PETRARCH AND BOCCACCIO--THE LATIN WORKS
Those ten years from 1363 to 1372 had not only been given by
Boccaccio to the study of Greek and the service of his country, they
had also been devoted to a vast and general accumulation of learning
such as was possessed by only one other man of his time, his master
and friend Petrarch. It might seem that ever since Boccaccio had
met Petrarch he had come under his influence, and in intellectual
matters, at any rate, had been very largely swayed by him. In
accordance with the unfortunate doctrine of his master, we see him,
after 1355, giving up all work in the vulgar, and setting all his
energy on work in the Latin tongue, in the study of antiquity and
the acquirement of knowledge. From a creative writer of splendid
genius he gradually became a scholar of vast reading but of mediocre
achievement. He seems to have read without ceasing the works of
antiquity, annotating as he read. His learning, such as it was,
became prodigious, immense, and, in a sense, universal, and little
by little he seems to have gathered his notes into the volumes we
know as _De Montibus_, _Sylvis_, _Fontibus_, _Lacubus_, _Fluminibus_,
_Stagnis seu Paludibus_, _De Nominibus Maris Liber_, a sort of
dictionary of Geography;[504] the _De Casibus Virorum Illustrium_,
in nine books, which deals with the vanity of human affairs from
Adam to Petrarch;[505] the _De Claris Mulieribus_, which he dedicated
to Acciaiuoli's sister, and which begins with Eve and comes down to
Giovanna, Queen of Naples;[506] and the _De Genealogiis Deorum_, in
fifteen books, dedicated to Ugo, King of Cyprus and Jerusalem, who
had begged him to write this work, which is a marvellous cyclopædia
of learning concerning mythology[507] and a defence of poetry and
poets.[508] In all these works it must be admitted that we see
Boccaccio as Petrarch's disciple, a pupil who lagged very far behind
his master.
As a creative artist, as the author, to name only the best, of the
_Fiammetta_ and the _Decameron_, Boccaccio is the master of a world
Petrarch could not enter; he takes his place with Dante and Chaucer
and Shakespeare, and indeed save Dante no other writer in the Italian
tongue can be compared with him.
It is seldom, however, that a great creative artist is also a great
scholar, for the very energy and virility and restless impatience
which have in some sort enabled him to create living men and women
prevent him in his work as a student, as an historian pure and
simple, in short, as a scholar. So it was with Boccaccio. The
author of the Latin works is not only inferior to the author of the
_Fiammetta_ and the _Decameron_, he is the follower and somewhat
disappointing pupil of Petrarch, who contrives to show us at every
step his inferiority to his master, his feebler sense of proportion,
of philosophy, of the reality of history, above all his feebler
judgment. The consideration of these works then would seem to demand
of us the consideration of his relations with Petrarch, and it
will be convenient at this point to undertake it as briefly as
possible.
[Illustration: PETRARCH AND BOCCACCIO DISCUSSING
_From a miniature in the French version of the "De Casibus Virorum,"
made in 1409 by Laurent le Premierfait. MS. late XV century. (Brit.
Mus. Showcase V, MS. 126.)_]
Even in his youth Boccaccio had regarded Petrarch with an enthusiasm
and an unenvying modesty that, lasting as it did his whole life
long, ripening as it did into one of the greatest friendships in
the history of Letters, was perhaps the most beautiful trait in his
character. It always seemed to him an unmerited grace that one who
was sought out by princes and popes, whose fame filled the universe,
should care to be his friend, and this wonder, this admiration,
remained with him till death; he never writes Petrarch's name
without, in his enthusiasm, adding to it some flattering epithet.
He calls him his "illustrious and sublime master," his "father and
lord," "a poet who is rather of the company of the ancients than
of this modern world," "a man descended from heaven to restore to
Poetry her throne," the "marvel and glory" of his time.[509] He had
known and loved his work, as he says, for forty years or more,[510]
but he had never dared to approach him, though opportunities had not
been altogether lacking,[511] till Petrarch came to Florence in the
autumn of 1350 on his way to win the indulgence of the Jubilee in
Rome.[512] This was the beginning of that friendship[513] which is
almost without precedent or imitation in the history of literature.
