[81] Amorosa Visione, v. 171-3.

[82] Cf. Hortis, Studi sulle Opere Latine di Gio. Boccaccio, etc. (Trieste, 1879), p. 399.

[83] Della Torre, op. cit., p. 151. But the strongest proof that Boccaccio and Cino were friends is furnished by Volpi, Una Canzone di Cino da Pistoia nel "Filostrato" del Boccaccio in Bull. St. Pistoiese (1899), Vol. I, fasc. 3, p. 116 et seq., who finds a song of Cino's in the Filostrato. It seems probable, then, since they were in personal relations, that Cino introduced the works of Dante to Boccaccio.

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

[85] In the Filocolo (ed. cit.), II, 377, begun according to our theory in 1331. I quote the following: "Nè ti sia cura di volere essere dove i misurati versi del Fiorentino Dante si cantino, il quale tu, siccome piccolo servidore, molto dei reverente seguire." Cf. Dobelli, Il culto del Boccaccio per Dante in Giornale Dantesca (1898), V, p. 207 et seq. See too the quotations from Dante, for they are really just that in the Filostrato, part ii. strofa 50, et passim, and see infra, pp. 77, n. 2, and 253, n. 5.

[86] Cf. Bertolotto, Il Trattato dell' Astrolabio di A. di N. in Atti della Soc. Liguria di St. Pat. (1892), Vol. XXV, p. 55 et seq. Also the De Genealogiis, XV, 6, and Hortis, Studi, p. 158 and notes 1-3. Andalò di Negro was born in 1260, it seems, at Genoa. In 1314 he was chosen by the Signoria of Genoa as ambassador to Alessio Comneno of Trebizond, and he carried out his mission excellently. He had already travelled much, and after his embassy seems to have gone to Cyprus (Genealogiis, u.s.). He passed his last years at the court of King Robert in Naples, who appointed him astrologer and physician to the court. His pay was six ounces of gold annually (Bertolotto, u.s.). He died in the early summer of 1334. He was a learned astronomer and astrologer, and probably one of the most remarkable men of his time.

[87] Cf. De. Blasiis, op. cit., p. 494.

[88] Cf. Amorosa Visione, cap. xxix.

[89] See Appendix I.

[90] Cf. Sophocles, Antigone, 781 et seq.

Yet when he wrote the Filocolo Boccaccio knew no Greek.

[91] See Filocolo, ed. cit., I, p. 5 et seq. The scene is described also in the Filostrato, i. xxvi.-xxxiv. In the Fiammetta, cap. i., it is described from Fiammetta's point of view.

[92] In the Fiammetta (Opere Minori, Milano, 1879, p. 25) Boccaccio thus describes himself on that morning through the eyes of Fiammetta; it is in keeping with the topsy-turveydom of that extraordinary work: "Dico che, secondo il mio giudicio, il quale ancora non era da amore occupato, elli era di forma bellissimo, nelli atti piacevolissimo ed onestissimo nell' abito suo, e della sua giovinezza dava manifesto segnale la crespa lanugine, che pur ora occupava le guancie sue; e me non meno pietoso che cauto rimirava tra uomo e uomo."

[93] Ameto (ed. cit.), p. 228. We should have expected a green dress to agree with the prevision; but it was Sabbato Santo. On Easter Day she is in green. See infra.

[94] Fiammetta (ed. cit.), p. 23.

[95] Amorosa Visione, cap. xv.

[96] Ibid., cap. xvi.

[97] Fiammetta (ed. cit.), p. 24.

[98] Filocolo (ed. cit.), I, p. 5.

[99] Ameto (ed. cit.), pp. 65-6.

[100] Fiammetta (ed. cit.), p. 24.

[101] Ameto, ed. cit., p. 228.

[102] Ibid.

[103] Ibid., pp. 221-3.

[104] Filocolo, ed. cit., I, p. 4.

[105] Fiammetta, ed. cit., pp. 114-17.

