seq.; Morini, Il prologo del Dec. in Rivista Pol. e Lett., xvi. 3.

[656] The only interruption of the Decameron, if so it can be called, is the introduction of Tindaro and Licisca at the beginning of the sixth day. The diversion, however, has very little consequence.

[657] A few things we may gather, however. Pampinea was the eldest (Proem), and by inference Elisa the youngest. Some of the ladies were of Ghibelline stock (X, 8). For what life ingenuity can find in them, see Hauvette, Les Ballades du DÉcamÉron in Journal des Savants (Paris, September, 1905), p. 489 et seq.

[658] He also tells two of the best tales in the book, that of Fra Cipolla and the Relics (VI, 10), and of the Patient Griselda (X, 10). These are the only stories he tells which are not licentious.

[659] See Mancini, Poggio Gherardo, primo ricetto alle novellatrici del B., frammento di R. Gherardo, etc. (Firenze, 1858); and Florentine Villas (Dent, 1901), by Janet Ross, p. 131. Mrs. Ross owns Poggio Gherardo to-day. Mr. J. M. Rigg denies that Poggio Gherardo is the place, but gives no reasons save that it does not tally with the description, which is both true and untrue. It tallies as well as it could do after more than five hundred years; and perfectly as regards situation and distance from the city and the old roads. Cf. my Country Walks about Florence (Methuen, 1908), cap. i.

[660] See my Country Walks about Florence (Methuen, 1908), pp. 23 and 26 et seq. Mr. J. M. Rigg, in the introduction to his translation of the Decameron (Routledge, 1905), here again denies the identity of Villa Palmieri with the second palace of the Decameron. He says it does not stand "on a low hill" amid a plain, but on "the lower Fiesolan slope." But Boccaccio even in Mr. Rigg's excellent translation does not say that, but "they arrived at a palace ... which stood somewhat from the plain, being situate upon a low eminence." This exactly describes Villa Palmieri, as even a casual glance at a big map will assure us.

[661] No doubt a vivid reminiscence of Madonna Fiammetta at Baia.

[662] See my Country Walks about Florence (Methuen, 1908), p. 23 et seq. The place has been drained to-day, and is now a garden of vines and olives in the podere of Villa Ciliegio belonging to A. W. Benn, Esq., whose kindness and courtesy in permitting me to see the place I wish here to acknowledge.

[663] Cf. Manni, Istoria del Decamerone (Firenze, 1742); Bartoli, I precursi del B. (Firenze, 1876); Landau, Die Quellen des Dekam. (Stuttgart, 1884); Cappelletti, Osserv. e notiz. sulle fonti del Decam. (Livorno, 1891).

[664] No doubt most of these stories were current up and down Italy.

[665] As with Shakespeare so with Boccaccio, the religious temperament is not represented.

[666] Pinelli, La moralitÀ nel Decam. in Propugnatore (1882), xv and xvi; also Dejob, A propos de la partie honnÊte du DÉcam. in Revue Universitaire (July 15, 1900).

[667] See Appendix VIII, p. 367 et seq.

[668] Decameron, V, 10.

[669] Ibid., VII, 2.

[670] Ibid., VII, 8.

[671] Ibid., VII, 7.

[672] Ibid., VII, 9.

[673] Ibid., II, 10.

[674] Ibid., V, 9.

[675] But we must be careful of our edition if we read her only in English. Some time since Mr. Algar Thorold published a fine translation of The Dialogue of S. Catherine of Siena (Kegan Paul), and here all the evidence needed can be found. But of late a "new edition" (1907) has appeared with the respectable "imprimatur" of the Catholic authorities, but all the evidence against the clergy has been omitted, probably to obtain the "imprimatur." See infra p. 310, n. 1. S. Catherine's impeachment of the clergy will be found in the section of her book called Il Trattato delle Lagrime. A summary of the evidence will be found in Mr. E. G. Gardner's excellent S. Catherine of Siena (Dent, 1907), p. 361 et seq. Mr. Gardner adds that "the student ... is compelled to face the fact that the testimony of Boccaccio's Decameron is confirmed by the burning words of a great saint."

[676] Decameron, VI, 10.

