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BOCCACCIO, GIOVANNI (1313-1375)
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See also:BOCCACCIO, GIOVANNI (1313-1375) , See also:Italian author, whose Decameron is one of the See also:classics of literature, was See also:born in 1313, as we know from a See also:letter of See also:Petrarch, in which that poet, who was born in 1304, calls himself the See also:senior of his friend by nine years. The See also:place of his See also:birth is somewhat doubtful—Florence, See also:Paris and See also:Certaldo being all mentioned by various writers as his native See also:city. Boccaccio undoubtedly calls himself a Florentine, but this may refer merely to the Florentine See also:citizen-See also:ship acquired by his grandfather. The claim of Paris has been supported by Baldelli and See also:Tiraboschi, mainly on the ground that his See also:mother was a See also:lady of See also:good See also:family in that city, where she met Boccaccio's See also:father. There is a good See also:deal in favour of Certaldo, a small See also:town or See also:castle in the valley of the Elsa, 20 M. from See also:Florence, where the family had some See also:property, and where the poet spent much of the latter See also:part of his See also:life. He always signed his name Boccaccio da Certaldo, and named that town as his birthplace in his own. See also:epitaph. Petrarch calls his friend Certaldese; and Filippo See also:Villani, a contemporary, distinctly says that Boccaccio was born in Certaldo. Boccaccio, an illegitimate son, as is put beyond dispute by the fact that a See also:special See also:licence had to be obtained when he desired to become a See also:priest, was brought up with See also:tender care by his father, who seems to have been a See also:merchant of respectable See also:rank. His elementary See also:education he received from Giovanni da Strada, an esteemed teacher of See also:grammar in Florence. But at an See also:early See also:age he was apprenticed to an eminent merchant, with whom he remained for six years, a See also:time entirely lost to him, if we may believe his own statement. For from his tenderest years his soul was attached to that " See also:alma poesis," which, on his tombstone, he names as the task and study of his life. In one of his See also:works he relates that, in his seventh See also:year, before he had ever seen a See also:book of See also:poetry or learned the rules of metrical See also:composition, he began to write See also:verse in his childish See also:fashion, and earned for himself amongst his See also:friends the name of " the poet." It is uncertain where Boccaccio passed these six years of bondage; most likely he followed his See also:master to various centres of See also:commerce in See also:Italy and See also:France. We know at least that he was in See also:Naples and Paris for some time, and the youthful impressions received in the latter city, as well as the knowledge of the See also:French See also:language acquired there, were of considerable See also:influence on his later career. Yielding at last to his son's immutable aversion to commerce, the See also:elder Boccaccio permitted him to adopt a course of study somewhat more congenial to the See also:literary tastes of the See also:young See also:man. He was sent to a celebrated See also:professor of See also:canon See also:law, at that time an important See also: We are told that, finding himself by See also:chance on the supposed See also:grave of See also:Virgil, near Naples, Boccaccio on that sacred spot took the See also:firm See also:resolution of devoting himself for ever to poetry. But perhaps another event, which happened some time after, led quite as much as the first-mentioned occurrence to this decisive turning-point in his life. On See also:Easter-See also:eve, 1341, in the See also: The See also:style also cannot be held worthy of the future great master of Italian prose. Considering, however, that this prose was in its See also:infancy, and that this was Boccaccio's first See also:attempt at remoulding the unwieldy material at his disposal, it would be unjust to deny that Filocopo is a highly interesting work, full of promise and all but articulate See also:power. Another work, written about the same time by Fiam-' metta's See also:desire and dedicated to her, is the Teseide, an epic poem, and indeed the first heroic epic in the Italian language. The name is chosen somewhat inappropriately, as King See also:Theseus plays a secondary part, and the See also:interest of the story centres in the two noble knights, Palemone and Arcito, and their wooing of the beautiful Emelia. The Teseide is of particular interest to the student of poetry, because it exhibits the first example of the bttava rima, a See also:metre which was adopted by See also:Tasso and See also:Ariosto, and in See also:English by See also:Byron