[106] Ibid., p. 101.

[107] Cf. Della Torre, op. cit., p. 182.

[108] Cf. Villani, Cronica, Lib. VIII, cap. 112.

[109] Villani, op. cit., Lib. IX, cap. 8.

[110] Cf. Arch. St. per le prov. nap., Vol. VII, pp. 220-1.

[111] Della Torre, op. cit., p. 183.

[112] Cf. Fiammetta, ed. cit., p. 21: "Nel tempo nel quale la rivestita terra più che tutto l' altro anno si mostra bella."

[113] Cf. Baldelli, op. cit., p. 362, and Casetti, Il Boccaccio a Napoli, u s., p. 573. So that Boccaccio's age did not differ much from Fiammetta's.

[114] Filocolo, ed. cit., Vol. I, p. 4. In the Fiammetta, ed. cit., p. 21, we learn that she was "in altissime delizie ... nutrita."

[115] Ameto, ed. cit., pp. 222-3.

[116] Casetti, op. cit., p. 575.

[117] See Filocolo, ed. cit., I, p. 6: "in un santo tempo del principe de' celestiali uccelli nominato." Cf. Catalogo di tutti gli edifici sacri della città di Napoli in Arch. St. per le prov. nap., VIII, p. 32.

[118] Ameto, ed. cit., p. 223.

[119] There are many examples of this.

[120] "Con sollecitudini ed arti." And again there came to her very soon "dalla natura ammaestrata, sentendo quali disii alli giovani possono porgere le vaghe donne, conobbi che la mia bellezza più miei coetanei giovanetti ed altri nobili accese di fuoco amoroso." (Fiammetta, ed. cit., p. 21).

[121] Ameto, ed. cit., p. 223.

[122] Cf. Della Torre, op. cit., p. 188. As to these early marriages, cf. Decameron, X, 10. Griselda was but twelve years old, and Juliet, as we remember, was "not fourteen." Fiammetta when Boccaccio first met her was seventeen years old, "dix-sept est étrangement belle," and had already had time for more than one act of infidelity.

[123] Fiammetta, ed. cit., p. 92.

[124] Ibid., pp. 52-4.

[125] Ibid., p. 130.

[126] Filocolo, ed. cit., II, pp. 260-1.

[127] Her excuse is also the morals of the time. There was temptation everywhere, as the Decameron alone without the evidence of the other novelle would amply prove. Every sort of shift was resorted to. Procuresses, hired by would-be lovers, forced themselves into the house of the young wife and compelled her to listen to them. They deceived even the most jealous husbands. The priest even acted as a pander sometimes and more often as a seducer. Decameron, III, 3, and Il Cortigiano di Castiglione, Lib. III, cap. xx. The society in which she moved had no moral horror of this sort of thing; as to-day, the sin lay in being found out. A woman's onestà was not ruined by secret vice, but by the exposure of it, which brought ridicule and shame.

[128]

[129] Fiammetta, ed. cit., p. 102. She thought poorly of marriage, consoling herself when her lover marries by saying: "tutti coloro che moglie prendono, e che l' hanno, l' amino siccome fanno dell' altre donne: la soperchia copia, che le mogli fanno di sè a' loro mariti, è cagion di tostano rincrescimento, quando esse pur nel principio sommamente piacessero ..." (Fiammetta, ed. cit., pp. 69-70).

[130] Crescini, op. cit., pp. 127 and 130, note 2.

[131] Crescini, op. cit.

[132] Della Torre, op. cit., p. 192 et seq.

[133] In his Tabula ad situandos et concordandos menses cum signis in dorso astrolabii in Atti della soc. Ligure di Stor. Pat. (1892), Vol. XXV, p. 59.

[134] Crescini thinks (op. cit.) that Boccaccio first saw Fiammetta on 11th April, 1338. Supposing, then, the date most favourable to him, to wit, that Boccaccio possessed Fiammetta in the night of 17-18 October: 135 days before that was 3rd June, and twenty-four before that was 10th May (twelve days before was 22nd May), not 11th April. Suppose we take our own date, 30th March, we are in worse case still. It seems then certain that between these two periods of 12 and 135 days there was an interval. To decide on its length is the difficulty.