In the following spring, as we have seen, Boccaccio, in the name of
Florence, went to Padua to recall Petrarch from exile, to offer him
a chair in the new university of his native city, and to restore
him the goods confiscated from his father. In Padua he had been
Petrarch's guest for some days; he was a witness of Petrarch's
enthusiasm for "sacred studies," but apparently was not personally
much interested in them, though he calls them sacred, for he employed
himself with no less enthusiasm in copying some of Petrarch's works;
by which I at least understand some of his poems in the vulgar. The
evenings were spent in the garden, talking, on Boccaccio's part of
politics, on Petrarch's, as we may suppose, of learning, often till
dawn.[514]
Boccaccio did not see Petrarch again for eight years, till in 1359
he visited him in Milan, and in that year sent him the _Divine
Comedy_, which he had had copied for him; four years later, after
his "conversion," his hysterical adventure with the messenger of the
Blessed Pietro, he went to meet his master in Venice for the last
time,[515] as it proved, for in 1367 he missed him, Petrarch being
then in Pavia.[516] In all these meetings it is Boccaccio who seeks
out Petrarch; his visits are never returned. It is indeed almost
touching to see with what ardour and with what abnegation Boccaccio
cultivates this friendship which was in fact his greatest pride. He
makes Petrarch presents, poor as he is; he sends him the _Divine
Comedy_, S. Augustine's _Commentary on the Psalms_, and with his own
hand copies for him a book of extracts from Cicero and Varro.[517]
We do not hear of Petrarch giving him anything in return. It is true
he lent him the MS. of Homer and another of Plato, but he borrowed
the translation of the former made at Boccaccio's expense in order
to have it copied for his library. It is ill, however, reckoning up
benefits. Petrarch was not small-minded, as the noble letter in which
he offers to buy his friend's library proves. He procured for him the
offer of the office of Apostolic Secretary, which Boccaccio had the
strength and independence to refuse, and in his will left him, since
he knew him to be poor, a cloak to keep him warm on winter nights in
his study. If we find his praise of Boccaccio's work, especially of
the _Decameron_, a little cold and lacking in spontaneity--in fact
he admits he has not read the _Decameron_, but only "run through
it"[518]--we must remember his absurd and pedantic contempt for
work in the vulgar which came upon him in his middle life, so that
he was at last really incapable of judging and was in fact hostile
to Italian literature,[519] and would have destroyed if he could
all his own work in that kind. Boccaccio, on the other hand, was
always eager on Petrarch's behalf and in his defence. He composed an
_Elogium_[520] on him and his poetry, in which he defended him from
certain reproaches which had been brought against him, and when, as
it is said in 1372, a French cardinal attacked his venerated master
in the presence of the Pope and denied him the title of "Phœnix of
Poets" that was ordinarily given him, Boccaccio replied with an
apology in his favour.[521] Nor was this all, for it was mainly by
Boccaccio's efforts that that very disappointing poem the _Africa_
was preserved to us; and indeed, such was his delight in Petrarch,
that he arranged in order in a book the letters he had received from
him, for he thought himself assured of immortality rather by them
than by his own works.[522]
It is indeed strange and lovely to come upon Boccaccio's
extraordinary modesty: the greatest prose-writer in the Italian
language, the greatest story-teller in the world, considered himself
of no account at all beside the pedantic lover of Laura, the author
of the _Africa_ which he had not seen. The very thought of comparing
himself with Petrarch seemed to him a crime. He considered him as
not altogether of this world; he dwelt, according to his friend, in
a superior region; and as for his work, his writings, his style,
they are marvellous and ornate, abounding in sublime thoughts and
exquisite expressions, for he only wrote after long reflection, and
he drew his thoughts from the depths of his spirit.[523] And when
Petrarch honoured him with the title of Poet, he declined it;[524]
his ideal was "to follow very modestly the footsteps of his Silvanus."
"The illustrious Francesco Petrarca," he writes in another
place,[525] "neglecting the precepts of certain writers who scarcely
attain to the threshold of poetry, began to take the way of
antiquity with so much force of character, with such enthusiasm and
perspicacity, that no obstacle would arrest him, nor could ridicule
turn him from his way. Far from that, breaking through and tearing
away the brambles and bushes with which by the negligence of men the
road was covered, and remaking a solid road of the rocks heaped up
and made impassable by inundations, he opened a passage for himself
and for those who would come after him. Then, cleansing the fountain
of Helicon from slime and rushes, he restored to the waters their
first chastity and sweetness. He opened the fount of Castalia,
hidden by wild branches, and cleared the grove of laurels of thorns.
Having established Apollo on his throne, and restored to the Muses,
disfigured by neglect and rusticity, their ancient beauty, he climbed
the highest summits of Parnassus. And having been crowned with a
leafy garland by Daphne, he showed himself to the Roman people, with
the applause of the Senate, a thing which had not been seen perhaps
for more than a thousand years. He forced the gates of the ancient
Capitol, creaking on their rusty hinges, and to the great joy of the
Romans he made their annals famous by an unaccustomed triumph. O
glorious spectacle! O unforgettable act! This man by his prodigious
effort, by his work everywhere famous, as though he commanded through
the universe the trumpet of Fame, sounded the name of Poetry, brought
back again by him from darkness into light. He re-awakened in all
generous spirits a hope almost lost till then, and he made it to be
seen--what most of us had not believed--that Parnassus was still to
be won, that her summit was still to be dared...."
The enthusiasm, the unselfishness of that! But he does not stop
there. Petrarch is as admirable morally as he is as an artist or as
a scholar. "Petrarch," he tells us,[526] "living from his youth up
as a celibate, had such a horror of the impurities of the excess of
love that for those who know him he is the best example of honesty.
A mortal enemy of liars, he detests all vices. For he is a venerable
sanctuary of truth, and honours and joys in virtue, the model of
Catholic holiness. Pious, gentle, and full of devotion, he is so
modest that one might name him a second Parthenias [i.e. Virgil]. He
is too the glory of the poetic art. An agreeable and eloquent orator,
philosophy has for him no secrets. His spirit is of a superhuman
perspicacity; his mind is tenacious and full of all knowledge that
man may have. It is for this reason that his writings, both in
prose and in verse, numerous as they are, shine so brilliantly,
breathe so much charm, are adorned with so many flowers, enclosing
in their words so sweet a harmony, and in their thoughts an essence
so marvellous that one believes them the work of a divine genius
rather than the work of a man. In short he is assuredly more than
a man and far surpasses human powers. I am not singing the praises
of some ancient, long since dead. On the contrary, I am speaking of
the merits of a living man.... If you do not believe these words,
you can go and see him with your eyes. I do not fear that it will
happen to him as to so many famous men, as Claudius says, 'Their
presence diminishes their reputation.' Rather I affirm boldly that
he surpasses his reputation. He is distinguished by such dignity of
character, by an eloquence so charming, by an urbanity and old age so
well ordered, that one can say of him what Seneca said of Socrates,
that 'one learns more from his manners than from his discourse.'"