in See also:Don Juan. Another See also:link between Boccaccio's epic and English literature is formed by the fact of See also:Chaucer having in the See also:Knight's Tale adopted its main features. Boccaccio's poetry has been severely criticized by his See also:country-men, and most severely by the author himself. On See also:reading Petrarch's sonnets, Boccaccio resolved in a See also:fit of despair to See also:burn his own attempts, and only the kindly encouragement of his great friend prevented the See also:holocaust. Posterity has justly differed from the author's sweeping self-See also:criticism. It is true, that compared with Dante's grandeur and passion, and with Petrarch's See also:absolute mastership of metre and language, Boccaccio's poetry seems to be somewhat thrown into shade. His verse is occasionally slip-shod, and particularly his epic poetry lacks what in See also:modern parlance is called poetic diction,—the quality, that is, which distinguishes the elevated pathos of the See also:recorder of heroic deeds from the easy See also:grace of the See also:mere conteur. This latter feature, so charmingly displayed in Boccaccio's prose, has to some extent proved fatal to his verse. At the same time, his narrative is always fluent and interesting, and his lyrical pieces, particularly the poetic interludes in the Decameron, abound with charming gallantry, and frequently rise to lyrical pathos. About the year 1341 Boccaccio returned to Florence by command of his father, who in his old age desired the assistance and See also:company of his son. Florence, at that time disturbed by See also:civil feuds, and the silent gloom of his father's house could not but appear in an unfavourable See also:light to one accustomed to the gay life of the Neapolitan court. But more than all this, Boccaccio regretted the separation from his beloved Fiammetta. The thought of her at once embittered and consoled his loneliness. Three of his works owe their existence to this period. With all of them Fiammetta is connected; of one of them she alone is the subject. The first work, called Ameto, describes the civilizing influence of love, which subdues the ferocious See also:manners of the See also:savage with its See also:gentle power. Fiammetta, although not the heroine of the story, is amongst the See also:nymphs who with their tales of true love soften the mind of the See also:huntsman. Ameto is written in prose alternating with verse, specimens of which See also:form occur in old and middle Latin writings. It is more probable, however, that Boccaccio adopted it from that sweetest and purest blossom of See also:medieval French literature, Aucassin et Nicolette, which See also:dates from the 13th See also:century, and was undoubtedly known to him. So pleased was Boccaccio with the See also:idea embodied in the See also:character of Ameto that he repeated its essential features in the Cimone of his Decameron (See also:Day 5th, tale i.). The second work referred to is a poem in fifty chapters, called L' amorosa Visione. It describes a See also:dream in which the poet, guided by a lady, See also:sees the heroes and lovers of See also:ancient and medieval times. Boccaccio evidently has tried to imitate the celebrated Trionfi of Petrarch, but without much success. There is little organic development in the poem, which reads like the See also:catalogue raisonne of a picture See also:gallery; but it is remarkable from another point of view. It is perhaps the most astounding instance in literature of ingenuity wasted on trifles; even See also:Edgar See also:Poe, had he known Boccaccio's See also:puzzle, must have confessed himself surpassed. For the whole of the Amoroso Visione is nothing but an See also:acrostic on a gigantic See also:scale. The poem is written, like the Divina Commedia, in terza rima, and the initial letters of all the triplets throughout the work compose three poems of considerable length, in the first of which the whole is dedicated to Boccaccio's lady-love, this time under her real name of Maria. In addition to this, the initial letters of the first, third, fifth, seventh and ninth lines of the dedicatory poem form the name of Maria; so that here we have the acrostic in the second degree. No wonder that thus entrammelled the poet's thought begins to See also:flag and his language to See also:halt. The third important work written by Boccaccio during his stay at Florence, or soon after his return to Naples, is called L' amorosa Fiammetta; and although written in prose, it contains more real poetry than the elaborate See also:production just referred to. It purports to be Fiammetta's complaint after her lover, following the call of filial duty, had deserted her. Bitterly she deplores her See also:fate, and upbraids her lover with coldness and want of devotion. Jealous fears add to her See also:torture, not altogether unfounded, if we believe the