The Project Gutenberg eBook of Giovanni Boccaccio, a Biographical Study, by Edward Hutton

[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.

[481] Ibid., VI, 1.

[482] Ibid., VI, 2.

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

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

[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 cœlestes effici cives credimus; et ideo ex Violante cum viveret, mortuam cœlestem 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).

[519] As for Petrarch's contempt for Italian, see Senil., V, 2. Petrarch there says to Boccaccio, that Donato degli Albanzani "tells me that in your youth you were singularly pleased to write in the vulgar, and that you spent much time on it." He adds that Boccaccio had then composed the same kind of work as he himself had done, apparently referring to the Rime. He seems to refuse to consider the prose works in the vulgar as being literature at all. It is probable even that the accusation that he disliked and envied Dante, from which he so warmly defends him (cf. Fam., XXI, 15), had this much truth, that he disliked the language of the Divine Comedy in his absurd worship of Latin. But though he could not see it, the Divine Comedy is the first work of the Renaissance just because it is written not in Latin, the language of the Church, but in Italian, the language of the people. There lay the destruction of the Middle Age and the tyranny of the Ecclesiastic. For with the rise of the vulgar rose Nationalism, which, with the invention of printing, eventually destroyed the real power of the Church. It was a question of knowledge, of education, of the power of development and life.