1341-1343
IN FLORENCE--HIS FATHER'S SECOND MARRIAGE--THE DUKE OF ATHENS
Those years which Boccaccio spent in Florence between 1341 and
1345, and which would seem for the most part to have been devoted
to literature, the completion of the works already begun in Naples,
the composition of the _Amorosa Visione_, the _Fiammetta_, and the
_Ninfale Fiesolano_, were personally among the most unhappy of his
life, while publicly they brought the republic of Florence to the
verge of ruin. And indeed he was an unwilling victim. That he hated
leaving Naples might seem obvious from his own circumstances at that
time; nor were the political conditions of Florence encouraging. He
had left a city friendly to men of letters, full of all manner of
splendour, rich, peaceful, and, above all, governed by one authority,
the king, for a distracted republic divided against itself and
scarcely able to support a costly foreign war.[305] Nor were the
conditions of his father's house any more pleasing to him. Soured by
misfortune, Boccaccino seems at this time to have been a melancholy
and hard old man. The picture Giovanni gives us of him is perhaps
coloured by resentment, and indeed he had never forgiven his father
for the desertion of the girl he had seduced, the little French girl
Jeanne, Giovanni's mother;[306] but it is with a quite personal
sense of resentment he describes the home to which he returned from
Naples--that house in the S. Felicità quarter which Boccaccino had
bought in 1333:[307] "Here one laughs but seldom. The dark, silent,
melancholy house keeps and holds me altogether against my will, where
the dour and terrible aspect of an old man frigid, uncouth, and
miserly continually adds affliction to my saddened mood."[308] That
was in 1341 one may think; and no doubt the loss of Fiammetta, his
own poverty, and the confusion of public affairs in Florence added to
his depression; and then he was always easily cast down. But as it
happened, things were already improving for him.
It will be remembered that in the romance which passes under her
name Fiammetta tells us that Panfilo (Giovanni), when he deserted
her, promised to return in four months. Later[309] she says, when
the promised time of his return had passed by more than a month, she
heard from a merchant lately arrived in Naples that her lover fifteen
days before had taken a wife in Florence.[310] Great distress on the
part of Fiammetta; but, as she soon learnt, it was not Giovanni, but
his father, who had married himself.
[Illustration: THE THEFT OF CALANDRINO'S PIG (DEC. VIII, 6)]
[Illustration: GHINO AND THE ABBOT (DEC. X, 2)
_Woodcuts from the "Decameron." (Venice, 1492.)_]
Is there any truth in this story? Assuredly there is. We know,
indeed, that Boccaccino did marry a second wife, whose name was
Bice de' Bostichi, and that she bore him a son, Jacopo;[311] but
we do not know when either of these events happened. If we may
trust the _Fiammetta_, which says clearly that Giovanni's father
married again about five months after his son returned home, and if
we are right in thinking that that return took place in January,
1341, then Boccaccino married his second wife in the spring, or
more precisely in May, 1341. That they were man and wife in May,
1343,[312] we know, for, thanks to Crescini, we have a document which
proves it. Beyond that fact all is conjecture in this matter. Yet
it is significant that we find Boccaccino, on December 13, 1342,
acquiring half a house in the popolo di S. Ambrogio in Florence,[313]
and yet, as we know from the document just quoted,[314] in May,
1343, he was still living in popolo di S. Felicità.[315] For what
possible reason could Boccaccino, ruined as he was, want half a house
in which he did not propose to live? Had family history repeated
itself? Was Giovanni in some sort again turned out of his father's
house by his second stepmother as he had been by the first, and for
a like reason--the birth of a legitimate son? It was for him, then,
that Boccaccino bought the half-house in popolo di S. Ambrogio, and
the occasion was the birth of Jacopo his son by Madonna Bice? It is
possible, at any rate; and when we remember the efforts the old man
had already made in his poverty for the comfort of a son who had
disappointed him in everything, it seems more than likely. Nor can
we but accuse Giovanni of ingratitude when we think of his constant
allusions to his father's avarice and remember these benefits.[316]
Such, then, are the few and meagre personal events that have in any
way come down to us of Boccaccio's life while he was writing all or
nearly all those works of his youth which we have already examined,
between his return to Florence in January, 1341, and his departure