[135] Amorosa Visione, cap. xlv.

[136] Ibid., cap. xlvi.

[137] Cf. Filocolo, ed. cit., II, pp. 261-2.

[138] Cf. supra, p. 36, n. 4.

[139] Filocolo, ed. cit., II, p. 248.

[140] Besides, all the romances are against it. How long did Lancelot serve for Guinivere? And he was the best knight that there was in the whole world.

[141] Crescini, op. cit., p. 185.

[142] Sonnet lxxxvi. in edition Moutier (Opere Volgari di G. B.), Vol. XVI (Firenze, 1834).

[143] On 3rd April, 1339, Boccaccio writes to Carlo Duca di Durazzo that he cannot finish the poem he had asked for because his heart is killed by a love betrayed. Here is the letter, or part of it: "Crepor celsitudinis Epiri principatus, ac Procerum Italiæ claritas singularis, cui nisi fallor, a Superis fortuna candidior, reservatur ut vestra novit Serenitas, et pelignensis Ovidii reverenda testatur auctoritas:

Sed saevientis Rhamnusiæ causa, ac atrocitatis cupidinis importunæ:

prout parvus et exoticus sermo, caliopeo moderamine constitutus vestræ magnificentiæ declarabit inferius; verum tamen non ad plenum; quia si plene anxietates meas vellem ostendere nec sufficeret calamus, et multitudo fastudiret animum intuentis; qui etiam me vivum respiciens ulterius miraretur, quam si Ceæ Erigonis Cristibiæ, vel Medeæ inspiceret actiones. Propter quod si tantæ dominationis mandata, ad plenum inclyte Princeps, non pertraho, in excutationem animi anxiantis fata miserrima se ostendant...." Cf. Corazzini, op. cit., pp. 439-40.

[144] Sonnet xxxiii.:—

[145] Cf. Della Torre, op. cit., p. 207.

[146] And such was the fashion.

[147] Della Torre, op. cit., p. 213.

[148] Fiammetta, ed. cit., pp. 63-4.

[149] I give the Italian, my translation being somewhat free:—"Un piccolo libretto, volgarmente parlando, nel quale il nascimento, lo innamoramento, e gli accidenti delli detti due infino alla lor fine interamente si contenga ... Io sentendo la dolcezza delle parole procedenti dalla graziosa bocca e pensando che mai, cioè infino a questo giorno, di niuna cosa era stato dalla nobil donna pregato, il suo prego in luogo di comandamento mi reputai, prendendo per quello migliore speranza nel futuro de' miei disii."

[150] In the Amorosa Visione we learn that she told him no longer to make fun of himself and to think no more of the social difference between them. In the Filocolo he tells us that he first began to hope after this interview. No doubt she wished to play with him as with the rest. Certainly he was not easy in his mind. "Quelle parole più paura d' inganno che speranza di futuro frutto mi porsero," he tells us in the Filocolo, ed. cit., II., p. 248. Then come the words I for one find so suspicious concerning his birth. In order, he says, to bring her nearer to him, he thinks of his birth which, different in social position as they are, was not unlike hers in its romance. His mother was noble, he tells her, and he feels this nobility in his heart. "Ma la nobilità del mio cuore tratta non dal pastor padre, ma dalla reale madre mi porse ardire e dissi: 'Seguirolla e proverò se vera sarà nell' effetto come nel parlar si mostra volonterosa."

[151] Filocolo, ed. cit., II, 86.

[152] See on this subject De Blasiis, Le Case de' Principi Angioni in Arch. St. per le prov. nap., Ann. XII, pp. 311-12.