In this enormous praise, in this humility, Petrarch does not seem
to have seen anything extraordinary; in fact he seems to have taken
it as the most natural thing in the world. We gather that he
considered it was to have much regard for Boccaccio to let him hope
for some little glory after him.[527] And we may suspect that he
found in him a friend after his own heart. He showed his gratitude
by addressing a number of letters to him and by leaving him in his
Will fifty florins of gold to buy a mantle to protect him against the
cold during the long and studious nights of winter.[528] Boccaccio
was ill when he heard of that benefaction and the death of his
beloved master. The letter he then wrote in praise of the dead, his
hand trembling with emotion and weakness, his eyes full of tears, is
perhaps the most beautiful, if not the most touching, document of
their friendship.[529]
[Illustration: POMPEIA, PAULINA AND SENECA
_A woodcut from the "De Claris Mulieribus" (Ulm, 1473), cap. 92. (By
the courtesy of Messrs. J. & J. Leighton.)_]
And then, as we have already seen, the love of Boccaccio for his
master, his solicitude for his memory, did not cease with Petrarch's
death. His first thought was for the _Africa_ of which his master had
made, in imitation of Virgil perhaps, so great a mystery, and, as it
was said, had wished to burn it. Though he was as ignorant as others
of its contents, believing as he did in Petrarch, he was altogether
convinced that it was a great and marvellous poem, worthy of Homer
and full of a divine inspiration.[530] While some said Petrarch had
left instructions to burn it, others declared that he had appointed
a commission to decide whether it should live or die. Boccaccio does
not seem to have thought that he himself would necessarily have been
on any such commission; but immediately addressed a supplication in
verse to the tribunal, which he feared would be composed of lawyers,
demanding in the name of the Muses, of kings, of peoples, of cities
that this masterpiece should not be allowed to perish.
So Boccaccio loved Petrarch. And that Petrarch was good for him, as
we might say, who can doubt after reading that noble letter on the
vision of the Blessed Pietro? But that Boccaccio was intellectually
altogether at his mercy unhappily we cannot doubt either after
reading his Latin works. He follows Petrarch so far as he can, but
nearly always blindly, exaggerating the predilections or prejudices
of his master even in little things. In all his works in Latin he
makes no allusion to his works in the vulgar: Petrarch often mentions
his, but always with an affected disdain. Yet Boccaccio was by no
means destitute of a passion for literary glory. He desired it as
eagerly as Petrarch, but more modestly; and following the precept of
his master to the letter, he does not believe he can attain to it by
any other means than by classical studies. Like his master too, he
regretted the writings of his youth, and would have destroyed them if
they had not been spread through all Italy and well out of his reach.
In all these things Boccaccio is but the follower of Petrarch, and
nothing can be more to the point than to compare them, not indeed as
artists, but as students, as scholars, as philosophers.
And here let us admit, to begin with, that as a student, as a man of
culture, in a sense of the reality of history and in a due sense of
the proportion of things, Petrarch is as much Boccaccio's superior as
Boccaccio is Petrarch's as a creative artist. For Petrarch antiquity
was a practical school of life. Convinced of the superiority of his
spirit, he possessed himself of what he read and assimilated what
he wanted.[531] Boccaccio, on the other hand, remained entirely
outside, and can claim no merit as a scholar but that of industry. As
a student he is a mere compiler. His continual ambition is to extend
his knowledge, but Petrarch dreams only of making his more profound.
He too in reading the ancients has collected an incalculable number
of extracts, but after putting them in order from various points of
view he has only begun; he proceeds to draw from them his own works.
Nor is Petrarch deceived in his own superiority. He was by far the
most cultured man of his time; as a critic he had already for himself
disposed of the much-abused claims of the Church and the Empire. For
instance, with what assurance he recognises as pure invention, with
what certainty he annihilates with his criticism the privileges the
Austrians claimed to hold from Cæsar and Nero.[532] And even face to
face with antiquity he is not afraid; he is sure of the integrity of
his mind; he analyses and weighs, yes, already in a just balance, the
opinions of the writers of antiquity; while Boccaccio mixes up in
the most extraordinary way the various antiquities of all sorts of
epochs. Nor has Boccaccio the courage of his opinions; all seems to
him worthy of faith, of acceptance. He cannot, even in an elementary
way, discern the false from the true; and even when he seems on the
point of doing so he has not the courage to express himself. When
he reads in Vincent de Beauvais that the Franks came from Franc the
son of Hector, he does not accept it altogether, it is true, but, on
the other hand, he dare not deny it, "because nothing is impossible
to the omnipotence of God."[533] He accepts the gods and heroes of
antiquity; the characters in Homer and the writers of Greece, of
Rome, are equally real, equally authentic, equally worthy of faith,
and we might add equally unintelligible. They are as wonderful, as
delightful, as impossible to judge as the saints. What they do or say
he accepts with the same credulity as that with which he accepted the
visions of Blessed Pietro. Petrarch only had to look Blessed Pietro
in the eye, and he shrivelled up into lies and absurdities. But to
dispose of a charlatan and a rascal of one's own day is comparatively
easy: the true superiority of Petrarch is shown when he is face to
face with the realities of antiquity--when, for instance, venerating
Cicero as he did, he does not hesitate to blame him on a question
of morals. But Boccaccio speaks of Cicero as though he scarcely
knew him;[534] he praises him as though he were a mere abstraction,
calls him "a divine spirit," a "luminous star whose light still
waxes."[535] He does not know him. He goes to him for certain details
because Petrarch has told him to do so.