once more for Naples in 1344 or 1345. These years, materially
none too happy for him but full after all of successful work, were
disastrous for Florence. That tranquillity and internal peace which
so happily followed the death of Castruccio Castracani and of Charles
of Calabria in 1328, in which, among other splendid things, Giotto's
tower was built, had been broken in 1340, when the _grandi_, who
held the government, having grown oppressive, a rebellion headed by
Piero de' Baldi and Bardo Frescobaldi was only crushed by a rising
of the people. Things were quiet then for a moment, but the _grandi_
would heed no warning, and as one might expect, their insolence grew
with their power. Nor was it only at home that things were going
unhappily for Florence. When Louis of Bavaria, who claimed the empire
against the will of the Pope, left Italy--it was the Visconti who
had called him across the Alps in fear of the House of Anjou--some
of his Germans, after Castruccio's death, seized Lucca and offered
to sell it to the Florentines, who refused it. They repented later;
and when it had come into the hands of Martino della Scala of Verona
and Parma, who, in straits himself on account of Visconti, offered
to sell it again, they found a competitor in Pisa, who was ready to
dispute the city with them. Nevertheless they bought it, only to find
that the Pisans, knowing the wealth of Florence and expecting this,
had sat down before it. A war followed in which nothing but dishonour
came the way of Florence, and Lucca fell into the hands of Pisa.
This so enraged the Florentines that they rose against the _grandi_,
who, at their wits' end what to do, asked their old ally Robert of
Naples for help. This was in 1341. It was not, therefore, to a very
prosperous or joyful city that Boccaccio returned from Naples; the
words he put into the mouth of Fiammetta[317] were fully justified.
King Robert, however, did not send help to Florence at once. He
was thinking always of Sicily and had been busy with the conquest
of the Lipari Islands,[318] but when he did send it, in the person
of Walter, Duke of Athens and Count of Brienne, a French baron, it
proved to be the worst disaster of all. Yet at first the Florentines
rejoiced, for they knew Walter of old, who had been vicegerent in
Florence for Charles of Calabria in 1325, and as Machiavelli tells
us, his behaviour had been so modest that every one loved him. That
was not his attitude now, nor does it tally with Boccaccio's lively
account of him,[319] which certainly reads like the work of an
eye-witness and supports our belief that he was in Florence during
1342 and 1343--those disastrous years.
For as it happened, the Duke arrived in Florence at the very time
when the enterprise of Lucca was utterly lost. The _grandi_, however,
hoping to appease the people, at once made him Conservator and later
General. But they had alienated every one. The _nobili_, long since
their enemies, had always maintained a correspondence with the Duke
ever since he had been vicegerent for Charles of Calabria; they
thought now that their chance was come when they might be avenged
alike on the _grandi_ and the people; so they pressed him to take
the government wholly into his hands. The people, on the other
hand, smarting under new taxes and oppression and insolence and
defeat, to a large extent joined the _nobili_ against the _grandi_.
In this conspiracy we find all the names of the great popular
families, Peruzzi, Acciaiuoli, Antellesi, and Buonaccorsi, whom the
unsuccessful war, among other things, had ruined, and who hoped thus
to free themselves from their creditors.
The Duke's ambition, being thus pampered and exasperated,
over-reached itself. To please the people he put to death those who
had the management of the war, Giovanni de' Medici, Nardo Rucellai,
and Guglielmo Altoviti, and banished some and fined others. And thus
his reputation was increased, and indeed a general fear of him spread
through the city, so that to show their affection towards him people
caused his arms to be painted upon their houses, and nothing but the
bare title was wanting to make him their Prince.
Being now sure of his success, he caused it to be signified to the
Government that for the public good he judged it best that they
should transfer their authority upon him, and that he desired their
resignation. At first they refused, but when by proclamation he
required all the people to appear before him in the Piazza di S.
Croce (for he was living in the convent as a sign of his humility),
they protested, and then consented that the government should be
conferred upon him for a year with the same conditions as those with
which it had been formerly given to Charles of Calabria.
