CHAPTER XVIII

THE _DECAMERON_

But we cannot leave him there. For he is not dead, but living; not

only where, in the third heaven, he long since has found his own

Fiammetta and been comforted, but in this our world also, where

"Not marble, nor the gilded monuments

Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme."

And so for this cause, if for no other, it seemed well to leave our

consideration of his greatest work till now; that we might take leave

of him, when we must, in turning its ever-living pages.

The greatest story-teller in the world! Does that seem a hard saying?

But by what other title shall we greet the author of the _Decameron_,

who is as secure in his immortality and as great in his narrative

power as the author of the _Arabian Nights_, and infinitely greater

in his humanism and influence?

The greatest work of the fourteenth century, as the _Divine Comedy_

had been of the thirteenth, the _Decameron_ sums up and reflects

its period altogether impersonally, while the _Divine Comedy_ would

scarcely hold us at all without the impassioned personality of Dante

to inform it everywhere with his profound life, his hatred, his love,

his judgment of this world and the next. It is strange that the

work which best represents the genius of Boccaccio, his humour and

wide tolerance and love of mankind, should in this be so opposite

to all his other works in the vulgar tongue, which are inextricably

involved with his own personal affairs, his view of things, his love,

his contempt, his hatred. Yet you will scarcely find him in all the

hundred tales of the _Decameron_.[654] He speaks to us there once

or twice, as we shall see, but always outside the stories, and his

whole treatment of the various and infinite plots, incidents, and

characters of his great work is as impersonal as life itself.

The _Decameron_ is an absolute work of art, as "detached" as a play

by Shakespeare or a portrait by Velasquez. The scheme is formal and

immutable, a miracle of design in which almost everything can be

expressed. To compare it with the plan of the _Arabian Nights_ is

to demonstrate its superiority. There you have a sleepless king, to

whom a woman tells a thousand and one stories in order to save her

life which this same king would have taken. You have, then, but two

protagonists and an anxiety which touches but one of them, the fear

of death on the part of the woman, soon forgotten in the excitement

of the stories. In the _Decameron_, on the other hand, you have ten

protagonists, three youths and seven ladies, and the horror which is

designed to set off the stories is an universal pestilence which has

already half depopulated the city of Florence, from which they are

fled away.

[Illustration: THE LADIES AND YOUTHS OF THE DECAMERON LEAVING FLORENCE

_From a miniature in the French version of the "Decameron," made in

1414 by Laurent le Premierfait. MS. late XV century. (Brit. Mus.

Rothschild Bequest. MS. XIV.)_]

The _mise en scène_ is so well known as scarcely to need describing,

for the Prologue in which it is set forth is one of the most splendid

pieces of descriptive narrative in all literature, impressionist

too in our later manner, and absolutely convincing. Boccaccio

evokes for us the city of Florence in the grip of the Black

Death of 1348. We see the streets quite deserted or horrible with

the dead, and over all a dreadful silence broken only by the more

dreadful laughter of those whom the plague has freed from all human

constraint. Fear has seized upon such of the living as death has not

driven mad, "wherefore the sick of both sexes, whose number could

not be estimated, were left without resource but in the charity of

friends (and few such there were), or the interest of servants,

who were hardly to be had at high rates and on unseemly terms, and

being moreover men and women of gross understanding and for the

most part unused to such offices, concerned themselves no further

than to supply the immediate and expressed wants of the sick and to

watch them die, in which service they themselves not seldom perished

with their gains. In consequence of which dearth of servants and

dereliction of the sick by neighbours, kinsfolk, and friends, it

came to pass--a thing perhaps never before heard of--that no woman,

however dainty, fair, or well born she might be, shrank, when

stricken with the disease, from the attentions of a man, no matter

whether he were young or no, or scrupled to expose to him every

part of her body with no more shame than if he had been a woman,

submitting of necessity to that which her malady required; wherefrom,

perchance, there resulted in after time some loss of modesty in such

as recovered.... What need we add, but that such and so grievous was

the harshness of heaven, and perhaps in some degree of man, that,

what with the fury of the pestilence, the panic of those whom it

spared and their consequent neglect or desertion of not a few of

the stricken in their need, it is believed without any manner of

doubt, that between March and the ensuing July upwards of a hundred

thousand human beings lost their lives within the walls of the city

of Florence, which before the deadly visitation would not have been

supposed to contain so many people! How many grand palaces, how many

stately homes, how many splendid houses once full of retainers, of

lords, of ladies, were now left desolate of all, even to the meanest

servant!...

"Irksome it is to myself to rehearse in detail so mournful a history.

Wherefore, being minded to pass over so much thereof as I fairly

can, I say that our city being thus depopulated, it so happened, as

I afterwards learned from one of credit, that on Tuesday morning

after Divine service the venerable church of Santa Maria Novella

was almost deserted save for the presence of seven young ladies,

habited sadly, in keeping with the season.... The first, being the

eldest of the seven, we will call Pampinea, the second Fiammetta,

the third Filomena, the fourth Emilia, the fifth we will distinguish

as Lauretta, the sixth as Neifile, and the last, not without reason,

shall be named Elisa. 'Twas not of set purpose but by mere chance

that these ladies met in the same part of the church, but at length,

grouping themselves into a sort of circle, ... they gave up saying

paternosters and began to converse (among other topics) on the

times.... Here we tarry (said Pampinea) as if one thinks for no

other purpose than to bear witness to the number of corpses that are

brought hither for interment.... If we quit the church we see dead or

sick folk carried about, or we see those who for their crimes were

of late exiled, ... but who now in contempt of the law, well knowing

its ministers are sick or dead, have returned.... Nor hear we aught

but: Such and such are dead.... Such and such are dying.... Or go we

home, what see we there? I know not if you are in like case with me;

but there where once were servants in plenty I find none left but

my maid and shudder with terror.... And turn or tarry where I may,

I encounter only the ghosts of the departed, not with their wonted

mien but with something horrible in their aspect that appals me....

So (she continues) I should deem it most wise in us, our case being

what it is, if, as many others have done before us and are doing

now, we were to quit the place, and shunning like death the evil

example of others, betake ourselves to the country and there live as

honourable women on one of the estates of which none of us has any

lack, with all cheer of festal gathering and other delights so long

as in no particular we overstep the bounds of reason. There we shall

hear the chant of birds, have sight of green hills and plains, of

cornfields undulating like the sea, of trees of a thousand sorts;

there also we shall have a larger view of the heavens, which, however

harsh to usward, yet deny not their eternal beauty; things fairer

far for eyes to rest on than the desolate walls of our city.... For

though the husbandmen die there even as here the citizens, they are

dispersed in scattered homes, and so 'tis less painful to witness.

Nor, so far as I can see, is there a soul here whom we shall desert;

rather we may truly say that we are ourselves deserted.... No censure

then can fall on us if we do as I propose; and otherwise grievous

suffering, perhaps death, may ensue."

Pampinea's plan was received with eagerness, and while they were

still discussing it there came into the church three young men,

Pamfilo, Filostrato, and Dioneo, the youngest about twenty-five

years of age. These seemed to the ladies to be sent by Providence,

for their only fear till now had been in carrying out their plans

alone. So Pampinea, who had a kinsman among them, approached them,

and greeting them gaily, opened her plan, and besought them on behalf

of herself and her friends to join their company. The young men as

soon as they found she was in earnest answered with alacrity that

they were ready, and promptly before leaving the church set matters

in train for their departure, and the next day at dawn they set out.