The truth seems to be that as soon as Boccaccio was separated
from life he became a nonentity. If this is not so, how are we to
explain the fact that he who was utterly incapable of criticism, of
any sense of difference or proportion in regard to the ancients,
could appreciate Petrarch so exquisitely, not only as a writer,
where he is often at sea, but as a man? He has a philosophy of
life, but he cannot apply it to antiquity because he cannot realise
antiquity. Nor does he perceive that Petrarch is continually opposing
the philosophy of life to the philosophy of the schools. It is
true he defends Petrarch against the more obvious absurdities of
scholastic philosophy; but, like his opponents, philosophy for him
is nothing but the trick, we cannot say the art, of reasoning, of
dialectic.[536] While Petrarch with an immense and admirable courage
bravely dares to attack the tyranny of Aristotle in the world of
thought, he remains for Boccaccio "the most worthy authority in all
things of importance."[537] And so, for example, when Aristotle
affirms that the founders of religion were the poets, Boccaccio
does not hesitate to oppose this theory to the theologians of his
time.[538] Where in fact Petrarch shows himself really superior to
the vulgar prejudices of his time his disciple cannot follow him. For
instance, in regard to astrology: Boccaccio attributed an immense
importance to it, but Petrarch never misses a chance of ridiculing it
even in his letters to Boccaccio.[539] Nevertheless Boccaccio remains
persuaded that the art of astrology combines in itself much truth,
and at any rate rests on a solid basis. If it sometimes deceives us,
we must seek the cause in the greatness of the heavens, so difficult
to explore, and in the imperfect knowledge we have of the movements
and conjunctions of the planets.[540]
[Illustration: EPITHARIS
_A woodcut from the "De Claris Mulieribus." (Ulm, 1493). Cap. 91. (By
the courtesy of Messrs. J. & J. Leighton.)_]
In all these things and in many others Boccaccio is little more than
Petrarch's disciple, following him without discrimination, more
violent in his abuse, more extreme in his advocacy of those things or
professions or ideas or people whom his master had come to consider
bad or good, reasonable or unreasonable. And it is in the Latin
works that we find him most a disciple, really obeying orders that
he has by no means understood, compiling with an immense and heroic
labour a vast collection of facts or supposed facts which have no
relation to one another, and reformed and revivified by no composing
or commanding idea, are for the most part just a heap of dead and
grotesque extravagances that for us at least can have no meaning.
Let me confess it at once: after labouring with an immense weariness
through the whole of these works in Latin, I have found but one
complete work and two fragments which seem to have been written with
any personal conviction: the _Eclogues_, parts of the _De Montibus_,
and the fourteenth book of the _De Genealogiis Deorum_. The rest
are vast compilations, made, one cannot say without enthusiasm, for
nothing but an immense enthusiasm could have carried him through such
a labour, but without any unifying idea, without personal conviction
or art or delight. They are the notebooks of an omnivorous but
indiscreet and undiscerning reader.[541]
The earliest among them, as we may think,[542] the _De Claris
Mulieribus_, constitutes as it were the transition from the writings
full of imagination and life in the vulgar tongue to the works of
erudition. Its chief purpose would seem to be rather to entertain
and to amuse women than to write history or biography, and though
now and then a more serious idea might seem to discover itself, it
remains for the most part a wretched and awkward piece of work, in
which virtue and vice are dealt with and distinguished, if at all, to
hide the droll pleasantries which are intended to divert the reader.
In this Boccaccio was successful, and the book had a great vogue in
spite of its absurdity.[543]
The idea of the work was, as he confesses in the proem suggested to
him by Petrarch's _De Viris Illustribus_. Ordered chronologically,
beginning with Eve, much space is given to women of antiquity--Greek,
Roman, and Barbarian, little to Jewesses and Christians, saints
and martyrs, because, says Boccaccio, "I wish to spare them the
neighbourhood of Pagans." He has little to say either, of the women
of his own and the preceding age. He mentions, however, Pope Joan,
the virtuous Gualdrada,[544] the Empress Constance, mother of
Frederic II, and Queen Giovanna of Naples, whom he praises for her
personality and character as one of the most remarkable women of his
time.
But it is in dealing with the more modern characters that he dates
his work for us. We find there the same contempt for, the same
aversion from women in general as have already come upon in the
_Corbaccio_ and the _Vita di Dante_. It is possible that his contempt
in some sort excuses, or at least explains, the wretchedness of this
work. For if it was written for women, we know that he considered
that culture and learning were not only useless to women, but even
harmful, since they helped them to evil. And he himself tells us with
the most amazing humour or effrontery that he has composed this work
"less with a view to general usefulness than for the greater honour
of the sex,"[545] yet, as we shall see, he abuses women roundly on
almost every possible occasion, and introduces a tale like that of
Paolina, which would not be out of place in the _Decameron_.
"Paolina, the Roman lady," says Boccaccio, "lived in the reign of
Tiberius Cæsar, and above all the ladies of her time she was famous
for the beauty of her body and the loveliness of her face, and,
married as she was, she was reputed the especial mirror of modesty.
She cared for nothing else, she studied no other thing, save to
please her husband and to worship and reverence Anubis, god of the
Egyptians, for whom she had so much devotion, that in everything she
did she hoped to merit his grace whom she so much venerated. But,
as we know, wherever there is a beautiful woman there are young men
who would be her lovers, and especially if she be reputed chaste and
honest, so here a young Roman fell in love beyond hope of redemption
with the beautiful Paolina. His name was Mundo, he was very rich,
and of the noblest family in Rome. He followed her with his eyes,
and with much amorous and humble service as lovers are wont to do,
and with prayers too, and with promises and presents, but he found
her not to be won, for that she, modest and pure as she was, placed
all her affection in her husband, and considered all those words and
promises as nothing but air. Mundo, seeing all this, almost hopeless
at last, turned all his thoughts to wickedness and fraud."
