1331
HIS MEETING WITH FIAMMETTA AND THE PERIODS OF THEIR LOVE STORY
For it was in the midst of this gay life, full of poetry and study,
that he met her who was so much more beautiful than all the other
"ninfe Partenopee," and who seemed to him "quella che in Cipri già fu
adorata," that is to say, Venus herself. He saw her first on a Holy
Saturday, on the Vigil of Easter, as he himself tells us, and as we
think on 30th March, 1331.[89] He had gone to Mass, it seems, about
ten o'clock in the morning, the fashionable hour of the day, rather
to see the people than to attend the service, in the church of S.
Lorenzo of the Franciscans. And there amid that great throng of all
sorts and conditions of men he first caught sight of the woman who
was so profoundly to influence his life and shape his work.
"I found myself," he says, "in a fine church of Naples, named after
him who endured to be offered as a sacrifice upon the gridiron.
And there, there was a singing compact of sweetest melody. I was
listening to the Holy Mass celebrated by a priest, successor to him
who first girt himself humbly with the cord, exalting poverty and
adopting it. Now while I stood there, the fourth hour of the day,
according to my reckoning, having already passed down the eastern
sky, there appeared to my eyes the wondrous beauty of a young woman,
come thither to hear what I too heard attentively. I had no sooner
seen her than my heart began to throb so strongly that I felt it in
my slightest pulses; and not knowing why nor yet perceiving what had
happened, I began to say, 'Ohimè, what is this?'... But at length,
being unable to sate myself with gazing, I said, 'O Love, most noble
Lord, whose strength not even the gods were able to resist,[90] I
thank thee for setting happiness before my eyes!'... I had no sooner
said these words than the flashing eyes of that lovely lady fixed
themselves on mine...."[91]
Fiammetta, for it was she, was tall and _slanciata_; her hair,
he tells us, "is so blonde that the world holds nothing like it;
it shades a white forehead of noble width, beneath which are the
curves of two black and most slender eyebrows ... and under these
two roguish eyes ... cheeks of no other colour than milk." This
description, even in the hands of Boccaccio, is little more than
the immortal "Item, two lips, indifferent red...."[92] Yet little
by little in his work Fiammetta lives for us. On that day she was
dressed in a _bruna vesta_,[93] and wearing a veil that fell from her
head crowned with a garland.[94] After her golden hair, it is her
eyes and her mouth that he loves best in her.
"Due begli occhi luccan, sì che fiammetta
Parea ciascun d' amore luminosa;
E la sua bocca bella e piccioletta
Vermiglia rosa e fresca somigliava."[95]
He seems to have asked one of his companions who she was, but he knew
not.
"Io stetti molto a lei mirar sospeso
Per guardar s' io l' udissi nominare,
O ch' io 'l vedessi scritto breve o steso
Lì nol vid' io nè 'l seppi immaginare."[96]
When she saw that he continued to stare at her, she screened herself
with her veil.[97] But he changed his position and found a place by a
column whence he could see her very well--"dirittissimamente opposto,
... appoggiato ad una colonna marmorea"--and there, while the priest
sang the Office, "con canto pieno di dolce melodia,"[98] he drank
in her blonde beauty which the dark clothes made more splendid--the
golden hair and the milk-white skin, the shining eyes and the mouth
like a rose in a field of lilies.[99] Once she looked at him,--"Li
occhi, con debita gravità elevati, in tra la moltitudine de'
circostanti giovani, con acuto ragguardamento distesi."[100] So he
stayed where he was till the service was over, "senza mutare luogo."
Then he joined his companions, waiting with them at the door to see
the girls pass out. And it was then, in the midst of other ladies,
that he saw her for the second time, watching her pass out of S.
Lorenzo on her way home. When she was gone he went back to his room
with his friends, who remained a short time with him. These, as soon
as might be, excusing himself, he sent away, and remained alone with
his thoughts.