[677] Ibid., VI, 2.

[678] Ibid., VII, 3

[679] Ibid., I, 1.

[680] Ibid., III, 1; IX, 2.

[681] Ibid., III, 4.

[682] Cf. Biagi, La Rassettatura del Decamerone in Aneddoti Letterari (Milan, 1887), p. 262 et seq., and Foscolo, Disc. sul testo del D. in Opere (Firenze, 1850), III. The facts seem quite clear about the action of the Church with regard to the Decameron. It was condemned by the Council of Trent. The earliest edition of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum in which I have found it, is that published in Rome in 1559. Since then it has figured in every Roman edition of the Index (as far as I have tested them), the entry against it being "Donec expurg. Ind. Trent," which means, "Until expurgated, indexed by the Council of Trent." It appears to have remained thus provisionally condemned and prohibited until the last years of the nineteenth century. I find it still in the Index of 1881; but it no longer figures in that of 1900. The amusing point is that the Church does not seem to have minded the licentiousness of the tales as such; but to have objected to them being told of Monks, Friars, Nuns, and the Clergy, in regard to whom, as we have seen, they were merely the truth. Editions with a clerical "imprimatur" have been always published where laymen have been substituted for these. For instance, the edition printed in Florence, 1587, "con permissione de' superiori," etc., substitutes the avarice of magistrates for the hypocrisy of the clergy in Dec., I, 6.

[683] Cf. Biagi, Il Decameron giudicato da un contemporaneo in op. cit., p. 377 et seq.

[684] Cf. Hauvette, Della parentela esistente fra il MS. berlinese del Dec. e il codice Mannelli in Giorn. St. d. Lett. It. (1895), XXXI, p. 162 et seq.

[685] In Sylvia, Alfred de Musset says very happily, "La Fontaine a ri dans Boccace oÙ Shakespeare fondait en pleurs."

[686] In his Cimon, Sigismonda, and Theodore he used Nov. v. 1, iv. 1, and v. 8 respectively.

[687] In his Isabella (iv. 5).

[688] In his Falcon (v. 9) and Golden Supper (x. 4).

[689] Nevertheless I think it probable that the reason the Decameron had, as a work of art, so little influence on our prose literature may have been the publication of King James's Bible in 1611, nine years before the complete translation of the Decameron (1620).

[690] On the other hand, though Chaucer was considerably in Boccaccio's debt, he never mentions his name, but, as we know, he speaks of Dante and Petrarch.

[691] Cf. Kuhns, Dante and the English Poets (New York, 1904), and Paget Toynbee, Dante in English Literature (Methuen, 1909).

[692] Cf. H. C. Coote in AthenÆum, 7th June, 1884, No. 2954.

[693] If Dante moved Chaucer most, it is from Boccaccio he borrows most. Troilus and Criseyde is to a great extent a translation of the Filostrato. Cf. Rossetti, W. M., Chaucer's "Troylus and Criseyde" compared with Boccaccio's "Filostrato" (Chaucer Society, 1875 and 1883). The Knightes Tale is a free rendering of the Teseide. The design of the Canterbury Tales was in some sort modelled on the design of the Decameron. As we have seen, The Reeves Tale, The Frankeleynes Tale, The Schipmannes Tale are all found in the Decameron, though it is doubtful perhaps whether Chaucer got them thence. The Monks Tale is from De Casibus Virorum.

Did Chaucer meet Petrarch and Boccaccio in Italy? He seems to wish to suggest that he had met the former at Padua, but, as I have said, of the latter he says not a word, but gives "Lollius" as his authority when he uses Boccaccio's work. Cf. Dr. Koch's paper in Chaucer Society Essays, Pt. IV. Jusserand in Nineteenth Century, June, 1896, and in reply Bellezza in Eng. Stud., 23 (1897), p. 335.

[695] This first translation has been reprinted by Mr. Charles Whibley in The Tudor Translations (4 vols., David Nutt, 1909), with an introduction by Edward Hutton. In it the story of Fra Rustico (III, 10) has been omitted by the anonymous translator, and a harmless Scandinavian tale substituted for it.