Arrived at the estate they entered a beautiful palace in the midst

of a garden, and again it was Pampinea who proposed that one among

them should be elected chief for a day so that each might be in turn

in authority. They at once chose Pampinea, whom Filomena crowned with

bay leaves. Later, towards evening, they "hied them to a meadow ...

and at the queen's command ranged themselves in a circle on the grass

and hearkened while she spoke thus: 'You mark that the sun is yet

high, the heat intense, and the silence unbroken save by the _cicale_

among the olives. It were therefore the height of folly to quit this

spot at present. Here the air is cool, and the prospect fair, and

here, observe, are dice and chess. Take then your pleasure as you

will; but if you hear my advice you will find pastime for the hot

hours before us, not in play in which the loser must needs be vexed,

... but in telling stories in which the invention of one may afford

solace to all the company of his hearers.'"

This was found pleasing to all, and so Pampinea turned at last to

Pamfilo, who sat at her right hand, and bade him lead off with one of

his stories. So begins the series of immortal tales which compose the

_Decameron_.[655]

Such, then, is the incomparable design which the _Decameron_ fills,

beside which the mere haphazard telling of _The Hundred Merry Tales_

seems barbarous, the setting of _The Thousand and One Nights_

inadequate. That Boccaccio's design has indeed ever been bettered

might well be denied, but in _The Canterbury Tales_ Chaucer certainly

equalled it. If the occasion there is not so dramatic nor the

surroundings at once so poignant and so beautiful, the pilgrimage

progresses with the tales and allows of such a dramatic entry as

that of the Canon and the Canon's yeoman at Boghton-under-Blee.

That entry was most fitting and opportune, right in every way, and

though there is no inherent reason why the _Decameron_ itself should

not have been similarly broken in upon, the very stillness of that

garden in the sunshine would have made any such interruption less

acceptable.[656]

The true weakness of the _Decameron_ in comparison with that of the

_Canterbury Tales_ is not a weakness of design but of character.

Each of Chaucer's pilgrims is a complete human being; they all live

for us more vividly than any other folk, real or imagined, of the

fourteenth century in England, and each is different from the rest, a

perfect human character and personality. But in the protagonists of

the _Decameron_ it is not so. There is nothing, or almost nothing, to

choose between them. Pampinea is not different from Filomena,[657]

and may even be confused with Pamfilo or Filostrato. We know nothing

of them; they are without any character or personality, and indeed

the only one of them all who stands out in any way is Dioneo, and

that merely because he may usually be depended upon for the most

licentious tale of the day.[658] In Chaucer the tales often weary

us, but the tellers never do; in Boccaccio the tales never weary us,

but the tellers always do. Just there we come upon the fundamental

difference between English and what I may call perhaps Latin art. It

is the same to-day as yesterday. In the work of D' Annunzio, as in

the work of the French novelists of our time, it is always an affair

of situation, that is to say, the narrative or drama rises out

of the situation, rather than out of the character of the actors,

while even in the most worthless English work there is, as there has

always been, an attempt at least to realise character, to make it the

fundamental thing in the book, from which the narrative proceeds and

by which it lives and is governed.

In dealing with the _Decameron_, then, we must, more or less, leave

the narrators themselves out of the question; they are not to be

judged; they are but an excuse for the stories, and are really

puppets who can in no way be held responsible for them, so that if

now and then an especially licentious tale is told by one of those

"virtuous" ladies, it is of no account, for the tales are altogether

independent of those who tell them. But if these young and fair

protagonists soon pass from our remembrance in the infinitely vivid

and living stories they tell, yes, almost like a phonograph, the

setting, the background of a plague-stricken and deserted city,

the beauty and languorous peace of the delicious gardens in which

we listen, always remain with us, so much so that tradition has

identified the two palaces which are the setting of the whole

_Decameron_ with two of those villas which are the glory of the

Florentine _contado_.

The first of these palaces--that to which they came on that Wednesday

morning--was, Boccaccio tells us, not more than "two short miles from

the city" There "on the brow of the hill was a palace, with a fine

and spacious courtyard in the midst, and with loggias and halls and

rooms, all and each one in itself beautiful and ornamented tastefully

with jocund paintings. It was surrounded too with grass plots and

marvellous gardens, and with wells of coldest water, and there were

cellars of rare wines, a thing perhaps more suited to curious topers

than to quiet and virtuous ladies. And the palace was clean and in

good order, the beds prepared and made, and everything decorated with

spring flowers, and the floors covered with rushes, all much to

their satisfaction." This "estate" has always been identified with

Poggio Gherardo,[659] which now stands above the road to Settignano,

about a mile from that village and some two miles from the Porta alle

Croce of Florence. In the fourteenth century certainly it must have

been equi-distant on all sides from the roads, the nearest being the

Via Aretina Nuova by the Arno and the road to Fiesole or the Via

Faentina, for the way from Florence to Settignano was a mule-track.

[Illustration: POGGIO GHERARDO, NEAR SETTIGNANO, FLORENCE

_(The scene of the first two days of the "Decameron.")_

_By permission of Mrs. Ross_]

Poggio Gherardo is but a stone's throw from Corbignano, the country

house--half farm, half villa--which Margherita brought to Boccaccino

as part of her dowry, and where, as we have seen, it appears likely

that Boccaccio spent his first youth. But Poggio Gherardo is not

the only palace of the _Decameron_. At the close of the second day

Madonna Filomena took the laurel crown from her head and crowned

Neifile queen, and it was she who then proposed that they should

change their residence.

"To-morrow, as you know," said she, "is Friday, and the next day is

Saturday, and both are days which are apt to be tedious to most of us

on account of the kind of food we take on them; and then Friday was

the day on which He who died that we might live suffered His Passion,

and it is therefore worthy of reverence, and ought, as I think, to be

spent rather in prayer than in telling tales. And on Saturday it is

the custom for women to wash the powder out of their hair, and make

themselves generally sweet and neat; also they use to fast out of

reverence for the Virgin Mother of God, and in honour of the coming

rest from any and every work. Therefore, since we cannot, on that day

either, carry out our established order of life, I think it would be

well to refrain from reciting tales also. And as by then we shall

have been here already four days, I think we might seek a new place

if we would avoid visitors; and indeed I have already a spot in my

mind."

And it happened as she said, for they all praised her words and

looked forward longingly to Sunday.

On that very day the sun was already high when, "with slow steps, the

queen with her friends and the three gentlemen, led by the songs of

some twenty nightingales, took her way westward by an unfrequented

lane full of green herbs and flowers just opening after the dawn. So,

gossiping and playing and laughing with her company, she led them

... to a beautiful and splendid palace before half of the third hour

was gone." It is by this "unfrequented lane" that we too may pass

to the Villa Palmieri,[660] which tradition assures us is the very

place. "When they had entered and inspected everything, and seen that

the halls and rooms had been cleaned and decorated and plentifully

supplied with all that was needed for sweet living, they praised

its beauty and good order, and admired the owner's magnificence.