[Illustration: PAULINA, MUNDUS AND THE GOD ANUBIS
_A woodcut from the "De Claris Mulieribus" (Ulm, 1473), cap. 89. (By
the courtesy of Messrs. J. & J. Leighton.)_]
"It seems that Paolina used to visit almost every day the Temple
of Isis, where, with continual oblations and sacred offerings, she
worshipped and honoured the god Anubis with the greatest devotion;
which, when the young man knew of it, love showed him a way, and he
thought and imagined in his heart an unheard-of evil. Telling himself
then that the priests and ministers of Anubis would be able to assist
and favour his desires, he went to them, and after many prayers and
many rich gifts opened to them the matter. And it happened as he
wished. For when Paolina next came to the temple the most venerable
high priest himself, in a quiet and humble voice, told her that
the god Anubis had appeared to him in the night and had bidden him
say to her that he, Anubis himself, was well pleased and delighted
with her devotion, and that in that temple where she worshipped him
he would, for her good and repose of heart, speak with her in the
darkness of night. Now when Paolina heard this from so venerable a
priest, judging that this had come to her though her devotion and
holiness, she rejoiced without measure at the words, and returning
home told all to her husband, who, like a fool, believing all to be
true, consented that she should spend the following night in the
temple. And so it befell at nightfall Paolina came to the preordained
place, and after solemn ceremonies and holy prayers alone she entered
the rich bed to await Anubis, the god of her devotion. And when she
had fallen asleep, came, introduced by the priests, Mundo, covered
with the vestments and ornaments of Anubis and full of the most
ardent desire; then with a soft voice, taking her in his arms, he
awakened her.[546] And Mundo, in the voice of Anubis, seeing her
afraid and confused at first waking, bade her be of good heart,
saying that he was Anubis whom she had for so long venerated and
worshipped, and that he was come from heaven because of her prayers
and devotions that he might lie with her, and of her have a son a
god like to himself. Which, when Paolina heard, before all else she
asked if it were the custom of the supernal powers to mix themselves
with mortals; to whom Mundo answered, even so, and gave the example
of Jove, who had descended from heaven and passed through the roof
where Danäe lay, into her lap, from which intercourse Perseus, now in
heaven, was born. And hearing this Paolina most joyfully consented.
Then Mundo, all naked, entered into the bed of Anubis, and so won the
desired embraces and kisses and pleasures; and when it was dawn he
left her, saying that she had that night conceived a son. And when
it was day Paolina arose, and, carried by the priests, returned to
her house, believing everything and recounting all to her foolish
husband, who received his wife joyfully with the greatest honour,
thinking that she would be the mother of a god. Nor would either
have doubted this but for the want of caution on the part of the
too ardent Mundo. For it seemed to him that Paolina had returned
his embraces with the greatest readiness and delight, and thinking
therefore that he had conquered her modesty and hoping to enjoy her
again, he went to her one day in the temple, and coming close to her
whispered, 'Blessed art thou who hast conceived of the god Anubis.'
But the result was quite other than he had expected. For stupefied
beyond measure, Paolina, bringing all things to her remembrance that
had befallen on that night, understood the fraud, and altogether
broken-hearted told her husband, opening all her thoughts; and he
went immediately in the greatest sorrow and distress to Tiberius
Cæsar. And Cæsar ordered that all the priests should be slain with
grievous torments, and that Mundo should be sent into exile; and as
for the simple and deceived Paolina, she became the laughing-stock of
the Roman people."
Such is one of the stories of the _De Claris Mulieribus_. But
though it be one of the best tales there, and indeed we may compare
it with a famous story in the _Decameron_,[547] it is by no means
characteristic of the whole book, which has its more serious side,
for Boccaccio uses his facts, his supposed facts, often enough to
admonish his contemporaries, and therefore to some extent the work
may be said to have had a moral purpose.
Yet after all, what chiefly interests us in an inferior piece of work
is the view of woman we find there. And strangely enough, in this
book so full of mere foolishness and unhappy scolding we find a purer
and more splendid praise of woman than anywhere else in his work. "A
woman," he tells us, "can remain pure in the midst of corruptions
and every horror and vice as a ray of sunlight remains pure even
when it falls on a filthy puddle." Yes, they can do so, and that
he admits it, is at least something, but if we may judge from this
book it was by no means his opinion that commonly they do. For he is
always pointing in scorn at the women of his time. He tells of the
death of Seneca's wife, who killed herself that she might not survive
her husband, in order that he may preach to the widows of his day,
who do not hesitate, we learn, to remarry, "not twice nor thrice,
but five or six times." Again, he tells the story of Dido more
according to the legends that had grown up around it than according
to the _Æneid_, in order that it may be an example "above all among
Christians" to those widows who take a third or fourth husband.[548]
Having been betrayed by a widow, he is as personally suspicious
of and vindictive against them as the elder Mr. Weller. Nor is
he sparing in his abuse of women in general. They can only keep a
secret of which they are ignorant, he tells us. And like many men
who have lived disorderly, he puts an extraordinary, a false, value
on chastity. For after recommending all parents to bring up their
daughters chastely, which is sane and right, he bids women guard
their chastity even to the death, adding that they should prefer a
certain death to an uncertain dishonour.[549] And after giving more
than one example to bear this out, he cites the women of the Cimbri,
who, when their husbands fled, besought the Romans to let them enter
the house of the Vestals, and when this was denied them killed
themselves after murdering their children. Nor does he ever cease to
deplore the luxury and coquetry of women, blaming the Roman Senate
when, in honour of Volumnia, mother of Coriolanus, who had saved the
Republic, it allowed matrons to wear earrings. For luxury, says he,
is the ruin of women, and so of men also, for the world belongs to
men, but men to women.
Again and again he returns to the attitude he assumed in the
_Decameron_,[550] but without its gaiety. Man is the more perfect and
the firmer and stronger: how then can a woman do else but yield to
her lover? If there are exceptions it is because some women partake
of the nature of man, Sulpicia, for instance, who was, he says,
"rather a man than a woman," and indeed some women have a man's soul
in a woman's body. Nor does he omit any sort or kind of temperament.