[696] In 1804, 1820, 1822, 1846 (1875), 1884, 1886, 1896.

[697] A reprint of the 1896 edition of the Decameron translated by J. M. Rigg, with J. A. Symonds's essay as Introduction (Routledge, 1905), and the edition spoken of supra, n. 2.

[698] Filacolo (ed. cit.), ii. pp. 242-3. I give the whole passage for the sake of clearness: "Ma non lungo tempo quivi ricevuti noi dimorÒ, che abbandonata la semplice giovane [i.e. Giannai or Jeanne; he is speaking of his father] e l' armento tornÒ ne' suoi campi, e quivi appresso noi si tirÒ, e non guari lontano al suo natal sito la promessa fede a Giannai ad un altra, Garamita chiamata, ripromise e servÒ, di cui nuova prole dopo piccolo spazio riceveo. Io semplice e lascivo, come giÀ dissi, le pedate dello ingannator padre seguendo, volendo un giorno nella paternal casa entrare, due orsi ferocissimi e terribili mi vidi avanti con gli occhi ardenti desiderosi della mia morte, de' quali dubitando io volsi i passi miei e da quell' ora innanzi sempre d' entrare in quella dubitai. Ma acciocchÈ io piÙ vero dica, tanta fu la paura, che abbandonati i paternali campi, in questi boschi venni l' apparato uficio a operare...."

[699] The document quoted by Della Torre, op. cit., p. 24, seems to prove that Francesco was born in 1321.

[700] Cf. Dante, Paradiso, v. 82-4.

[701] Cf. S. Isidoro di Siviglia, Origines in Opera Omnia (Paris, 1580), cap. 75. Also Papia, Elementarium (Milan, 1476), under Aetas; and see Della Torre, op. cit., p. 73.

[702] Ameto (ed. cit.), p. 225.

[703] Ibid., p. 227.

[704] See G. Betussi, La Genealogia degli Dei di Boccaccio (Venice, 1547). Cf. Della Torre, op. cit., p. 123. The evidence is not good enough to base an argument on unsupported.

[705] Cf. D' Ancona e Bocci, Manuale della Lett. Ital. (Firenze, 1904), Vol. I, p. 579.

[706] Filocolo (ed. cit.), I, pp. 4-5.

[707] Cf. The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer (Clarendon Press, 1901), p. 401.

[708] Op. cit.

[709] In Dekameron von G. B. aus dem Italienischen Übersetz (Leipzig, 1859), Vol. I, p. 22, note 2.

[710] Op. cit., p. 104.

[711] In Nuova Antologia (1875), XXVIII, p. 562.

[712] Op. cit.

[713] Cf. Crescini in Kristischer Jahresbericht, etc. (1898); Hauvette: Une Confession de Boccacce—Il Corbaccio in Bulletin Italien (1901), i, p. 7.

[714] See Ameto (ed. cit.), p. 227. I quote the passage: "Ed ancorachÈ Febo avesse tutti i dodici segnali mostrati del cielo sei volte, poichÈ quello era stato, pure riformÒ la non falsa fantasia nella offuscata memoria la vedute effigie...." Then below: "Ma sedici volte tonda, e altrettante bicorna ci si mostrÒ Febea...." That is six years and sixteen months, or in other words, seven years and four months.

[715] Witte's and Koerting's theory, based on 25 March as the beginning of spring, certainly receives some support from Boccaccio's comment on Dante, Inferno, i. 38-40:—

Boccaccio, after speaking of "Ariete, nel principio del quale affermano alcuni Nostro Signore aver creato e posto il corpo del sole," adds: "e perciÒ volendo l' autore dimostrare per questa descrizione il principio della Primavera, dice che il Sole saliva su dallo emisferio inferiore al superiore, con quelle stelle le quali erano con lui quando il divino amore lui e l' altre cose belle creÒ; ... volendo per questo darne ad intendere, quando da prima pose la mano alla presente opera essere circa al principio della Primavera; e cosÌ fu siccome appresso apparirÀ: egli nella presente fantasia entrÒ a dÌ 25 di Marzo."—Comento (ed. cit.), cap. i.

[716] cioÈ di Monte Ceceri....