So on September 8, 1342, the Duke, accompanied by Giovanni della
Tosca and many citizens, came into the Piazza della Signoria with
the Senate, and, mounting on the Rhingiera, he caused the articles
of agreement between him and the Senate to be read. Now when he who
read them came to the place where it was written that the government
should be his for a year, the people cried out, "For his life. For
his life." It is true, Francesco Rustichesi, one of the Signori, rose
up and tried to speak, but they would not hear him. Thus the Duke
was chosen lord by consent of the people not for a year, but for
ever; and afterwards he was taken and carried through the multitude
with general acclamation. Now the first thing he did was to seize
the Palazzo della Signoria, where he set up his own standard, while
the Palazzo itself was plundered by his servants; and all this was
done to the satisfaction of those who maliciously or ignorantly had
consented to his exaltation.
The Duke was no sooner secure in his dominion than he forbade
the Signori to meet in the Palazzo, recalled the Baldi and the
Frescobaldi, made peace with the Pisans, and took away their bills
and assignments from the merchants who had lent money in the war of
Lucca. He dissolved the authority of the _Signori_ and set up in
their place three _Rettori_, with whom he constantly advised. The
taxes he laid upon the people were great, all his judgments were
unjust, and all men saw his cruelty and pride, while many citizens
of the more noble and wealthy sort were condemned, executed, and
tortured. He was jealous of the _nobili_, so he applied himself to
the people, cajoling them and scheming into their favour, hoping thus
to secure his tyranny for ever. In the month of May, for instance,
when the people were wont to be merry, he caused the common people
to be disposed into several companies, gave them ensigns and money,
so that half the city went up and down feasting and junketing, while
the other half was busy to entertain them. And his fame grew abroad,
so that many persons of French extraction repaired to him, and he
preferred them all, for they were his faithful friends; so that in a
short while Florence was not only subject to Frenchmen, but to French
customs and garb, men and women both, without decency or moderation,
imitating them in all things. But that which was incomparably the
most displeasing was the violence he and his creatures used to the
women. In these conditions it is not surprising that plots to get rid
of him grew and multiplied. He cared not. When Matteo di Morrozzo,
to ingratiate himself with the Duke, discovered to him a plot which
the Medici had contrived with others against him, he caused him to be
put to death. And when Bettone Cini spoke against the taxes he caused
his tongue to be pulled out by the roots so that he died of it. Such
was his cruelty and folly. But indeed this last outrage completed
the rest. The people grew mad, for they who had been used to speak
of everything freely could not brook to have their mouths stopped up
by a stranger. "When," asks Machiavelli, "did the Florentines know
how to maintain liberty or to endure slavery?" However, things were
indeed at such a pass that the most servile people would have tried
to recover its freedom.
Many citizens of every sort, we hear, resolved to destroy him, and
out of this hatred grew three serious conspiracies by three sorts of
people: the _grandi_, the people, and the _arti_. The _grandi_ hated
him for he had robbed them of the government, the people because
he had not given it to them, the _arti_ because they were ruined.
With the first were concerned the Bardi, Rossi, Frescobaldi, Scali,
Altoviti, Mazalotti, Strozzi, and Mancini, with the Archbishop
of Florence; with the second, Manno and Corso Donati, the Pazzi,
Cavicciulli, Cerchi, and Albizzi; with the third, Antonio Adimari,
the Medici, Bordini, Rucellai, and Aldobrandini.
The plan was to kill him on the feast of S. John Baptist, June 24,
1343, in the house of the Albizzi, whither, as it was thought, he
would go to see the _palio_.[320] But he went not and that design
was lost. The next proposal was to kill him as he walked in the
streets, but that was found difficult, because he was always well
armed and attended and, moreover, very uncertain. Then it was debated
to slay him in the Council, but this too was dangerous, for even
should they succeed they would remain at the mercy of his guards.