commentators' assertion that the heroine of Ameto is in reality the beautiful See also:Lucia, a Florentine lady loved by Boccaccio. Sadly Fiammetta recalls the moments of former See also:bliss, the first See also:meeting, the stolen embrace. Her narrative is indeed our See also:chief source of information for the incidents of this See also:strange love-story. It has been thought unlikely, and indeed impossible, that Boccaccio should thus have become the See also:mouthpiece of a real lady's real passion for himself; but there seems nothing in-See also:congruous in the supposition that after a happy See also:reunion the poet should have heard with See also:satisfaction, and surrounded with the See also:halo of ideal See also:art, the story of his lady's sufferings. Moreover, thelanguage is too full of individual intensity to make the conjecture of an entirely fictitious love affair intrinsically probable. L' amorosa Fiammetta is a monody of passion sustained even to the See also:verge of dulness, but strikingly real, and therefore artistically valuable. By the intercession of an influential friend, Boccaccio at last obtained (in 1344) his father's permission to return to Naples, where in the meantime Giovanna, See also:grand-daughter of King Robert, had succeeded to the crown. Being young and beautiful, fond of poetry and of the praise of poets, she received Boccaccio with all the distinction due to his literary fame. For many years she remained his faithful friend, and the poet returned her favour with grateful devotion. Even when the See also:charge of having instigated, or at least connived at, the See also:murder of her husband was but too clearly proved against her, Boccaccio was amongst the few who stood by her, and undertook the hopeless task of clearing her name from the dreadful stain. It was by her desire, no less than by that of Fiammetta, that he composed (between 1344 and 1350) most of the stories of his Decameron, which afterwards were collected and placed in the mouths of the Florentine ladies and gentlemen. During this time he also composed the Filostrato, a narrative poem, the chief interest of which, for the English reader, lies in its connexion with Chaucer. With a boldness pardonable only in men of See also:genius, Chaucer adopted the main features of the See also:plot, and literally translated parts of Boccaccio's work, without so much as mentioning the name of his Italian source. In 1350 Boccaccio returned to Florence, owing to the death of his father, who had made him See also:guardian to his younger See also:brother Jacopo. He was received with great distinction, and entered the service of the See also:Republic, being at various times sent on important See also:missions to the See also:margrave of See also:Brandenburg, and to the courts of several popes, both in See also:Avignon and Rome. Boccaccio boasts of the friendly terms on which he had been with the great potentates of See also:Europe, the See also:emperor and See also:pope amongst the number. But he was never a politician in the sense that Dante and Petrarch were. As a man of the See also:world he enjoyed the society of the great, but his interest in the See also:internal commotions of the Florentine See also:state seems to have been very slight. Besides, he never liked Florence, and the expressions used by him regarding his See also:fellow-citizens betray anything but patriotic See also:prejudice. In a Latin See also:eclogue he applies to them the See also:term "Batrachos" (frogs), by which, he adds parenthetically—Ego intelligo Florentinorum morem; loquacissimi enim sumus, verism in See also:rebus bellicis nihil valemus. The only important result of Boccaccio's See also:diplomatic career was his intimacy with Petrarch. The first acquaintance of these two great men dates from the year 1350, when Boccaccio, then just returned to Florence, did all in his power to make the great poet's See also:short stay in that city agreeable. When in the following year the Florentines were anxious to draw men of great reputation to their newly-founded university, it was again Boccaccio who insisted on the claims of Petrarch to the most distinguished position. He himself accepted the See also:mission of inviting his friend to Florence, and of announcing to Petrarch at the same time that the forfeited estates of his family had been restored to him. 