He shows us the courageous woman in Sofonisba, the voluptuous in
Cleopatra, the chaste in Gualdrada, the simple in Paolina, the
proud in Zenobia, the resigned in Costanza, the wise in Proba, the
intriguer in Poppea, the generous in Sempronia.[551] He writes three
hundred lives, and in every one we find the same sentiments of
passionate interest, suspicion, distrust. If it were possible to
gather from this vast depository the type of woman Boccaccio himself
preferred, we should find, I think, that she was by no means the
intelligent, learned, energetic, independent, and strong-willed
woman that negatively, as it were, he praises, for to him she would
seem not a woman but a kind of man. No, he remains to worship the
beautiful, subtle, credulous, and distracting creature that he had
found in that Fiammetta who had betrayed him,--in two minds during a
single heart's beat, cruel and sensual too, eager to love and without
responsibility, afraid of the dark, but ready to do anything in
things to her mind; in fact, the abused heroine of all his books. But
while he adores her, he makes fun of her, he scorns her, he curses
her, he hates her, yet in a moment she will be in his arms.
It was to one such he thought to dedicate this book of Famous
Ladies,[552] to that Queen Giovanna of Naples, the granddaughter of
King Robert the Wise, who had been the father of his own Fiammetta.
But in the last chapter of the book, which is a long panegyric in her
honour, he praises her not as a woman but as a great and powerful
king. We do not know, alas! what he really thought of her, for eager
Guelf and Angevine as he always was, he would be the last to tell
us the truth, if it were evil, about this unhappy lady, and here
at least his work is so full of praise that there is no room for
judgment. If he had once spoken evil of her[553] he has here made
amends, but in such a way that we are in no way enlightened and
remain as always at the mercy of the chroniclers.[554]
If we needed any evidence other than the works themselves that these
compilations in Latin worried and bored Boccaccio, we should find it
in the _De Casibus Virorum_, a vast work in nine books, which was
taken up and put aside in disgust not less than three times, and
at last only completed by the continual urgings of Petrarch, who,
not understanding the disgust of the creative artist for this kind
of book-making, was reduced to reply to the protests of Boccaccio
that "man was born for labour."[555] The _De Casibus Virorum_ is
certainly a more considerable work than the _De Claris Mulieribus_,
but it is without the occasional liveliness of the earlier work, as
we see it, for instance, in the story of Paolina, and is in fact
merely an enormous compilation, as I have said, made directly under
the influence of Petrarch, who, in imitation of the ancients, was
always willing to discourse concerning the instability of Fortune. It
was a theme which suited his peculiar genius, and in the _De Viris
Illustribus_ and the _De Remediis Utriusque Fortunæ_ we see him at
his best in this manner.[556] But for Boccaccio such moralising
became a mere drudgery, a mere heaping together of what he had read
but not digested. Eager to follow in Petrarch's footsteps, however,
he took up the same theme as the subject of an historical work, in
which he sets out to show the misfortunes of famous men. Beginning
with Adam and Eve--for he admits a few women--he passes in review
with an enormous languor that makes the book one of the most wearying
in all literature the personages of fable and legend and history,
treating all alike, down to his own time. Sometimes he is merely
dull, sometimes absurd, sometimes theatrical, but always lifeless in
these accounts of the tragic ends of "Famous Men" or of their fall
from power. He is never simple, nor does he take his work simply;
by every trick he had used in his creative work he tries in vain to
give this book some sort of life. He sees his characters in vision,
then, in imitation of Petrarch, he interrupts the narrative to
preach, to set down tedious moral sentiments--that bad habit of his
old age--or philosophical conclusions, or to lose himself in long
digressions upon a thousand and one subjects--on riches, on fortune,
on happiness, on rhetoric, on the lamentable condition of Rome, on
the sadness (acedia) of writers, of which Petrarch had cured him, or
again in defence of poetry, never choosing a subject, however, that
had not been already treated by Petrarch, except it be woman, whom he
again attacks, more soberly perhaps, but infinitely more tediously,
warning us against her wiles in the manner of a very minor prophet.
As long as he is a mere historian, a mere compiler, a mere scholar,
he remains almost unreadable, but as soon as he returns to life, to
what he has seen with his own eyes, even in this uncouth jargon, this
Church Latin, he becomes an artist, a man of letters, and we find
then without surprise that one of the last episodes he recounts, the
history of Filippa la Catanese was, even in the seventeenth century,
still read apparently with the greatest delight, for very many
editions were published of this fragment of his book, of which I have
already spoken.[557]
[Illustration: THE TORTURE OF REGULUS
_A woodcut from Lydgate's "Falles of Princes of John Bochas."
(London, 1494.)_]
Certainly the most original and probably the best of Boccaccio's
Latin works in prose is the _De Genealogiis Deorum_, with which
is generally printed the _De Montibus_, _Sylvis_, etc. The first,
however, is really but a mass of facts and confused details quite
undigested and set forth without any unity, while the latter is an
alphabetical dictionary of ancient geography to assist those who read
the Latin poets.[558] At the time these books appeared, however,
such matters were a novelty, and we have in them the first complete
manual of an ancient science and the first dictionary of geography
of the modern world. I say of the modern world, yet though we cannot
but admire their erudition and the patient research of the author,
these do not suffice to place these works really above the meagre
compilations of the Middle Age,[559] yet we find there perhaps a
change of method which makes them important. Both books are, however,
full of credulities, they altogether lack judgment and any system,
and can therefore scarcely be said to belong to humanism.
In the _De Genealogiis Deorum_ Boccaccio gathers every mythological
story he can find, and would explain them all by means of symbols and
allegories, and in doing this he very naturally provoked the fervent
applause of his contemporaries.[560] But what renders the volume
really interesting and valuable to us is the eager and passionate
defence of poetry which forms its epilogue.