The morrow was Easter Day, and again he went to S. Lorenzo to see
her only. And she was there indeed, "di molto oro lucente"--"adorned
with gems and dressed in most fair green, beautiful both by nature
and by art."[101] Then remembering all things, he said to himself:
"This is that lady who in my boyhood (_puerizia_) and again not so
long ago, appeared to me in my dreams; this is she who, with a joyful
countenance and gracious, welcomed me to this city; this is she who
was ordained to rule my mind, and who was promised me for lady, in my
dreams."[102] From this moment began for him "the new life."
Who was this lady "promised to him in his dreams," whose love was
indeed the great prize of his youth? We know really very little
about her, though he speaks of her so often, but in three well-known
places, in the _Filocolo_, the _Ameto_, and the _Amorosa Visione_,
he tells us of her origin. It is in the _Ameto_ that he gives us
the fullest account of her. In that comedy[103] he tells us that
at the court of King Robert there was a gentleman of the wealthy
and powerful house of Aquino who held in Naples "the highest place
beside the throne of him who reigned there." This noble had married,
we learn, a young Provençal, "per bellezza da lodare molto," who
with her husband lived in the royal palace.[104] Of this pair
were born "some daughters whom Fiammetta called sisters,"[105]
and a son who was assassinated.[106] Fiammetta's own birth is, we
understand, surrounded by a kind of mystery, "voluttuoso e lascivo,"
corresponding, as we shall see, to her own temperament.[107]
[Illustration: LUCRECE
_A woodcut from "De Claris Mulieribus." (Berne, 1539.) (By the
courtesy of Mssrs. J. & J. Leighton.)_]
Boccaccio suggests that her birth is connected with the great _festa_
which celebrated the coronation of King Robert, that took place
in Avignon in September, 1309.[108] The king returned to Naples
by way of Florence, where he arrived on September 30, 1310;[109]
he was still there in October, and there was much fighting to be
done, for Henry VII was making war in Italy; so that it was not
till February 2, 1313,[110] that the king opened the first general
parliament in Naples after his coronation. Della Torre[111] thinks
that it was on this occasion the great _festa_ described by Boccaccio
took place. Its chief feature seems to have been a banquet of the
greatest magnificence, to which all the court as well as many of the
leading subjects of the Kingdom were bidden. Amid all this splendour
Boccaccio describes the king's gaze passing over a host of beautiful
women, to rest, always with new delight, on the beauty of the young
wife of D'Aquino, who, since her husband belonged to the court, was
naturally present. Well, to make a long story short, a little later
the king seduced this lady, but as it seems, on or about the same
night she slept also with her husband, so that when nine months
later a daughter was born to her, both the king and her husband
believed themselves to be the father. It is like a story out of the
_Decameron_.
This daughter, the Fiammetta of his dreams, was born, he tells us,
in the spring[112]--the spring then of 1314[113]--and was named
Maria.[114] Before very long she lost her mother, who however, before
she died, told her as well as she could, considering her tender
age, the mystery of her birth. Not long after, her father--or rather
her mother's husband--died also, leaving the _piccoletta_ "a vestali
vergini a lui di sangue congiunte ... acciocchè quelle di costumi
e d' arte inviolata servandomi, ornassero la giovanezza mia";[115]
which is Boccaccio's way of saying that she was placed in the care
of nuns, the nuns, as Casetti[116] supposes, of the Order of St.
Benedict, to whom belonged the very ancient church of S. Arcangelo
a Baiano.[117] There she grew up, and, like very many others of
an eager and sensuous temperament, totally unfitted for the life
of a religious, she desired too to be a nun, and this desire, we
learn, became definite in her after an ecstatic vision in which S.