And on descending, even more delighted were they with the pleasant

and spacious courts, the cellars filled with choice wines, and the

beautifully fresh water which was everywhere round about. Then they

went into the garden, which was on one side of the palace, and was

surrounded by a wall, and the beauty and magnificence of it at first

sight made them eager to examine it more closely. It was crossed in

all directions by long, broad, and straight walks, over which the

vines, which that year made a great show of giving many grapes, hung

gracefully in arched festoons, and being then in full blossom, filled

the whole garden with their sweet smell, and this, mingled with the

odours of the other flowers, made so sweet a perfume that they seemed

to be in the spicy gardens of the East. The sides of the walks were

almost closed with red and white roses and with jessamine, so that

they gave sweet odours and shade not only in the morning, but when

the sun was high, and one might walk there all day without fear.

What flowers there were there, how various and how ordered, it would

take too long to tell, but there was not one which in our climate is

to be praised that was not found there abundantly. Perhaps the most

delightful thing therein was a meadow in the midst, of the finest

grass, and all so green that it seemed almost black, all sprinkled

with a thousand various flowers, shut in by oranges and cedars, the

which bore the ripe fruit and the young fruit too and the blossom,

offering a shade most grateful to the eyes and also a delicious

perfume. In the midst of this meadow there was a fountain of the

whitest marble, marvellously carved and within--I do not know whether

artificially or from a natural spring--threw so much water and so

high towards the sky through a statue which stood there on a pedestal

that it would not have needed more to turn a mill. The water fell

back again with a delicious sound into the clear waters of the basin,

and the surplus was carried off through a subterranean way into

little water channels, most beautifully and artfully made about the

meadow, and afterwards it ran into others round about, and so watered

every part of the garden, and collected at length in one place,

whence it had entered the beautiful garden, it turned two mills, much

to the profit, as you may suppose, of the _signore_, pouring down at

last in a stream clear and sweet into the valley."

If this should seem a mere pleasaunce of delight, the vision

of a poet, the garden of a dream, we have only to remember how

realistically and simply Boccaccio has described for us that

plague-stricken city, scarcely more than a mile away, to be assured

of its truthfulness. And then, Villa Palmieri is nearly as beautiful

to-day as it was so long ago; only while the gardens with their

pergolas of vines, their hedges of jasmine and crimson roses, their

carved marble fountains remain, the two mills he speaks of are gone,

having been destroyed in a flood of the Mugnone in 1409, less than

sixty years after he wrote of them.

[Illustration: VILLA PALMIERI, NEAR FLORENCE

_(The scene of the third and following days of the "Decameron.")_

_Alinari_]

Nor are the two palaces the only places mentioned in the _Decameron_,

set as it is in the country about Florence, that we may identify. It

was a summer afternoon, six days had almost passed, Dioneo had just

been crowned king by Madonna Elisa: the tales had been short that

day, and the sun was yet high, so that Madonna, seeing the gentlemen

were set down to play at dice (and "such is the custom of men"),

called her friends to her and said: "'Ever since we have been here I

have wished to show you a place not far off where, I believe, none

of you has ever been; it is called La Valle delle Donne, and till

to-day I have not had a chance to speak of it. It is yet early; if

you choose to come with me, I promise you that you will be pleased

with your walk.' And they answered they were all willing: so without

saying a word to the gentlemen, they called one of their women to

attend them, and after a walk of nearly a mile they came to the

place which they entered by a strait path where there burst forth a

fair crystal stream, and they found it so beautiful and so pleasant,

especially in those hot still hours of afternoon, that nothing could

excel it; and as some of them told me later, the little plain in

the valley was an exact circle, as though it had been described by

a pair of compasses, yet it was indeed rather the work of Nature

than of man. It was about half a mile in circumference, surrounded by

six hills of moderate height, on each of which was a palace built in

the form of a little castle.... And then what gave them the greatest

delight was the rivulet that came through a valley which divided two

hills, and running through the rocks fell suddenly and sweetly in a

waterfall seeming, as it was dashed and sprinkled in drops all about,

like so much quicksilver. Coming into the little plain beneath this

fall, the stream was received in a fine canal, and running swiftly

to the midst of the plain formed itself in a pool not deeper than

a man's breast and so clear that you might see the gravelly bottom

and the pebbles intermixed, which indeed you might count; and there

were fishes there also swimming up and down in great plenty; and the

water that overflowed was received into another little canal which

carried it out of the valley. There the ladies all came together,

and ... finding it commendable ... did, as 'twas very hot and they

deemed themselves secure from observation, resolve to take a bath.

So having bidden their maid wait and keep watch over the access to

the vale, and give them warning if haply any should approach it, they

all seven undressed and got into the water, which to the whiteness of

their flesh was even such a veil as fine glass is to the vermeil of

the rose.[661] They being then in the water, the clearness of which

was thereby in no wise affected, did presently begin to go hither and

thither after the fish, which had much ado where to bestow themselves

so as to escape out of their hands.... 'Twas quite early when they

returned to the palace, so that they found the gallants still at

play."

This delicious spot, called to this day the Valle delle Donne,[662]

may be reached from the "unfrequented lane" by which they all passed

from Poggio Gherardo to Villa Palmieri; as Landor, who lived close

by, tells us:--

"Where the hewn rocks of Fiesole impend

O'er Doccia's dell, and fig and olive blend,

There the twin streams of Affrico unite,

One dimly seen, the other out of sight,

But ever playing in his swollen bed

Of polisht stone and willing to be led

Where clustering vines protect him from the sun--

Here by the lake Boccaccio's fair brigade

Bathed in the stream and tale for tale repaid."

The hundred tales that were thus told in the shade of those two

beautiful gardens may doubtless be traced to an infinite number of

sources--Egyptian, Arabian, Persian, and French;[663] but these

origins matter little. Boccaccio was almost certainly unaware of

them, for the most part at any rate, gathering his material as he

did from the tales he had heard, up and down Italy. Certainly to

the Contes and Fabliaux of Northern France a third part of the

_Decameron_ may be traced, much too to Indian and Persian sources,

and a little to the _Gesta Romanorum_. But one might as well accuse

Chaucer or Shakespeare of a want of originality because they took

what they wanted where they found it, as arraign Boccaccio for a

dependence he was quite unaware of on sources such as these.[664] He

has made the tales his own. The _Decameron_ is a work of art, a world

in itself, and its effect upon us who read it is the effect of life

which includes, for its own good, things moral and immoral. The book

has the variety of the world, and is full of an infinity of people,

who represent for us the fourteenth century in Italy, in all its

fullness, almost.[665] It deals with man as life does, never taking

him very seriously, or without a certain indifference, a certain

irony and laughter. Yet it is full too of a love of courtesy, of

luck, of all sorts of adventures, both gallant and sad. In details,

at any rate, it is true and even realistic, crammed with observation

of those customs and types which made up the life of the time. It is

dramatic, ironic, comic, tragic, philosophic, and even lyrical; full

of indulgence for human error, an absolutely human book beyond any

work of Dante's or Petrarch's or Froissart's. Even Chaucer is not so

complete in his humanism, his love of all sorts and conditions of

men. Perfect in organism, in construction, and in freedom, each of

these tales is in some sort a living part of life and a criticism of

it. Almost any one could be treated by a modern writer in his own

way, and remain fundamentally the same and fundamentally true. What

immorality there is, might seem owing rather to the French sources

of some of the tales than to any invention on the part of Boccaccio,

who, as we have seen, later came to deplore it. But we must remember

that the book was written to give delight to "amorous" women, and

women have always delighted in "immoral literature," and in fact

write most of it to-day.[666] Yet only a Puritan, and he foul-minded,

could call the _Decameron_ vicious, for it is purified with an

immortal laughter and joy.