Suddenly all was discovered. The Duke learnt of the plots through
the quite innocent action of a Sienese. He was both surprised and
angry; and that is strange. At first he proposed to kill every man
of all the families I have named; but he had not force enough to do
it openly, so he in his turn plotted. He called the chief citizens
to council, meaning to slay them there. But they got wind of it, and
knowing not whom to trust, confessed at last to one another their
three conspiracies and swore to stand together and get rid of the
Duke.
[Illustration: THE DUKE OF ATHENS]
[Illustration: THE EXECUTION OF FILIPPA LA CATANESE
_From miniatures in the French version of the "De Casibus Virorum."
made in 1409 by Laurent le Premierfait. MS. late XV century. (Brit.
Mus. Rothschild Bequest. MS. XII.)_]
Their plan was this: the next day, as it happened, was the feast of
S. Anne, July 26, 1343, and they decided that then a tumult should
be raised in the Mercato Vecchio, upon which all were to take arms
and excite thepeople to liberty. And the next day, the signal
being given by sounding a bell as had been agreed, all took arms
and, crying out, "Liberty, liberty," excited the people, who took
arms likewise. The Duke, alarmed at this noise, fortified himself
in the Palazzo and then, calling home his servants who were lodged
through the city, set forth with them to the Mercato. Many times were
they assaulted on the way and many too were slain, so that though
recruited with three hundred horse he knew not himself what to do.
Meantime the Medici, Cavicciulli, and Rucellai, who were afraid lest
he should attack, drawing together a force, advanced so that many
of those who had stood for the Duke rallied over to their side, and
though the Duke was again reinforced, yet was he beaten and went
backward into the Palazzo. Meanwhile Corso and Amerigo Donati with
part of the people broke up the prisons, burned the records of the
Potestà, sacked the houses of the _rettori_, and killed all the
Duke's officers they could meet with. And the Duke remained besieged
in the Palazzo. Has not Boccaccio told us the story:--
"Upon a day they armyd in stele bright
Magnates first with comons of the toun
All of assent roos up anon right
Gan to make an hydous soun:
Late sle this tyrant, late us pull him doun.
Leyde a syege by mighty violence
A forn his paleys where he lay in Florence."[321]
While the Duke was thus besieged, the citizens to give some form to
their government met in S. Reparata (S. Maria del Fiore) and created
fourteen of their number, half _grandi_ half people, to rule with
the Bishop. Then the Duke asked for a truce. They refused it, except
Guglielmo of Assisi, with his son, and Cerrettieri Bisdomini, who
had always been of his party, should be delivered into their hands.
This for long the Duke refused, but at last, seeing no way out, he
consented. "Greater, doubtless," says Machiavelli, "is the insolence
and contumacy of the people and more dreadful the evils which they do
in pursuit of liberty than when they have acquired it." So it proved
here. Guglielmo and his son were brought forth and delivered up among
thousands of their enemies. His son was a youth of less than eighteen
years; yet that did not spare him nor his beauty neither. Those who
could not get near enough to do it whilst he was alive wounded him
when he was dead; and as if their swords had been partial and too
moderate, they fell to it with their teeth and their hands, biting
his flesh and tearing it in pieces. And that all their senses might
participate in their revenge, having feasted their ears upon groans,
their eyes upon wounds, their touch upon the bowels of their enemies
which they rent out of their bodies with their hands, they regaled
their taste also. Those two gentlemen, father and son, were eaten in
the Piazza; only Cerrettieri escaped, for the people, being tired,
forgot him altogether and left him in the Palazzo not so much as
demanded, and the next night he was conveyed out of the city.
Satiated thus with blood, they suffered the Duke to depart peacefully
on August 6, attended by a host of citizens who saw him on the way
to the Casentino, where, in fact, though unwillingly it seems, he
ratified the renunciation.
And all these things befell in Florence while Giovanni Boccaccio was
writing in the popolo di S. Felicità and in the popolo di S. Ambrogio
in the years 1341, 1342, and 1343. In 1344, as we may believe,
Boccaccio returned to Naples.