Scholastica appeared to her[118] and invited her to take the vow. But
happily this was not to be. Her golden hair was not to fall under the
shears of the Church, but to be a poet's crown. She was too beautiful
for the cloister, and indeed already the fame of her beauty had gone
beyond the convent walls, which were in fact by no means very secure
or unassailable. In those days, people "in the world," men as well
as women, were received even by the "enclosed" in the parlour of the
convent, where it was customary to hold receptions.[119]
So, we learn, there presently began a struggle in Fiammetta's
heart--it was not of very long duration--between her resolution to
take the veil and her feminine vanity. Little by little she began
to adorn herself,[120] she received offers of marriage which by no
means shocked her, she became reconciled to the life of the world
for which she was so perfectly fitted by nature. Among the suitors,
and apparently they were many, was "uno dei più nobili giovani
... di fortuna grazioso, de' beni Giunonichi copioso, e chiaro di
sangue."[121] To him, as to the rest, she replied with a refusal, to
which she was doubtless encouraged by the nuns, who could not easily
suffer so well-born and powerful a pupil to escape them. The young
man, however--we do not know his name--was not easily discouraged,
and, renewing his suit, was accepted. So she was married perhaps when
she was about fifteen years old, in 1329.[122]
Her beauty[123] was famous, and she seems scarcely to have been
married when she gave herself up to all the voluptuousness of her
nature, more or less mute in the convent. That she could read we
know, for she read not only Giovanni's letters, but Ovid,[124]
probably a translation of the _Ars Amandi_, and the French
Romances.[125] She was greatly run after by the youth of the
Neapolitan court, who swore no _festa_ was complete without her.
Her husband's house, too, was in such a position that not only the
citizens, but strangers, who must on arrival or departure pass it
by, might spy her at her window or on her balcony.[126] Her excuse
is this universal admiration, and the eagerness of her temperament,
which allowed her to pass with ease from one lover to another.[127]
And then she also found that stolen waters are sweet, and bread
eaten in secret is pleasant.[128] She excuses herself for having
betrayed the husband who loved her so much, and can say: "What is
lawfully pursued is apt to be considered of small account, even
though it be most excellent, but what is difficult of attainment,
even if contemptible, is held in high esteem."[129] But, like all
vain and sensual natures, she was cruel, and encouraged her suitors
to squander their substance on her, giving them nothing in return,
and leading each to suppose that he was the only one she loved, and
that she was about to make him happy. "And I," she says to Boccaccio
in the character of Alleiram, "and I have laughed at them all,
choosing, however, those who took my fancy and who were judged apt
to give me pleasure. But no sooner was the fire spent than I broke
the vase which contained the water and flung away the pieces." These
words, so cynically moving, not only show us the cruelty of Maria's
nature, but cast a strange light on the general condition of society
in what was then, as later, the most corrupt city in Italy. Such,
then, was the blonde Fiammetta whom Boccaccio loved.
But how could he, a mere merchant's son, ever hope to reach the arms
of this disdainful, indifferent lady? By means of poetry? It seems
so. But before replying fully to this question it will be necessary
to establish the chronological limits and divisions of this love
affair, and this is the most difficult question in all the difficult
history of the youth of Boccaccio.
We may find, as it happens, two dates to begin with in the _Amorosa
Visione_. They have not escaped Crescini,[130] who, founding himself
on them, has concluded, though not too certainly, that between the
day of _innamoramento_ and that of _possesso completo_ 159 days
passed. He arrives at this tentative conclusion in the following
manner. In chapter xliv. of the _Amorosa Visione_ Boccaccio tells us
that when he became enamoured of Fiammetta, at first he marvelled
greatly, as though something incredible had befallen him. Then he
began to make fun of himself, "farsi beffa," for having thought of a
lady so far above him. But at last, when
"Quattro via sei volte il sole
Con l' orizzonte il ciel congiunto aveva ..."
it appeared that his courting pleased his lady, and he seemed to
understand from her that there was no distance however great, between
lover and beloved, that love could not annihilate. But, said she, one
ought to serve her only, and not to run after other ladies.