But it is in its extraordinary variety of contents and character that

the _Decameron_ is chiefly remarkable. We are involved in a multitude

of adventures, are introduced to innumerable people of every class,

and each class shows us its most characteristic qualities. Such is

Boccaccio's art, for the stories were not originally, or even as they

are, ostensibly studies of character at all, but rather anecdotes,

tales of adventure, stories of illicit love, good stories about the

friars and the clergy and women, told for amusement because they are

full of laughter and are witty, or contain a brief and ready reply

with which one has rebuked another or saved himself from danger.

But I have given the subjects of the stories of the _Decameron_

elsewhere.[667] Whatever they may be, and they are often of the

best, of the most universal, they are not, for the real lover of

the _Decameron_, the true reason why he goes to it always with the

certainty of a new joy. The book is full of people, of living people,

that is the secret of its immortality. Fra Cipolla, whom I especially

love, Calandrino, whom I seem always to have known, poor Monna Tezza,

his wife, whom at last he so outrageously gives away, Griselda,

Cisti, the Florentine baker, the joyous Madonna Filippa, or Monna

Belcolore should be as dear to us as any character in any book not by

Shakespeare himself. They live for ever.

And yet it must be confessed that while the book is a mirror of the

world, and doubtless as true to the life of its time as any book

that was ever written, it lacks a certain idealism, a certain moral

sense which is never absent from English work, and which, even from

a purely æsthetic point of view, would have given a sort of balance

or sense of proportion to the book, which, I confess, in my weaker

moments, it has sometimes seemed to me it lacks.

[Illustration: LA VALLE DELLE DONNE

_From a print of the XVIII century in Baldelli's "Vita di Gio:

Boccaccio."_]

It is true that Boccaccio deals with life and with life alone. It is

true that life then as now made little of sexual morality. But with

Boccaccio, as with almost all Latin art, sexual immorality usurps, or

seems to us to usurp, a place out of all proportion to its importance

in life. One is not always thinking of one's neighbour's wife, even

though one should have the misfortune to affect her. Yet it is just

there that Boccaccio's comic genius is seen at its best; it is his

most frequent theme. And just there too we come upon the unreality

of this most real book. His _spose_ are all beautiful young women

who live in the arms of beautiful youths; they are nearly all

adulteresses; Griselda, indeed, might seem to be the only faithful

wife among them. Consider, then, the wife of Pietro di Vincolo,[668]

who sells herself fresh and lovely as she is. Consider the pretty

Prunella the Neapolitan, who abandons herself voluptuously in her

husband's presence to Gianello Galeone.[669] She, like the rest, is

not only without regret, but without scruple. They all have this

extraordinary astuteness, this readiness of the devil. There is

Sismonda, the wife of the rich merchant Arriguccio Berlinghieri.[670]

There is Isabella, who loved Leonetto, and Monna Beatrice, who to

her adultery adds contempt of her husband, when, victorious at last,

trembling with voluptuousness, she kisses and re-kisses "the sweet

mouth" of the happy and delighted Lodovico.[671] Nor is she by any

means alone, they are all her sisters. Lydia[672] is even more wily,

Bartolommea more shameless.[673]

And if the women are thus joyful, lustful, and cunning, the husbands

are fools. Yet Boccaccio knows well how to draw the honest peasant,

the hard-working artisan, the persistent and adventurous merchant,

and a harder thing--the man of good society, such as Federigo degli

Alberighi,[674] when he will.

What he cannot do is to compose a tragedy; he has not a sufficiently

virile moral sense for it, and so just there he fails with the rest

of his Latin brethren. But as a writer of comedy he is one of the

greatest masters; and as a master of comedy he was in some degree at

the mercy both of it and of his audience. This may excuse him perhaps

for his too persistent stories about adulteries. The deceived husband

was always a comic figure; he probably always will be. This being

granted, we shall not judge the women of Boccaccio's time by his

tales, and it might seem that we should discount in the same way his

stories about the clergy. Like every other comic master, he naturally

finds some of his choicest material among them, who always have

been, are now, and ever will be a never-failing source of amusement.

But here we must go warily, for Boccaccio's treatment of the clergy

might almost be said to exhaust what little moral indignation he was

possessed of. "I have spoken the truth about the friars," he tells

us with an immense relief in the conclusion to his work, and if he

had not time, courage, or opportunity to tell us the truth about the

monks, the nuns, and the secular clergy, he has left us, it must

be confessed, some very remarkable evidence. His whole attitude of

attack is different when he exposes the clergy; moreover, while we

have no evidence at all in support of his supposed representation of

the married woman as universally adulterous--and it may be questioned

whether it was his intention to leave us with any such impression--we

have ample evidence from the best possible sources of the frightful

wickedness, immorality, and general rottenness of the clergy, both

religious and secular, monks, friars, nuns, and priests. We have

only to consult the pages of S. Catherine of Siena[675] to find

every separate accusation of Boccaccio's confirmed ten times over,

with a hundred others added to them which he has failed to bring

forward. Nor is it only in the mouth of S. Catherine that Boccaccio

is justified. Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, had long ago informed

Innocent IV that the Curia was the source of all that vileness which

rendered the priesthood a reproach to Christianity. Alexander IV

himself described the corruption of the people as proceeding from the

clergy. What this had become after the Black Death we know not only

from Boccaccio, Petrarch, and S. Catherine, but from every writer

of the time. The Church was rotten to the core, she seemed about to

sink for ever into the pit of her abominations. Consider, then, what

such a beast as the priest of Varlungo must have been in a village;

consider the rector of Fiesole. Is Boccaccio's irony too bitter? Is

it any wonder that Monna Belcolore answers the wolf of Varlungo,

"There is never a one of you priests but would overreach the very

devil."

As for the friars, we should not recognise in any one of them

the brother of S. Francis or S. Dominic. Consider them then: Fra

Cipolla[676] is a lovely rogue of the best; who more cunning than Fra

Alberto da Imola;[677] who more eagerly wily than Fra Rinaldo;[678]

who more goat-like and concupiscent than Fra Rustico? The only son

of S. Francis illumined with light and piety is the confessor of

Ser Ciappelletto,[679] and he has no name, and is, I fear, quickly

forgotten.

Nor have we better news of the nuns[680] or the monks,[681] and

indeed, so far as the clergy are concerned, the _Decameron_ is as

eager in its attack on wickedness as the _Divine Comedy_ itself,

though its justice is tempered with kindness and its scorn with a

sort of pity, a sort of understanding.

And indeed, if we compare the book with that of Dante, a much greater

man, it holds its own because of its humanity. Dante puts the centre

of gravity into the next world. He hates this world almost without

ceasing, and has dared to arraign it before his hatred. His satire

is cruel, unjust, intolerant, and vindictive. Of course we are wont

to excuse all this on account of the genius which it expressed, of

its sincerity and beauty of form. Boccaccio, however, with less than

half Dante's genius, was not subject to his madness. He was content

to satirise what is bad, the bad customs of ecclesiastics and of

fools; but he excuses and pardons all too because of the "misfortunes

of the time," and above all he understands.

But if we may not compare the _Decameron_, the Human Comedy, with

the _Divine Comedy_ of Dante as a work of art, we may claim for it

that it was the greatest though not quite the first prose work in

the Tuscan tongue. But Italian prose maybe said to consist of the

_Decameron_ alone for a hundred years after Boccaccio's death. It is

written in a very beautiful but very complicated style, a sort of

poetical prose--exquisite, it is true, but often without simplicity.