In this manner an intimate friendship See also:grew up between them to be parted only by death. See also:Common interests and common literary pursuits were the natural basis of their friendship, and both occupy prominent positions in the early See also:history of that great intellectual revival commonly called the See also:Renaissance. During the 14th. century the study of ancient literature was at a See also:low ebb in Italy. The interest of the See also:lay world was engrossed by See also:political struggles, and the treasures of classical history and poetry were at the See also:mercy of monks, too lazy or too ignorant to use, or even to preserve them. Boccaccio himself told that, on asking to see the library of the celebrated monastery of See also:Monte Cassino, he was shown into a dusty See also:room without a See also:door to it. Many of the valuable See also:manuscripts were mutilated; and his See also:guide told him that the monks were in the See also:habit of tearing leaves from the codices to turn them into psalters for See also:children, or amulets for women at the See also:price of four or five soldi apiece. Boccaccio did all in his power to remove by word and example this barbarous indifference. He bought or copied with his own See also:hand numerous valuable manuscripts, and an old writer remarks that if Boccaccio had been a professional copyist, the amount of his work might astonish us. His zealous endeavours for the revival of the all but forgotten See also:Greek language in western Europe are well known. The most celebrated Italian scholars about the beginning of the 15th century were unable to read the Greek characters. Boccaccio deplored the See also:ignorance of his age. He took lessons from Leone Pilato, a learned adventurer of the period, who had lived a long time in See also:Thessaly and, although born in See also:Calabria, pretended to be a Greek. By Boccaccio's See also:advice Leone Pilato was appointed professor of Greek language and literature in the university of Florence, a position which he held for several years, not without great and lasting benefit for the revival of classical learning. Boccaccio was justly proud of having been intimately connected with the •foundation of the first See also:chair of Greek in Italy. But he did not forget, in his admiration of classic literature, the great poets of his own country. He never tires in his praise of the See also:sublime Dante, whose works he copied with his own hand. He conjures his friend Petrarch to study the great Florentine, and to defend himself against the charges of wilful ignorance and envy brought against him. A life of Dante, and the commentaries on the first sixteen cantos of the Inferno, See also:bear See also:witness to Boccaccio's learning and See also:enthusiasm. In the See also:chronological enumeration of our author's writings we now come to his most important work, the Decameron, a collection of one See also:hundred stories, published in their combined form in 1353, although mostly written at an earlier date. This work marks in a certain sense the rise of Italian prose. It is true that Dante's Vita Nueva was written before, but its involved sentences, founded essentially on Latin constructions, cannot be compared with the See also:infinite suppleness and precision of Boccaccio's prose. The See also:Cento Novelle Antiche, on the other hand, which also precedes the Decameron in date, can hardly be said to be written in See also:artistic language according to definite rules of grammar and style. Boccaccio for the first time speaks a new See also:idiom, flexible and tender, like the character of the nation, and capable of rendering all the shades of feeling, from the coarse laugh of cynicism to the sigh of hopeless love. It is by the name of " Father of Italian Prose " that Boccaccio ought to be chiefly remembered. Like most progressive movements in art and literature, Boccaccio's remoulding of Italian prose may be described as a " return to nature." It is indeed the nature of the Italian See also:people itself which has become articulate in the Decameron; here we find See also:southern grace and elegance, together with that unveiled naivete of impulse which is so striking and so amiable a quality of the Italian character. The undesirable See also:complement of the last-mentioned feature, a coarseness and indecency of conception and expression hardly comprehensible to the See also:northern mind, also appears in the Decameron, particularly where the life and conversation of the See also:lower classes are the subject of the story. At the same time, these descriptions of low life are so admirable, and the character of popular parlance rendered with such See also:humour, as often to make the frown of moral disgust give way to a smile. It is not surprising that a style so concise and yet so pliable, so typical and yet so individual, as that of Boccaccio wa., of enormous influence on the further progress of a prose in a manner created by it. This influence has indeed prevailed down to the present time, to an extent beneficial upon the whole, although frequently fatal to the development of individual writers. Novelists like Giovanni Fiorentino or Franco See also:Sacchetti are completely under the sway of their great See also:model; and Boccaccio's influence may be discerned equally in the plastic fulness of See also:Machiavelli and in the pointed See also:satire of See also:Aretino. Without touching upon