FOOTNOTES:
[305] Cf. _Fiammetta_, _ed. cit._, cap. ii. p. 45, where by the
mouth of Fiammetta his apprehensions are expressed. "La tua città
[Florence]," she says to him, "as you yourself have already said, is
full of boastful voices and of cowardly deeds, and she serves not a
thousand laws, but even as many, it seems, as she has men. She is
at war within and without, so that a citizen is like a foreigner,
he trembles. She is furnished with proud, avaricious, and envious
people, and full of innumerable anxieties. And all this your soul
abhors. Now the city you would leave is, as you know, joyful,
peaceful, rich, and magnificent, and lives under one sole king; the
which things I know well are pleasing to you. And besides all these,
I am here; but you will not find me whither you go."
[306] In _Ameto_, _ed. cit._, p. 187, when Ibrida tells his story,
he says his father was unworthy of such a mistress: "Ma il mio
padre siccome indegno di tale sposa traendolo i fati, s' ingegnò d'
annullare i fatti sacramenti, e le 'mpromesse convenzioni alla mia
madre. Ma gli Iddii non curantisi di perdere la fede _di sì vile
uomo_, con abbondante redine riserbando le loro vendette a giusto
tempo, il lasciarono fare; e quello che la mia madre gli era si fece
falsamente d' un altra nelle sue parti. La qual cosa non prima sentì
la sventurata giovane, dal primo per isciagurata morte, e dal secondo
per falsissima vita abbandonata, che i lungamente nascosi fuochi
fatti palesi co' ricevuti inganni, chiuse gli occhi e del mondo a lei
mal fortunoso, si rendè agli Iddii. Ma Giunone nè Imeneo non porsero
alcuno consentimento a' secondi fatti, benchè chiamati vi fossero;
anzi esecrando la adultera giovane con lo 'ngannevole uomo, e verso
loro con giuste ire accendendosi, prima privatolo di gran parte
de' beni ricevuti da lei, e dispostolo a maggiore ruina a morte la
datrice, la data e la ricevuta progenie dannarono con infallibile
sentenzia, visitando con nuovi danni chi a tali effetti porse alcuna
cagione." Cf. also _Ameto_, _ed. cit._, p. 252 _et seq._, and
_Fiammetta_, _ed. cit._, cap. ii. p. 42.
[307] On the different houses of Boccaccino in Florence, see an
unpublished MS. by GHERARDI, _La Villeggiatura di Maiano_, which I
believe to be in the Florentine archives. A copy is in the possession
of Mrs. Ross, of Poggio Gherardo, near Florence. From this copy I
give cap. iv. of the MS. in Appendix III.
[308] _Ameto_, _ed. cit._, p. 254.
[309] _Fiammetta_, _ed. cit._, cap. v. p. 63: "Quando di più d' un
mese essendo il promesso tempo passato."
[310] _Ibid._, p. 64. Fiammetta asks: "How long ago had you news of
him?" "It is about fifteen days," says the merchant, "since I left
Florence." "And how was he then?" "Very well; and the same day that
I set out, newly entered his house a beautiful young woman who, as I
heard, had just married him."
[311] Cf. BALDELLI, _op. cit._, p. 276, n. 1: "26 Januarii, 1349
[i.e. 1350 according to our reckoning]. Dominus Ioannes quondam
Boccacci, populi Sanctæ Felicitatis, tutor Iacobi pupilli ejus
fratris, et filii quondam et heredis Dominiæ Bicis olim matris suæ,
et uxoris q. dicti Boccaccii et filiæ q. Ubaldini Nepi de Bosticcis."
This document, which gives us the name of Boccaccino's second wife,
tells us also that Giovanni was his brother's guardian and governor
in January, 1350. CRESCINI had already suggested (_op. cit._, p.
102 n.), following Baldelli, that the Lia of the _Ameto_ was a
Baroncelli when SANESI (_Un documento inedito su Giovanni Boccaccio_
in _Rassegna Bibliografica della Lett. Ital._ (Pisa, 1893), An. I,
No. 4, p. 120 _et seq._) proved it to be so, giving a genealogical
table:--
GHERARDO BARONCELLI
|
Donna Love = Baldino di Nepo de' Bostichi
|
------------------------
| |
Gherardo Bice = Boccaccino
|
Jacopo
[312] Cf. CRESCINI, _op. cit._, p. 155, note 3. _Arch. Stat. Fior._
(Archivio della Grascia Prammatica del 1343): "1343. die Maij
Domina Bice uxor Boccaccij de Certaldo populi S. Felicitatis habet
guarnaccham de camecha coloris purpurini," etc.
