[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, δέκα, ten, and ἡμέρα, 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.

[694] Cf. Koeppel, Studien zur Geschichte der Italienischen Novelle in der Englischen Litteratur des sechszehnten Jahrhunderts in Quellen und Forschungen zur Sprach und Culturgeschichte der germanischen Volkes (Strassburg, 1892), Vol. LXX.

[A] Painter's Palace of Pleasure is almost certainly the source of the Tales of Boccaccio which Shakespeare used.