the individual merits of La.sca, See also:Bandello and other novelists of the cinque-cento, it may be asserted that none of them created a style See also:independent of their great predecessor. One cannot indeed but acquiesce in the authoritative utterance ofthe Accademia della Crusca, which holds up the Decameron as the See also:standard and model of Italian prose. Even the Della Cruscan writers themselves have been unable to deprive the language wholly of the fresh spontaneity of Boccaccio's manner, which in modern literature we again admire in See also:Manzoni's Promessi sposi. A detailed See also:analysis of a work so well known as the Decameron would be unnecessary. The description of the See also:plague of Florence preceding the stories is universally acknowledged to be a master-piece of epic grandeur and vividness. It ranks with the paintings of similar calamities by See also:Thucydides, See also:Defoe and Manzoni. Like Defoe, Boccaccio had to draw largely on hearsay and his own See also:imagination, it being almost certain that in 1348 he was at Naples, and therefore no See also:eye-witness of the scenes he describes. The stories themselves, a hundred in number, range from the highest pathos to the coarsest licentiousness. A creation like the patient See also:Griselda, which See also:international literature owes to Boccaccio, ought to atone for much that is morally and artistically objectionable in the Decameron. It may be said on this See also:head, that his age and his country were not only deeply immoral, but in addition exceedingly outspoken. Moreover, his See also:sources were anything but pure. Most of his improper stories are either anecdotes from real life, or they are taken from the fabliaux of medieval French poets. On comparing the latter class of stories (about one-fifth of the whole Decameron) with their French originals, one finds that Boccaccio has never added to, but has sometimes toned down the revolting ingredients. Notwithstanding this, it cannot be denied that the artistic value of the Decameron is greatly impaired by descriptions and expressions, the intentional licentiousness of which is but imperfectly veiled by an attempt at humour. Boccaccio has been accused of See also:plagiarism, particularly by French critics, who correctly state that the subjects of many stories in the Decameron are borrowed from their literature. A similar objection might be raised against Chaucer, See also:Shakespeare, See also:Goethe (in See also:Faust), and indeed most of the master minds of all nations. Power of invention is not the only nor even the chief criterion of a great poet. He takes his subjects indiscriminately from his own See also:fancy, or from the consciousness of his and other nations. Stories See also:float about in the See also:air, known to all yet realized by few; the poet gathers their disjecta membra into an organic whole, and this he inspires and calls into life with the breath of his genius. It is in this sense that Boccaccio is the creator of those innumerable beautiful types and stories, which have since become See also:household words amongst civilized nations. No author can equal him in these contributions to the See also:store of international literature. There are indeed few great poets who have not in some way become indebted to the inexhaustible treasure of Boccaccio's creativeness. One of the greatest masterpieces of See also:German literature, See also:Lessing's Nathan the See also:Wise, contains a story from Boccaccio (Decameron, Day 1st, tale iii.), and the See also:list of English poets who have See also:drawn from the same source comprises, among many others, the names of Chaucer, See also:Lydgate, See also:Dryden, See also:Keats and See also:Tennyson.
For ten years Boccaccio continued to reside in Florence, leaving the city only occasionally on diplomatic missions or on visits to his friends. His fame in the meantime began to spread far and wide, and his Decameron, in particular, was devoured by the fashionable ladies and gentlemen of the age. About 136o he seems to have retired from the turbulent scenes of Florence to his native Certaldo, the secluded charms of which he describes with rapture. In the following year took place that strange turning-point in Boccaccio's career which is generally described as his See also:conversion. It seems that a Carthusian See also: His life had been far from virtuous; in his writings he had frequently sinned against the rules of morality, and worse still, he had attacked with See also:bitter satire the institutions and servants of See also:holy mother church. Terrified by the approach of immediate death, he resolved to sell his library, abandon literature, and devote the See also:remainder of his life to See also:penance and religious exercise. To this effect he wrote to Petrarch. We possess the poet's See also:answer; it is a masterpiece of See also:writing, and what