Yet who will dare to attack it? It has justified itself, if need be,

as every great work has done, by its appeal to mankind, its utter

indifference to criticism.

That the _Decameron_, though widely read and enthusiastically

received, was censured very strongly in its own day we gather from

the Proem to the Fourth Day and from the Conclusion to the work;

while later the book did not escape the knife of the Church, though

it was never suppressed.[682] That it was enthusiastically received

in its day we know from contemporary documents,[683] and though

Petrarch failed to understand it, he praised it in certain places,

which were those, it seems, that were the most rhetorical. He

translated the last tale of Griselda into Latin, however, but as he

tells us, he had known this for many years. Petrarch, however, stood

alone; from the day the _Decameron_ was finished its influence both

in Italy and abroad was very great.

The original manuscript has disappeared, and the oldest we possess

seems to be that written in 1368 by Francesco Mannelli, though the

later Hamilton MS. now in Berlin is the better of the two.[684] More

than ten editions were, however, printed in the fifteenth century,

and some seventy-seven in the sixteenth; while there is not a

_Novelliere_ in Italian literature for many centuries who has not

inspired himself with the _Decameron_. Its fortune abroad was almost

equally good. Hans Sachs, Molière, La Fontaine,[685] Lope de Vega,

to mention only European names, were in its debt; and in England

our greatest poets have drawn from it, once the form and often the

substance of their work. One has only to name Chaucer, Sir Philip

Sidney, Shakespeare, Dryden,[686] Keats,[687] and Tennyson[688]

to suggest England's debt to Boccaccio. And although our prose

literature, strangely enough, produced no great original example of

this school of fiction, its influence was shown by the number of

translations and imitations of the "mery bookes of Italy," when,

according to Ascham, "a tale of Bocace was made more account of than

a story out of the Bible."[689]

In his _Praise of Poets_, Thomas Churchyard, referring to Dante,

Petrarch, and Boccaccio, says--

"In Italy of yore did dwell

Three men of special spreete,

Whose gallant stiles did sure excell,

Their verses were so sweet"

Of these three great Italians Dante was by far the least known,

and William Thomas, in his _Dictionarie_ (1550) defines "Dante

Aldighieri" as "the name of a famous poet in the Italian tongue,"

while he does not think it necessary to explain who Petrarch and

Boccaccio are.[690] Sir Philip Sidney, it is true, refers to Dante

several times, with the other two, and even mentions Beatrice in his

_Defence of Poesie_, yet there is no trace of Dante's influence in

his work. The only writer after Chaucer who shows internal evidence

of knowing Dante fairly well is Sir John Harrington, the translator

of _Orlando Furioso_. In his _Apology of Poetry_ he refers to Dante's

relations to Virgil, and in the _Allegorie_ of the fourth book of his

translation he translates the first five lines of the _Inferno_:--

"While yet my life was in the middle race

I found I wandered in a darksome wood,

The right way lost with mine unsteadie pace ..."[691]

Spenser does not mention Dante though he used him; but in the Epistle

to Gabriel Harvey prefixed to the _Shepherd's Calendar_ he speaks

of Boccaccio as well as of Petrarch and others.

[Illustration: TITLE-PAGE OF THE SECOND VOLUME OF THE FIRST ENGLISH

TRANSLATION OF THE "DECAMERON." (ISAAC JAGGARD, 1620)]

That Boccaccio was well known in England, at least by name, in

the fourteenth century, seems certain. Sacchetti (1335-1400) in

the Proemio to his _Novelle_ writes as follows: "... and taking

into consideration the excellent Florentine poet Messer Giovanni

Boccaccio, who wrote the Book of the Hundred Tales in one material

effort of his great intellect, ... that (book) is so generally

published and sought after, that even in France and England they

have translated it into their language ... and I, Franco Sacchetti,

though only a rude and unrefined man, have made up my mind to write

the present work." All trace of any such translation, if indeed it

was ever made, has been lost.[692] In fact, it might seem that the

only man in England at that time really capable of carrying out

such a task, worthily at least, was Geoffrey Chaucer, who, though

for some reason we can never know he refused to mention Boccaccio's

name, adapted and translated the _Teseide_, the _Filostrato_, and it

seems, three tales from the _Decameron_--the first of the Eighth Day,

the fifth of the Tenth Day, and the tenth of the Tenth Day.[693] May

it not have been Chaucer's work to which Sacchetti referred? It was

not until 1566 that any translation even of isolated stories from

the _Decameron_ appeared; in that year and the following Painter's

_Palace of Pleasure_ was published, which contained sixteen stories

translated from the _Decameron_. Then in 1579 came the _Forest of

Fancy_, by H. C., in which two more appeared, while Tarlton's _News

out of Purgatorie_ (1590) contained four more, and the _Cobler of

Caunterburie_, published in the same year, two more. These and

other translations of isolated stories will best be shown by a

table.[694] Such were the stories from the _Decameron_ that had been

translated in English when in 1620 the first practically complete

edition appeared, translated inaccurately, but very splendidly,

apparently from the French version of Antoine Le Macon. Isaac Jaggard

published it, in folio in two parts, with woodcuts, and the title

bore no translator's name. In 1625 this edition was reprinted, the

title bearing the legend "Isaac Jaggard for M. Lownes":[695] other

editions appeared in 1655 and 1657 and 1684, making five editions in

all during the seventeenth century. In 1700 Dryden's translations

appeared of the _Three Tales: Decameron_, IV 1, V 1, and V 8. A new

translation, practically complete, appeared in 1702, and was, I

think, twice reprinted in 1722 and 1741. Certainly eight editions

were published in the nineteenth century[696] and two have appeared

already in the twentieth.[697] The first really complete translation

to appear in English, however, was that of Mr. John Payne, printed

for the Villon Society (1886), but the first complete translation to

pass into general circulation was that of Mr. J. M. Rigg, 1896-1905,

which is rendered with a careful accuracy and much spirit.

"The ordinary recreations which we have in Winter," says Burton in

the _Anatomy of Melancholy_, "and in most solitary times busy our

minds with, are Cards, Tables and Dice, Shovel-board, Chess-play,

the Philosopher's game, Small Trunks, Shuttle-cock, Billiards,

Musick, Masks, Singing, Dancing, Yulegames, Frolicks, Jests, Riddles,

Catches, Purposes, Questions and Commands, Merry Tales of Errant

Knights, Queens, Lovers, Lords, Ladies, Giants, Dwarfs, Thieves,

Cheaters, Witches, Fairies, Goblins, Friars, etc., such as the old

women told [of] Psyche in Apuleius, Boccaccio's Novels and the rest,

_quarum auditione pueri delectantur, senes narratione_, which some

delight to hear, some to tell, all are well pleased with."

Well, after all, we are our fathers' sons, and (God be thanked) there

are still winter evenings in which, while the rest are occupied with

Burton's frolicks and jests, dancing and singing and card-play, we,

in some cosy place, may still turn the old immortal pages.

FOOTNOTES:

[654] The title _Il Decameron_ is badly composed from two Greek

words, δέκα, ten, and ἡμέρα, day--ten days. Cf. TEZA, _La parola

Decameron_ in _Propugnatore_ (1889), II, p. 311 _et seq._, and

RAJNA, _op. cit._, who shows that the proper form is Decameron,

not Decamerone. Later some one added the sub-title "cognominato il

Principe Galeotto"; cf. _Inferno_, V, 137.