Boccaccio had always fought valiantly in defence of "poetry," by
which he understood the art of literature, and the new learning,
the knowledge of antiquity. This art, for it was by no means yet
a science, had many more enemies than friends. To a great extent
Petrarch refused to meet these foes, considering them as beneath his
notice; it was left for Boccaccio to defend not only letters, but
Petrarch and his Muse. To this defence he consecrates two whole books
of the _De Genealogiis Deorum_, the fourteenth and fifteenth, and
there he takes under his protection not only the poets of antiquity,
but poetry in general and his own occupation with mythology. He
pounds away with much success at the scholastic philosophers and
theologians, who had no idea that they were already dead and damned,
and while they declared poetry to be a sheer tissue of fables he
busily dug their graves or heaped earth upon them. He left really
nothing undone. He attacked their morality, and where so much was an
absurdity of lies that was easy; but he appealed too to S. Augustine
and S. Jerome, which was dangerous;[561] and at last, somewhat
embarrassed by certain Latin poets who had proved to be too involved
in their frivolity to defend, he abandoned them to their fate,
reluctantly, it is true, but he abandoned them, and among these were
Plautus, Terence, whom he had copied with his own hand, and Ovid, who
had been the companion of his youth. The men whom Petrarch refused to
touch lest he should soil his hands had to be content with these.
In Boccaccio's definition of the poet, which owed very much to
Petrarch we may think, he comprehended the philosopher, the mystic,
the prophet--especially the mystic; for he is much concerned with
allegory and the hidden meaning of words. For him the work of the
poet, and truly, is with words, but with words only. He must find
new material if he can it is true, but, above all, he must dress it
in long-sought-out words and rhythms that shall at once hide and
display the real meaning. He seems to leave nothing to the moment,
to spontaneous feeling. The true mistress of the poet does not
enter into his calculations; yet there is more spontaneity in the
_Decameron_ than in all Petrarch's work. Still he lays stress on that
truly Latin gift, the power to describe or contrive a situation which
will hold and excite men.
What he most strongly insists upon, however, is the hidden meaning
of the ancient poets. He declares that only a fool can fail to see
allegories in the works of antiquity.[562] One must be mad not to
see, in the _Bucolics_, the _Georgics_, and the _Æneid_ of Virgil,
allegories, though we may not certainly read them.[563] Is it not
thus, he asks, that Dante has hidden in the _Comedy_ the mysteries of
the Catholic religion? Are there not allegories in the work of his
master Petrarch?[564]
He turns from Petrarch to Homer, whom he declares he has always by
him. He speaks of Pilatus, to whom he says he owes much: "A little
man but great in learning, so deep in the study of great matters
that emperors and princes bore witness that none as learned as he
had appeared for many centuries." He closes the book with an appeal
to Ugo, King of Cyprus and Jerusalem, who had begged him to write
this work, which is a truly marvellous cyclopædia of learning and
mythology, with this defence of poetry and poets added to it in the
two last books, which are later than the rest.[565] It is not,
however, in the _De Genealogiis_ but in the _De Montibus, Sylvis,
Lacubus, Fluminibus, Stagnis seu Paludis, de Nominibus Maris_ that we
have the true type of these works. They are all really dictionaries
of learning and legend, but it is only this that is actually in
the form of a dictionary, the various subjects being set forth and
described in alphabetical order.
The enormous popularity of these works in their day is witnessed by
the numerous editions through which they passed both in Latin and
Italian in Italy and abroad. They were the textbooks of the early
Renaissance, and we owe Boccaccio, as one of the great leaders of
that movement, all the gratitude we can give him; all the more that
the work he began has been so fruitful that we can scarcely tolerate
the works that guided its first steps.
FOOTNOTES:
[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.
[520] See _De vita et moribus domini Francisci Petrarchæ de Florentia
secundum Iohannem Bochacii de Certaldo_, in ROSSETTI, _Petrarca_,
etc., pp. 316-99.
[521] Cf. _Senil._, XV, 8, written in 1373.
[522] Cf. CORAZZINI, _op. cit._, p. 123.
[523] Cf. the Epilogue to the _De Montibus_.
[524] Cf. _Fam._, XVIII, 15.
[525] In the letter to Jacopo Pizzinghe in CORAZZINI, _op. cit._, p.
189.
[526] _De Genealog. Deorum_, XIV, 19.
[527] Cf. _Fam._, XVIII, 4.
[528] Cf. Petrarch's will in FRACASSETTI, _op. cit._, Vol. III, p.
542.
[529] Cf. CORAZZINI, _op. cit._, p. 377. We shall return to this
later. See _infra_, p. 282 _et seq._
[530] Cf. _Elogium di Petrarca_, l.c., pp. 319, 324.
[531] See VOIGT, _Pétrarque, Boccacce et les débuts de humanisme_,
cap. ii. (Paris, 1894).
[532] _Ep. Sen._, XV, 5. Letter to Charles IV.
[533] Cf. _De Genealog._, VI, 24. Cf. VOIGT, _op. cit._, p. 167.
[534] _Comento sopra Dante_, _ed. cit._, cap. iv. p. 249.
[535] Cf. _De Casibus Virorum_, pp. 59, 66, 67.
[536] Cf. _Vita di Dante_, _ed. cit._, p. 56.
[537] Cf. _Vita di Dante_, _ed. cit._, p. 40.
[538] Cf. VOIGT, _op. cit._, p. 168.
[539] Cf. _Senil._, III, 1; VIII, 1, 8.
[540] Cf. _Vita di Dante_, _ed. cit._, p. 55; _Comento_, _ed. cit._,
cap. 1. pp. 5, 7; and cf. HORTIS, _Acceni alle Scienze_, etc., p. 14.
[541] The best study and the fullest of these Latin works is that of
HORTIS, _Studi sulle opere Latine di Giovanni Boccaccio_ (Trieste,
1879). It runs to some 950 quarto pages. I do not propose here to
give more than a sketch of these Latin works of Boccaccio.