is more, a See also:proof of tenderest friendship. The message of the monk Petrarch is evidently inclined to treat simply as pious See also:fraud, without, however, actually committing himself to that See also:opinion. " No monk is required to tell thee of the shortness and precariousness of human life. Of the advice received accept what is good; abandon worldly cares, conquer thy passions, and reform thy soul and life of degraded habits. But do not give up the studies which are the true See also:food of a healthy mind." Boccaccio seems to have acted on this valuable advice. His later works, although written in Latin and scientific in character, are by no means of a religious See also:kind. It seems, however, that his entering the church in 1362 is connected with the events just related. In 1363 Boccaccio went on a visit to Naples to the See also:seneschal See also:Acciajuoli (the same Florentine who had in 1344 persuaded the elder Boccaccio to permit his son's return to Naples), who commissioned him to write the story of his deeds of valour. On his arrival, however, the poet was treated with shameful neglect, and revenged himself by denying the possibility of See also:relating any valorous deeds for want of their existence. This See also:declaration, it must be confessed, came somewhat See also:late, but it was provoked by a See also:silly attack on the poet himself by one of the seneschal's indiscreet friends.
During the next ten years Boccaccio led an unsettled life, residing chiefly at Florence or Certaldo, but frequently leaving his See also:home on visits to Petrarch and other friends, and on various diplomatic errands in the service of the Republic. He seems to have been poor, having spent large sums in the See also:purchase of books, but his independent spirit rejected the numerous splendid offers of hospitality made to him by friends and admirers. During this period he wrote four important Latin works—De Genealogia Deorum libri X V., a compendium of mythological knowledge full of deep learning; De Montium, Silvarum, Lacuum, et Marium nominibus See also:liber, a See also:treatise on ancient See also:geography; and two See also:historical books—De Casibus Virorum et Feminarum Illustrium libri IX., interesting to the English reader as the See also:original of See also: Almost his dying efforts were devoted to the memory of his friend; urgently he entreated Petrarch's son-in-law to arrange the publication of the deceased poet's Latin epic See also:Africa, a work of which the author had been far more proud than of his immortal sonnets to Laura. In his last will Boccaccio See also:left his library to his father See also:confessor, and after his decease to the See also:convent of Santo Spirito in Florence. His small property he bequeathed to his brother Jacopo. His own natural children had died before him. He himself died on the 21st of See also:December 1375 at Certaldo, and was buried in the I05 church of SS. Jacopo e Filippo of that town. On his tombstone was engraved the epitaph composed by himself shortly before his death. It is See also:calm and dignified, worthy indeed of a great life with a great purpose. These are the lines: " Hac sub See also:mole jacent cineres ac See also:ossa Jeannie; Mens sedet ante Deum, meritis ornata laborum Mortalis vitae. Genitor Boccaccius illi; Patria Certaldum; studium fuit alma poesis." A See also:complete edition of Boccaccio's Italian writings, in 17 vols., was published by Moutier (Florence, 1834). The life of Boccaccio has been written by Tiraboschi, Mazzuchelli, Count Baldelli (Vita di Boccaccio, Florence, 1806), and others. In English the best See also:biography is See also:Edward See also:Hutton (1909.) The first printed edition of the Decameron is without date, place or printer's name; but it is believed to belong to the year 1469 or 1470, and to have been printed at Florence. Besides this, Baldelli mentions eleven See also:editions during the 15th century. The entire number of editions by far exceeds a hundred. A curious expurgated edition, authorized by the pope, appeared at Florence, 1573. Here, however, the grossest in-decencies remain, the chief alteration being the See also:change of the improper personages from priests and monks into laymen. The best old edition is that of Florence, 1527. Of modern reprints, that by Forfoni (Florence, 1857) deserves mention. Manni has written a Storia del Decamerone (1742), and a German scholar, M. See also:Landau, who published (See also:Vienna, 1869) a valuable investigation of the sources of the Decameron, subsequently brought out in 1877 a See also:general study of Boccaccio's life and works. An interesting English See also:translation of the Decameron appeared in 1624, under the See also:title The Model of Mirth, Wit, Eloquence and Conversation.. (F. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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