Crescini interprets this to mean that twenty-four days after
Boccaccio first saw Fiammetta, she gave him reason to hope. And he
arrives at this conclusion because he considers that the sun is in
conjunction with the horizon only once a day, whereas it might seem
to be so twice a day, at sunrise as at sunset. The other 135 days of
Crescini's chronology come from the following verses of chapter xlvi.
of the _Amorosa Visione_, in which Boccaccio tells us that he was
able to possess Maria after
"Cinque fiate tre via nove giorni
Sotto la dolce signoria di questa
Trovato m' era in diversi soggiorni."
Thus, says Crescini, we have twenty-four days from the first meeting
to the acceptance of his court, and 135 days thenceforward to the
possession, that is 159 days.[131]
Della Torre,[132] however, will have none of this reckoning, and
seems to have proved that it is indeed inexact. To begin with,
according to the Ptolemaic system, the sun moved round the earth and
touched it as it were not only at its rising but also at its setting,
so that the twenty-four days become twelve. This, however, is but a
small matter, merely reducing the 159 days to 147. Crescini's chief
error, according to Della Torre, is that he has added the first
period of twelve (or twenty-four) days to the second of 135--making
them immediately consecutive. Let us examine this matter somewhat
closely.
In the _Ameto_ Boccaccio tells us that the happy night which came at
the end of the 135 days, the night in which he possessed Fiammetta,
fell "temperante Apollo i veleni freddi di Scorpione." Now at what
time precisely is the sun in the sign of the Scorpion? Andalò[133]
tells us that at the end of the 20th October the sun is three and a
half _gradi_ in Scorpio, and that by the 15th November it is already
entering Sagittarius. The sun then entered Scorpio on the 17th
October and left it on the 14th November.[134] Somewhere between
those two dates the loves of Giovanni and Fiammetta were consummated.
[Illustration: BOCCACCIO AND MAINARDI CAVALACANTI
_By the Dutch engraver called "The Master of the Subjects in the
Boccaccio." "De Casibus Virorum." (Strasburg, 1476.)_]
Boccaccio tells us, if we interpret him aright, that twelve days
after his _innamoramento_ his lady showed him that she was pleased
by his love. He then passes on to describe the long and faithful
service he gave her:--
"Lungamente seguendo sua pietate
Ora in avversi ed ora in graziosi
Casi reggendo la mia voluntate,"[135]
and so on. Then he says:--
"Traendomi più là e con sommesso
Parlar le chiesi, che al mio dolore
Fine ponesse, qual doveva ad esso,
Ognor servando quel debito onore
Che si conviene a' suoi costumi adorni,
Di gentilezza pieni e di valore,"[136]
and at last adds the lines already quoted,
"Cinque fiate tre via nove giorni
Sotto la dolce signoria di questa
Trovato m' era in diversi soggiorni";
when
"nella braccia la Donna pietosa
Istupefatto gli parea tenere."
Taken thus we may divide the story of his love for Fiammetta into
three periods. The first of these ends twelve days after the first
meeting, and is the period of uncertainty. The second period is
that in which he is accepted as courtier, as it were, on his trial.
The third begins when his lady, moved by long service and repeated
proofs of his devotions, returns his love; it is the period of "dolce
signoria" and lasts one hundred and thirty-five days, at the end of
which she gives herself to him.[137]
Of these periods we know only the length, then, of the first and
the last. The first began on the 30th March and lasted till the
12th April, 1331, when the second began, to last how long? Well, at
least two months, it seems,[138] perhaps three. In that case all
three periods belong to the same year. If this be not so, the second
period was of longer duration than three months, perhaps much longer.
Boccaccio himself tells us that it was "non senza molto affanno lunga
stagione."[139] Now it seems reasonable to suppose that even so eager
a lover as Boccaccio cannot call three months "lunga stagione,"
though he were dying for her and each minute was an eternity. He can
scarcely have hoped to seduce a woman of his own class in less time.