[542] It was apparently finished about 1362. Cf. HORTIS, _Studi_, p.
89, n. 2, and p. 164.
[543] Cf. F. VILLANI (ed. Galletti), _Liber de civitatis Florentiæ
famosis civibus ex codice Mediceo Laurentiano nunc primum editus_
(Firenze, 1847), p. 17.
[544] Cf. _Comento_, _ed. cit._, cap. xii. Vol. II, p. 334.
[545] Cf. the dedication to "Mulieri clariss. Andrese Acciauolis,"
which begins: "Pridie, mulierum egregia, paululum ab inerti vulgo
semotus, et a cæteris fere solutus curis, in eximiam mulieribus
sexus laudem, et amicorum solatium, potius quam in magnum reipublicæ
commodum, libellum scripsi." This dedicatory letter appears in all
the editions, and is printed too by CORAZZINI, _op. cit._, p. 231.
[546] Cf. Boccaccio's own love story, _supra_, p. 51 _et seq._
[547] _Decameron_, IV, 2.
[548] Cap. 87.
[549] Caps. 77, 71, 81.
[550] Cf. _Decameron_, II, 9, and _supra_, p. 176 _et seq._
[551] Cf. RODOCONACHI, _Boccacce_ (Hachette, 1908), p. 163, and
HORTIS, _Studi_, p. 102 _et seq._
[552] So he says in the dedication to the wife of Andrea Acciaiuoli,
but he feared to do it. "Verum dum mecum animo versarem, cuinam
primum illum transmitterem, ne penes me marcesceret otio, et ut
alieno fultus favore, securior iret in publicum, adverteremque satis,
non principi viro, sed potius cum de mulieribus loqueritur, alicui
insigni fœminæ destinandum fore, exquirenti dignorem, ante alias,
venit in mentem, Italicum jubar illud perfulgidum, ac singulare
nomen non tantum fœminarum, sed regum gloria, Iohanna serenissima
Hierusalem et Siciliæ regina," etc.
[553] See _supra_, p. 121 _et seq._ Cf. HORTIS, _Le Donne famose
descritte da G. B._ (Trieste, 1877).
[554] An English version of the _De Claris Mulieribus_ was made
by Henry Parker, Lord Morley (1476-1556), but this has never been
printed. It is entitled "John Bocasse His Booke intitlede in the
Latyne Tunge De Praeclaris Mulieribus, that is to say in Englyshe,
of the Ryghte Renoumyde Ladyes." It was done about 1545 and was
dedicated to King Henry VIII. Extracts from it have appeared in
WALDRON'S _Literary Museum_, 1792.
[555] Cf. Proem to Lib. VIII.
[556] Cf. HAUVETTE, _Recherches sur le Casibus_, etc. (Paris, 1901).
[557] Cf. _supra_, p. 117. The History of the Dukes of Athens too is
excellent. John Lydgate in some sort translated the work into English
verse: his work is entitled "_Here begynnethe the Boke calledde John
Bochas descrivinge the falle of princis princessis and other nobles
traslatid īto Englissh by John Ludgate mōke of the monastery of Seint
Edmundes Bury at the cōmañdemēt of the worthy prynce Humfrey Duke
of Gloucestre beginnynge at Adam and endinge with Kinge John made
prisoner in fraunce by prince Eduarde_" (London, Richard Pynson,
1494). For the story of Filippa la Catanese in English see "_Unhappy
Prosperitie expressed in the Histories of Sejanus and Philippa the
Catanian written in French by P. Mathieu and translated in English by
S^r Th. Hawkins_" (printed for Io. Haviland for Godfrey Esmondson,
1632).
[558] Cf. HORTIS, _Accenni alle scienze naturali nelle opere di G.
B._ (Trieste, 1877), p. 38 _et seq._
[559] Cf. VOIGT, _op. cit._, cap. ii.
[560] Cf. VOIGT, _op. cit._, cap. ii., and SCHUCK, _Zur
charakteristik der ital. Humanisten des XIV und XV Jahrh._ (Breslau,
1857), and F. VILLANI, _op. cit._ (ed. Galletti), p. 17. RODOCANACHI,
_op. cit._, p. 177 _et seq._, thinks he sees in the _De Genealogiis_
a progress beyond the knowledge and judgment of Boccaccio in the
_Filocolo_ and the _Amorosa Visione_. It may well be so, but he has
not convinced me that it was anything to boast of.
[561] Cf. _De Genealogiis_, XV, 9; _Comento_, cap. 1.
[562] Cf. _De Genealogiis_, XIV, 7: "Mera poesis est, quicquid sub
velamento componimus et exquisitur [? exprimitur] exquisite." Cf.
also _Comento_, cap. i.
[563] _De Genealogiis_, XIV, 10.
[564] Indeed in Laura he seems to have seen an allegory of Petrarch's
desire for the laurel. See ROSETTI, _Petrarca_, etc., p. 323,
_Elogium_: "Et quamvis in suis compluribus vulgaribus poematibus
in quibus perlucide decantavit se Laurettam quamdam ardentissime
demonstravit amasse, non obstat; nam piout ipsemet et bene puto,
Laurettam illam allegorice pro Laurem corona quam post modum est
adeptus, accipiendam existimo."
[565] Cf. F. N. SCOTT, _"De Genealogiis" 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, also MUSSAFIA, _Il Libro XV della Genealogia
Deorum_ in _Antol. della Critic. Mod._ of Morandi (Città di Castello,
1885), p. 334 _et seq._ The work was finished about 1366, for in Book
XV he calls Bechino et Paolo il Geometra to witness as living. Paolo
made his will in 1366; we know nothing of Bechino after 1361.