[153] Fiammetta, ed. cit., p. 84. I translate: "A city more addicted to joyous festivals than any other in Italy, her citizens were not only entertained with marriages, or country amusements, or with boat-races, but abounding in perpetual festivities she diverted her inhabitants now with one thing, now with another; among others she shone supreme in the frequent tournaments."

[154] Fiammetta, ed. cit., pp. 119-20. "The youths when jousting with potent weapons on galloping horses or to the sound of clashing bells in miniature warfare, showed joyously how with a light hand on the foam-covered bridle fiery horses were to be managed. The young women delighting in these things, garlanded with spring flowers, either from high windows or from the doors below, glanced gaily at their lovers; one with a new gift, another with tender looks, yet another with soft words assured her servant of her love."

[155] Cf. De Genealogiis, XIV, 4, and XV, 10. Giovanni's reply will be found in the Filocolo, ed. cit., II, pp. 84-6, "Chi mosse Vergilio? Chi Ovidio? Chi gli altri poeti a lasciare di loro eterna fama ne' santi versi, li quali mai ai nostri orecchi pervenuti non sarieno se costui non fosse?" and so forth.

[156] So it seems we ought to understand his letter to Franceschino da Brossano, where he says: "Et ego quadraginta annis, vel amplius suis (that is, of Petrarch) fui" (Corazzini, op. cit., p. 382).

[157] "Sono quarant' anni," he writes in 1374, "e più che io amo ed onoro il Petrarca"; cf. Dobelli and Manicardi and Massera: Introduzione al testo critico del "Canzoniere" del Boccaccio (Castel Fiorentino, 1901), pp. 62-4.

[158] Filocolo, ed. cit., II, p. 248.

[159] Rime (Moutier), XVIII.

[160] Ibid., III.

[161] Ibid., LXXXIX.

[162] Ibid., LXXXIII.

[163] Fiammetta, ed. cit., p. 28.

[164] Rime (Moutier), XXXIV.

[165] Ibid., XXV.

[166] Cf. Crescini, op. cit., pp. 186-208; Della Torre, op. cit., p. 245.

[167] See Della Torre, op. cit., pp. 259 and 260. Cf. also De Genealogiis, Lib. XV, cap. x (Hecker, Boccaccio Funde, Braunschweig, 1902, p. 289). "Attamen jam fere maturus etate et mei juris factus, nemine impellente, nemine docente, imo obsistente patre et studium tale damnante, quod modicum novi poetice, sua sponte sumpsit ingenium eamque summa aviditate secutus sum, et, precipua cum delectatione, auctorum eiusdem libros vidi legique, et, uti potui, intelligere conatus sum." So he seems to have won over his father by telling him he was of an age to decide for himself.

[168] See Zenati, Dante e Firenze (Firenze, 1903), p. 251, note 1, and the works there cited. Faraglia, Barbato di Sulmona e gli uomini di lettere della corte di Roberto d' Angiò in Arch. St. It., Ser. V, Vol. III, p. 343. Idem: I due amici del Petrarca, Giovanni Barrili e Barbato di Sulmona in I miei studi storici delle cose abruzzesi (Rocca Carabba, 1893), and Della Torre, op. cit., p. 261 et seq.

[169] Cf. Zenati, op. cit., p. 275, note 1.

[170] See Manicardi Massera, op. cit., p. 71, note 1, and Della Torre, op. cit., p. 262.

[171] Boccaccio praises especially Monte Miseno in Sonnet xlviii.:—

and even more especially in Sonnet xlvii., where he speaks of it:—

But see also Antona Traversi, Della realtà dell' amore di Boccaccio in Propugnatore (1883-4), Vols. XVI and XVII, and in Rivista Europea (1882-3), Vols. XXIX and XXXI.