[655] Cf. ALBERTAZZI, _I novellatori e le novellatrici del Dec._ in

_Parvenze e Sembianze_ (Bologna, 1892); GEBHART, _Le prologue du Dec.

et la Renaissance_ in _Conteurs Florentins_ (Hachette, 1901), p. 65

_et seq._; MORINI, _Il prologo del Dec._ in _Rivista Pol. e Lett._,

xvi. 3.

[656] The only interruption of the _Decameron_, if so it can be

called, is the introduction of Tindaro and Licisca at the beginning

of the sixth day. The diversion, however, has very little consequence.

[657] A few things we may gather, however. Pampinea was the eldest

(Proem), and by inference Elisa the youngest. Some of the ladies were

of Ghibelline stock (X, 8). For what life ingenuity can find in them,

see HAUVETTE, _Les Ballades du Décaméron_ in _Journal des Savants_

(Paris, September, 1905), p. 489 _et seq._

[658] He also tells two of the best tales in the book, that of Fra

Cipolla and the Relics (VI, 10), and of the Patient Griselda (X, 10).

These are the only stories he tells which are not licentious.

[659] See MANCINI, _Poggio Gherardo, primo ricetto alle novellatrici

del B., frammento di R. Gherardo_, etc. (Firenze, 1858); and

_Florentine Villas_ (Dent, 1901), by JANET ROSS, p. 131. Mrs. Ross

owns Poggio Gherardo to-day. Mr. J. M. Rigg denies that Poggio

Gherardo is the place, but gives no reasons save that it does not

tally with the description, which is both true and untrue. It tallies

as well as it could do after more than five hundred years; and

perfectly as regards situation and distance from the city and the old

roads. Cf. my _Country Walks about Florence_ (Methuen, 1908), cap. i.

[660] See my _Country Walks about Florence_ (Methuen, 1908), pp.

23 and 26 _et seq._ Mr. J. M. Rigg, in the introduction to his

translation of the _Decameron_ (Routledge, 1905), here again denies

the identity of Villa Palmieri with the second palace of the

_Decameron_. He says it does not stand "on a low hill" amid a plain,

but on "the lower Fiesolan slope." But Boccaccio even in Mr. Rigg's

excellent translation does not say that, but "they arrived at a

palace ... which stood _somewhat from the plain_, being situate upon

a low eminence." This exactly describes Villa Palmieri, as even a

casual glance at a big map will assure us.

[661] No doubt a vivid reminiscence of Madonna Fiammetta at Baia.

[662] See my _Country Walks about Florence_ (Methuen, 1908), p. 23

_et seq._ The place has been drained to-day, and is now a garden of

vines and olives in the _podere_ of Villa Ciliegio belonging to A. W.

Benn, Esq., whose kindness and courtesy in permitting me to see the

place I wish here to acknowledge.

[663] Cf. MANNI, _Istoria del Decamerone_ (Firenze, 1742); BARTOLI,

_I precursi del B._ (Firenze, 1876); LANDAU, _Die Quellen des Dekam_.

(Stuttgart, 1884); CAPPELLETTI, _Osserv. e notiz. sulle fonti del

Decam._ (Livorno, 1891).

[664] No doubt most of these stories were current up and down Italy.

[665] As with Shakespeare so with Boccaccio, the religious

temperament is not represented.

[666] PINELLI, _La moralità nel Decam._ in _Propugnatore_ (1882), xv

and xvi; also DEJOB, _A propos de la partie honnête du Décam._ in

_Revue Universitaire_ (July 15, 1900).

[667] See Appendix VIII, p. 367 _et seq._

[668] _Decameron_, V, 10.

[669] _Ibid._, VII, 2.

[670] _Ibid._, VII, 8.

[671] _Ibid._, VII, 7.

[672] _Ibid._, VII, 9.

[673] _Ibid._, II, 10.

[674] _Ibid._, V, 9.

[675] But we must be careful of our edition if we read her only

in English. Some time since Mr. Algar Thorold published a fine

translation of _The Dialogue of S. Catherine of Siena_ (Kegan Paul),

and here all the evidence needed can be found. But of late a "new

edition" (1907) has appeared with the respectable "imprimatur" of the

Catholic authorities, but all the evidence against the clergy has

been omitted, probably to obtain the "imprimatur." See _infra_ p.

310, n. 1. S. Catherine's impeachment of the clergy will be found in

the section of her book called _Il Trattato delle Lagrime_. A summary

of the evidence will be found in Mr. E. G. GARDNER'S excellent _S.

Catherine of Siena_ (Dent, 1907), p. 361 _et seq._ Mr. Gardner

adds that "the student ... is compelled to face the fact that the

testimony of Boccaccio's _Decameron_ is confirmed by the burning

words of a great saint."

[676] _Decameron_, VI, 10.

[677] _Ibid._, VI, 2.

[678] _Ibid._, VII, 3

[679] _Ibid._, I, 1.

[680] _Ibid._, III, 1; IX, 2.

[681] _Ibid._, III, 4.

[682] Cf. BIAGI, _La Rassettatura del Decamerone_ in _Aneddoti

Letterari_ (Milan, 1887), p. 262 _et seq._, and FOSCOLO, _Disc. sul

testo del D._ in _Opere_ (Firenze, 1850), III. The facts seem quite

clear about the action of the Church with regard to the _Decameron_.

It was condemned by the Council of Trent. The earliest edition of

the _Index Librorum Prohibitorum_ in which I have found it, is that

published in Rome in 1559. Since then it has figured in every Roman

edition of the Index (as far as I have tested them), the entry

against it being "Donec expurg. Ind. Trent," which means, "Until

expurgated, indexed by the Council of Trent." It appears to have

remained thus provisionally condemned and prohibited until the last

years of the nineteenth century. I find it still in the Index of

1881; but it no longer figures in that of 1900. The amusing point is

that the Church does not seem to have minded the licentiousness of

the tales as such; but to have objected to them being told of Monks,

Friars, Nuns, and the Clergy, in regard to whom, as we have seen,

they were merely the truth. Editions with a clerical "imprimatur"

have been always published where laymen have been substituted

for these. For instance, the edition printed in Florence, 1587,

"con permissione de' superiori," etc., substitutes the avarice of

magistrates for the hypocrisy of the clergy in _Dec._, I, 6.

[683] Cf. BIAGI, _Il Decameron giudicato da un contemporaneo_ in _op.

cit._, p. 377 _et seq._

[684] Cf. HAUVETTE, _Della parentela esistente fra il MS. berlinese

del Dec. e il codice Mannelli_ in _Giorn. St. d. Lett. It._ (1895),

XXXI, p. 162 _et seq._

[685] In _Sylvia_, Alfred de Musset says very happily, "La Fontaine a

ri dans Boccace où Shakespeare fondait en pleurs."

[686] In his _Cimon_, _Sigismonda_, and _Theodore_ he used Nov. v. 1,

iv. 1, and v. 8 respectively.

[687] In his _Isabella_ (iv. 5).

[688] In his _Falcon_ (v. 9) and _Golden Supper_ (x. 4).

[689] Nevertheless I think it probable that the reason the

_Decameron_ had, as a work of art, so little influence on our prose

literature may have been the publication of King James's Bible in

1611, nine years before the complete translation of the _Decameron_

(1620).