Common sense, then, is on our side when reminding ourselves that
Maria d'Aquino was of the noblest family, married, too, to a husband
who loved her, and generally courted by all the golden youth of
Naples--while Giovanni was the son of a merchant--we insist that he
cannot mean a paltry three months when he speaks of a long time.[140]
But if the second period lasted more than three months, and so does
not belong to the year 1331, to what year or years does it belong?
Della Torre seems to have found a clue in the following sonnet, whose
authenticity, though doubted by Crescini,[141] he insists upon:--
"_Se io potessi creder che in cinqu' anni
Ch' egli è che vostro fui, tanto caluto
Di me vi fosse, che aver saputo
Il nome mio voleste_, de' miei danni
Per ristorato avermi, de' miei affanni
Potrei forse sperare ancora aiuto,
Nè mi parrebbe il tempo aver perduto
A condolermi de' miei stessi inganni...."[142]
which we may explain as "O my lady, I shall be the happiest of
mortals if in the five years that I shall pay you court, I should
break through your indifference...." Five years brings us from 30th
March, 1331, to 1336.
Now let us see whither the other facts we have will lead us.
In 1339 Boccaccio and Fiammetta had parted,[143] Boccaccio
having been "betrayed" by her, as he tells us in Sonnets iv. and
xxxiii.,[144] during the bathing season at Baia--the bathing season
then of 1338--whither she had forbidden him to accompany her. But
we know from Sonnets xlvii. and xlviii. that the end of the second
period and the beginning of the third took place during the bathing
season, and that there was also a season in which he accompanied her
to Baia as her acknowledged lover.[145] There must, then, have been
three seasons before April, 1339, and these three years lead us again
to the year 1336.
So we believe that the first period "of uncertainty" in his love
began on 30th March and ended on 12th April, 1331; that the second
period "of service" began on 12th April, 1331, and ended between 3rd
June and 2nd July, 1336, when the third period began, ending three
years later. This third period is divided, as we have seen, into
three parts, and comprises three bathing seasons. The first of these
falls between 3rd June--2nd July, 1336, and the 17th October to 15th
November, i.e. 135 days; an act of audacity on Giovanni's part, as we
shall see, giving him possession of Fiammetta. The second is a period
in which their love had become calmer: it fills the season of 1337 in
which he was her _cavaliere servente_. The third falls in 1338, when,
probably on account of the suspicions aroused by their intimacy,
Fiammetta forbade him to accompany her to Baia, where in his absence
she "betrayed" him.
Having thus found a chronology of Boccaccio's love-story, we must
consider more particularly his life during its three periods.
FOOTNOTES:
[89] See Appendix I.
[90] Cf. Sophocles, _Antigone_, 781 _et seq._
"Ἔρως ἀνίκατε μάχαν
Ἔρος ὃς ἐν κτήμασι πίπτεις,
ὃς ἐν μαλακαῖς παρειαίς
νεάνιδος ἐννυχεύεις,
φοιτᾷς δ' ὑπερπόντιος ἔν τ' ἀγρονόμοις αὐλαῖς·
καί σ' οὔτ' ἀθανάτων φύξιμος οὐδεὶς
οὔθ' ἁμερίων ἐπ' ἀνθρώπων, ὁ δ' ἔχων μέμηνεν·"
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]
"L' acqua furtiva, assai più dolce cosa
È che il vin con abbondanza avuto;
Così d' amor la gioia, che nascosa,
Trapassa assai del sempre mai tenuto
Marito in braccio...."
_Filostrato_, parte ii. strofe 74.
[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:
'Carmina proveniunt animo deducta sereno.'
Sed saevientis Rhamnusiæ causa, ac atrocitatis cupidinis importunæ:
'Nubila sunt sibitis tempora nostra malis.'
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.:--
"E che io vadia là mi è interdetto
Da lei, che può di me quel che le piace."
[145] Cf. DELLA TORRE, _op. cit._, p. 207.