[172] As to his strategy, hear him in the Fiammetta: "Quante volte già in mia presenza e de' miei più cari, caldo di festa e di cibi e di amore, fignendo Fiammetta e Panfilo essere stati greci, narrò egli come io di lui, ed esso di me, primamente stati eravamo presi, con quanti accidenti poi n' erano seguitati, alli luoghi ed alle persone pertinenti alla novella dando convenevoli nomi! Certo io ne risi più volte, e non meno della sua sagacità che della semplicità delli ascoltanti; e talvolta fu che io temetti, che troppo caldo non trasportasse la lingua disavvendutamente dove essa andare non doveva; ma egli, più savio che io non pensava, astutissimamente si guardava dal falso latino..." Maria was doubtless a good scholar, already very proficient.

[173] Fiammetta, ed. cit., p. 37 et seq.; cf. Crescini, op. cit., pp. 151-2. I translate: "filled not only with amorous ardour, but also with infinite caution, which pleased me mightily, desirous above all things to shield my honour and yet to attain whenever possible his desire, not, I think, without much trouble, he used every art and studied how to gain the friendship, first of any who were related to me, and then of my husband: in this he was so successful that he entirely won their good graces, and nothing pleased them but what was shared by him."

[174] See supra, p. 40.

[175] On this point see an incident related by Lina Duff Gordon in her charming Home Life in Italy (Methuen, 1908), p. 157.

[176] See Ameto, ed. cit., p. 224 et seq.; cf. Crescini, op. cit., pp. 80-2, and Della Torre, op. cit., p. 270.

[177] For all these particulars and the following see Filocolo, ed. cit., II, pp. 168-9, 174, 178-9. Without doubt these passages are biographical. See Crescini, op. cit., p. 82, and Della Torre, p. 270 et seq.

[178] Fiammetta was afraid of the dark since her childhood; she always had a light in her room. Cf. Fiammetta, ed. cit., p. 55.

[179] "Col tuo ardito ingegno, me presa nella tacita notte secura dormendo ... prima nelle braccia m' avesti e quasi la mia pudicizia violata, che io fossi dal sonno interamente sviluppata. E che doveva io fare, questo veggendo? doveva io gridare, e col mio grido a me infamia perpetua, ed a te, il quale io più che me medesima amava, morte cercare?"—Fiammetta, ed. cit.; p. 67. Not so argued "Lucrece of Rome town."

[180] It was a cowardly threat from our point of view, but probably not an idle one. Men go to bed in Sicily and die of love in the night. And then, too, this violence was part of the etiquette, and in some sort is so still, in Southern Italy, at any rate.

[181] Filocolo, ed. cit., II, p. 180. In the Ameto, ed. cit., p. 225, he says it was Hecate who brought him in.

[182] Fiammetta, ed. cit., p. 39.

[183] Cf. Fiammetta, ed. cit., pp. 84-8.

[184] Filocolo, ed. cit., II, p. 27 et seq.; cf. also Della Torre, St. della Accademia Platonica di Firenze (Firenze, 1902), p. 164 et seq.; and Pio Rajna, L' Episodio delle Questioni d' amore nel "Filocolo" in Raccolta di studi critici per A. d' Ancona (Firenze, 1901).

[185] Sonnet xxxii., Rime, ed. cit.

[186] Cf. Hortis, Accenni alle Scienze naturali nelle opere di G. B. (Trieste, 1877), p. 49 et seq.; and Percopò, I bagni di Pozzuoli in Arch. St. per le prov. nap., XI, pp. 668, 703-4.

[187] Fiammetta, pp. 77-80.

[188] Cf. Crescini, op. cit., p. 182, note 1.

[189] Cf. Della Torre, op. cit., p. 289.

[190] Sonnet lix., Rime, ed. cit.

[191] See Madrigal ii. (Moutier) and Sonnet xxiv. (Moutier), where he excuses himself. As for Fiammetta, we know her, and she says, in the Fiammetta, "Quanti e quali giovani d' avere il mio amore tentassero, e i diversi modi, e l' inghirlandate porte dagli loro amori, le notturne risse e le diurne prodezze per quelli operate." In the Filocolo he describes how in a vision Florio is shown how strenuously he ought to defend his love from her admirers.