[690] On the other hand, though Chaucer was considerably in

Boccaccio's debt, he never mentions his name, but, as we know, he

speaks of Dante and Petrarch.

[691] Cf. KUHNS, _Dante and the English Poets_ (New York, 1904), and

PAGET TOYNBEE, _Dante in English Literature_ (Methuen, 1909).

[692] Cf. H. C. COOTE in _Athenæum_, 7th June, 1884, No. 2954.

[693] If Dante moved Chaucer most, it is from Boccaccio he borrows

most. _Troilus and Criseyde_ is to a great extent a translation

of the _Filostrato_. Cf. ROSSETTI, W. M., _Chaucer's "Troylus and

Criseyde" compared with Boccaccio's "Filostrato"_ (Chaucer Society,

1875 and 1883). The _Knightes Tale_ is a free rendering of the

_Teseide_. The design of the _Canterbury Tales_ was in some sort

modelled on the design of the _Decameron_. As we have seen, _The

Reeves Tale_, _The Frankeleynes Tale_, _The Schipmannes Tale_ are

all found in the _Decameron_, though it is doubtful perhaps whether

Chaucer got them thence. _The Monks Tale_ is from _De Casibus

Virorum_.

Did Chaucer meet Petrarch and Boccaccio in Italy? He seems to wish to

suggest that he had met the former at Padua, but, as I have said, of

the latter he says not a word, but gives "Lollius" as his authority

when he uses Boccaccio's work. Cf. Dr. KOCH'S paper in _Chaucer

Society Essays_, Pt. IV. JUSSERAND in _Nineteenth Century_, June,

1896, and in reply BELLEZZA in _Eng. Stud._, 23 (1897), p. 335.

[694] Cf. KOEPPEL, _Studien zur Geschichte der Italienischen

Novelle in der Englischen Litteratur des sechszehnten Jahrhunderts_

in _Quellen und Forschungen zur Sprach und Culturgeschichte der

germanischen Volkes_ (Strassburg, 1892), Vol. LXX.

DECAMERON,

DAY I. Nov. 3 Painter's _Palace of Pleasure_, I. 30 (1566).

" I. " 5 " " " II. 16 (1567).

" I. " 8 " " " I. 31.

" I. " 10 " " " I. 32.

" II. " 2 " " " I. 33.

" II. " 3 " " " I. 34.

" II. " 4 " " " I. 35.

" II. " 5 " " " I. 36.

" II. " 6 Greene's _Perimedes the Blacksmith_ (1588).

" II. " 8 Painter's _Palace of Pleasure_, I. 37.

" II. " 9 _Westward for Smelts_, by Kind Kit of Kingston,

II. (1620).

" III. " 5 H. C.'s _Forest of Fancy_, I. (1579).

" III. " 9 Painter's _Palace of Pleasure_, I. 38.

" IV. " 1 " " " I. 39 and others.

" IV. " 2 Tarlton's _News out of Purgatorie_, 2 (1590).

" IV. " 4 Turbeville's _Tragical Tales_, 6 (ca. 1576).

" IV. " 5 " " " 7.

" IV. " 7 " " " 9.

" IV. " 8 " " " 10.

" IV. " 9 " " " 4.

" V. " 1 _A Pleasant and Delightful History of

Galesus, Cymon and Iphigenia_, etc. by

T. C. gent. _Ca._ 1584.

" V. " 2 Greene's _Perimedes the Blacksmith_.

" V. " 7 H. C.'s _Forest of Fancy_, II.

" V. " 8 _A notable History of Nastagio and Traversari_,

etc., trs. in English verse by C. T.

(1569), and Turbeville, I., and _Forest of

Fancy_.

" VI. " 4 Tarlton's _News_, No. 4.

" VI. " 10 " No. 5.

" VII. " 1 _The Cobler of Caunterburie_, No. 2.

" VII. " 4 _Westward for Smelts_, No. 3.

" VII. " 5 Cf. Thomas Twyne's _Schoolmaster_ (1576).

" VII. " 6 Tarton's _News_, No. 7.

" VII. " 7 _Hundred Mery Talys_, No. 3 (1526).

" VII. " 8 _The Cobler of Caunterburie._

" VIII. " 4 _Nachgeahunt_ of Whetstone (1583).

" VIII. " 7 Painter's _Palace of Pleasure_, II. 31.

" IX. " 2 Thomas Twyne's _Schoolmaster_.

William Warner's _Albion's England_ (1586-1592).

" IX. " 6 Cf. _A Right Pleasant Historie of the Mylner of

Abingdon_ (?).

" X. " 3 Painter's _Palace of Pleasure_, II. 18.

" X. " 4 " " " II. 19.

" X. " 5 " " " II. 17.

" X. " 8 _The History of Tryton and Gesyppustrs_,

out of the Latin by William Wallis (?),

and _The Boke of the Governours_ by Sir

Thomas Elyot, lib. II. cap. xii. (1531).

" X. " 9 Painter's _Palace of Pleasure_,{*} II. 20.

" X. " 10 _The Pleasant and Sweet History of Patient

Grissel_ (?) and another (1619).

{*} Painter's _Palace of Pleasure_ is almost certainly the source of

the Tales of Boccaccio which Shakespeare used.

[695] This first translation has been reprinted by Mr. Charles

Whibley in _The Tudor Translations_ (4 vols., David Nutt, 1909), with

an introduction by Edward Hutton. In it the story of Fra Rustico

(III, 10) has been omitted by the anonymous translator, and a

harmless Scandinavian tale substituted for it.

[696] In 1804, 1820, 1822, 1846 (1875), 1884, 1886, 1896.

[697] A reprint of the 1896 edition of the _Decameron_ translated by

J. M. Rigg, with J. A. Symonds's essay as Introduction (Routledge,

1905), and the edition spoken of _supra_, n. 2.

APPENDICES

APPENDIX I

THE DATES OF BOCCACCIO'S ARRIVAL IN NAPLES AND OF HIS MEETING WITH

FIAMMETTA

That the date of the arrival of Boccaccio in Naples commonly

accepted, namely the end of 1330, is inadmissible, has, I think, been

proved by DELLA TORRE (_op. cit._, caps. ii. and iii.), who gives us

many good reasons to think that the true date was December 13, 1323.

With his conclusions I agree, nor do I see how they are easily to be

put aside.

To begin with, the departure of Idalagos in the _Filocolo_[698] forms

part of the same episode as the birth of the _fratellastro_, so that

it would seem the two events cannot have been separated by any great

length of time; certainly not by nine years, which would be the

case if Boccaccio really left Florence in 1330, for Francesco the

_fratellastro_ was born in 1321.[699]

Again, Boccaccio tells us that at the time of his departure Idalagos

was "semplice e lascivo,"[700] which would scarcely be epithets to

apply to a youth of seventeen years. And then, even though we pass

that, what are we to think of a youth of seventeen who is so mortally

afraid of his stepmother and his little brother, aged say nine, that

to save his life, as he thinks, he runs away? Certainly this youth is

very unlike Boccaccio. Whatever the date may be, then, the year 1330

would seem to be out of the question.

At that time it was the custom of men to divide human life into seven

ages, as Shakespeare records later. These seven ages we find were

Infanzia, Puerizia, Gioventù or Adolescenza, Virilità, Vecchiaia,

and Decrepitezza. The first three of these ages corresponded to the

following years, thus:--[701]

Infanzia 1-7

Puerizia 7-14

Adolescenza 14-21

Now Boccaccio tells us quite clearly, "io ... _fanciullo_ cercai i

regni Etrurii, e di quelli _in più ferma età_ venuto, qui [that is to

Naples] venni."[702] That is to say: "I came to Tuscany before I was

seven years old, and during my boyhood (Puerizia) between the ages of

seven and fourteen, between the years 1320-1327, I came to Naples."