[313] See Appendix III, MS. of Gherardi.
[314] See _supra_, n. 1.
[315] Boccaccino still possessed the house in popolo di S. Felicità
when he died. See _supra_, p. 98, n. 3.
[316] It must be remembered that in 1343 Giovanni was thirty years
old.
[317] Cf. _Fiammetta_, _ed. cit._, cap. ii. p. 45, already quoted
_supra_, p. 96, note 1.
[318] GIO. VILLANI, Lib. XI, cap. 137.
[319] See the _De Casibus Virorum Illustrium_, Lib. IX, cap. 24; cf.
HORTIS, _Studi, etc._, pp. 127-8. A translation in verse of the _De
Casibus_ was made by LYDGATE, _The Fall of Princes_, first printed
by Pynson in 1494; later editions, 1527, 1554 (Tottel), and John
Wayland's, 1558. There is no modern edition. It is a disgrace to our
two universities that no modern edition of Lydgate has been published.
[320] Cf. W. HEYWOOD, _Palio and Ponte_ (Methuen, 1904), pp. 7-9.
These races or _palii_ seem to have originated in the thirteenth
century (cf. VILLANI, _Cronica_, Lib. I, cap. 60, and DANTE,
_Paradiso_, XVI 40-2). Benvenuto da Imola says, "Est de more
Florentiæ, quod singulis annis in festo Iohannis Baptistæ currant
equi ad brevium in signum festivæ laetitiæ...." He goes on to say
that the race was run from S. Pancrazio, the western ward of the
city, through the Mercato Vecchio, to the eastern ward of S. Piero.
Goro di Stazio Dati, who died in 1435, thus describes the _palio_ of
S. John in Florence. I quote Mr Heywood's excellent redaction from
DATI'S _Storia di Firenze_ (Florence, 1735), pp. 84-9, in his _Palio
and Ponte, u s_ "... Thereafter, dinner being over, and midday being
past, and the folk having rested awhile according to the pleasure
of each of them; all the women and girls betake themselves whither
the horses which run the palio will pass. Now these pass through
a straight street, through the midst of the city, where are many
dwellings, beautiful, sumptuous houses of good citizens, more than in
any other part thereof. And from one end of the city to the other,
in that straight street which is full of flowers, are all the women
and all the jewels and rich adornments of the city; and it is a great
holiday. Also there are always many lords and knights and foreign
gentlemen, who come every year from the surrounding towns to see the
beauty and magnificence of that festival. And there, through the
said Corso, are so many folk that it seemeth a thing incredible,
the like whereof he who hath not seen it could neither believe nor
imagine. Thereafter, the great bell of the Palagio de' Signori is
tolled three times, and the horses, ready for the start, come forth
to run. On high upon the tower, may be seen, by the signs made by
the boys who are up there, that is of such an one and that of such
an one (_quello è del tale, e quello è del tale_). And all the most
excellent race-horses of the world are there, gathered together from
all the borders of Italy. And that one which is the first to reach
the Palio is the one which winneth it. Now the Palio is borne aloft
upon a triumphal car, with four wheels, adorned with four carven
lions which seem alive, one upon every side of the car, drawn by two
horses, with housings with the emblem of the Commune thereon, and
ridden by two varlets which guide them. The same is a passing rich
and great Palio of fine crimson velvet in two palii, and between the
one and the other a band of fine gold a palm's width, lined with fur
from the belly of the ermine and bordered with miniver fringed with
silk and fine gold; which, in all, costeth three hundred florins or
more.... All the great piazza of S. Giovanni and part of the street
is covered with blue hangings with yellow lilies; the church is a
thing of marvellous form, whereof I shall speak at another time...."
Boccaccio must often have seen these races. Cf. _Decameron_, Day VI,
Nov. 3.
[321] LYDGATE, _op. cit._, Lib. IX.