Does that seem a little far-fetched, a little as though we were

trying to prove too much, with such vague words? Let us have

patience. When after six years with the merchant in Naples, Boccaccio

is abandoned by Abrotonia and Pampinea, they appear to him in a dream

and tell him it was not for them he really sang, but for another.

Then there comes to him a dream in which he sees this other, and

recognises her as the lady who had welcomed him to Naples--"questa

era colei, che _nella mia puerizia vegnendo a questi luoghi_,

apparitami e baciatomi, lieta m' avea la venuta profferta."[703]

Nor does this passage stand alone. When on Holy Saturday he sees

Fiammetta face to face, he recognises her as the lady who had lately

appeared to him it is true, but first--"Questa è colei che _nella mia

puerizia_ e non ha gran tempo ancora, m' apparve ne' sonni miei...."

Now _puerizia_, boyhood, fell, as we have seen, between the ages of

seven and fourteen--between the years 1320 and 1327 in Boccaccio's

case.

To clinch the matter, as we might think, in the _De Genealogiis_, xv.

10, Boccaccio tells us that he entered the merchant's office before

he was adolescent--"adolescentium nondum intrantem," that is to say

before he was fifteen and before the year 1328. So that it might seem

to be proved not only that he came to Naples before 1330, but that

he came to Naples between the years 1320 and 1327. Now old Boccaccio

himself came to Naples in the autumn of 1327--did Boccaccio then come

with him? This at first sight seems likely; let us enquire into it.

In the _De Genealogiis_, xv. 10, Boccaccio tells us that he was six

years with the merchant, wasting his time, "Sex annis nil aliud feci

quam non recuperabile tempus in vacuum terere." That is to say, if

he came to Naples with his father in 1327, he was still with the

merchant in 1333, when he was twenty years old. But Benvenuto da

Imola[704] seems to tell us that Boccaccio was sixteen when he began

to study Canon Law; in other words, if we read that author aright,

Boccaccio began to study Canon Law in 1329. This will not square with

the theory that he came to Naples in 1327, but it admirably fits our

claim that he came to Naples in 1323, and after six years with a

merchant began to study Canon Law in 1329, when he was sixteen years

old.

But we know that whatever else may be insecure in this question, it

is at least certain that the departure of Boccaccio for Naples took

place before the meeting with Fiammetta, for it was in Naples that he

first saw her. At first sight this might seem to help us little, for

the date of the meeting with Fiammetta is more disputed than anything

else in Boccaccio's chronology, the date usually given being either

27th March, 1334, or 11th April, 1338.[705] We do not accept either

of these dates. However, let us examine what evidence we have. In

the introduction to the _Filocolo_ Boccaccio tells us that he first

saw and fell in love with Fiammetta on that Holy Saturday which fell

in the sixteenth _grado_ after the sun was entered into Aries. I give

the whole passage, as the argument depends upon it:--

"Avvene che un giorno, la cui prima ora Saturno avea signoreggiata,

essendo già Febo co' suoi cavalli al sedecimo grado del celestiale

Montone pervenuto, e nel quale il glorioso partimento del figliuolo

di Giove dagli spogliati regni di Plutone si celebrava, io, della

presente opera componitore, mi trovai in un grazioso e bel tempio in

Partenope, nominato da colui che per deificarsi sostenne che fosse

fatto di lui sacrificio sopra la grata, e quivi con canto pieno

di dolce melodia ascoltava l' uficio che in tale giorno si canta,

celebrato da' sacerdoti successori di colui che prima la corda cinse

umilemente esaltando la povertade quella seguendo. Ove io dimorando,

e già essendo secondo che il mio intelletto estimava la quarta ora

del giorno sopra l' orientale orizzonte passata, apparve agli occhi

miei le mirabile bellezza della prescritta giovane...."[706]

The whole question is then: on what day did the sun enter Aries,

in other words, on what day did Spring begin. We seem to be on the

point of solving the difficulty by answering that question--an easy

task--for sixteen days afterwards in the year we seek it was Holy

Saturday, and Boccaccio then saw Fiammetta for the first time. The

solution is, however, on consideration, not quite so simple. We have

to ask not only when did Spring begin, but on what day did Boccaccio

think it began; when did he think the sun entered Aries?

As we know, Chaucer, Boccaccio's contemporary, thought Spring began

on 12th March,[707] but Chaucer's "Treatise on the Astrolabe" was

written in 1391, more than fifty years after the _Filocolo_.

All sorts of opinions have been expressed by scholars as to the date

that was in Boccaccio's mind as that which marked the entry of the

sun into Aries. Baldelli[708] thinks it was March 21st; Witte[709]

and Koerting[710] say the 25th; Casetti[711] says the 14th; and

Landau[712] says the 11th. The whole question is more or less

complicated by the fact that the Julian Calendar was in use.

We shall, then, find ourselves in agreement with many good scholars

if we say that Boccaccio thought Spring began on the 25th March

(see _infra_), and calculating thus, we shall find that he first

met Fiammetta on April 11th, 1338, when he was twenty-five years

old.[713] This, however, is only conjecture.

If we ask ourselves, then, on what day Spring really did begin, we

shall find ourselves in agreement with Casetti, who names the 14th

March. Why should Boccaccio have been ignorant of this? He cannot

have been ignorant of it. Are all his studies with Calmeta and Andalò

di Negro to go for nothing? He must have known when Spring began

better than most men. If then we take the 14th March as the date

and add the sixteen _gradi_ to it, we arrive at the 30th. Now Holy

Saturday fell on the 30th March in 1331 and in 1336. Which of these

two dates is the true one? The earlier we think.

If for the moment we admit that he came to Naples in 1323, he must

have met Fiammetta in 1331, not in 1336, for he himself gives us

to understand that seven years and four months passed between his

advent and that Holy Saturday.[714] It seems then most likely that

he left home in 1323 and saw Fiammetta for the first time in 1331.

If we argue back from the year 1336 (and, as has been shown, he met

Fiammetta certainly either in 1331 or in 1336), we find that he left

home in 1329, when he was sixteen. That would be open to as many

objections as the year 1330 (see _supra_). Without actual certainty

we may claim that the years 1323 and 1331 that have a secure

relationship exactly fit in with all the secondary evidence that has

been brought to bear upon the argument.

Our conclusions are then: that Boccaccio entered Naples in December,

1323; that he was with a merchant for six years, till 1329, in which

year he began to study Canon Law. For sixteen months he had followed

this study (so that he left the merchant in the winter of 1329), when

on Holy Saturday, March 30, 1331, at the age of eighteen, he first

saw and fell in love with Fiammetta.[715]

FOOTNOTES:

[698] _Filacolo_ (_ed. cit._), ii. pp. 242-3. I give the whole

passage for the sake of clearness: "Ma non lungo tempo quivi ricevuti

noi dimorò, che abbandonata la semplice giovane [i.e. Giannai or

Jeanne; he is speaking of his father] e l' armento tornò ne' suoi

campi, e quivi appresso noi si tirò, e non guari lontano al suo natal

sito la promessa fede a Giannai ad un altra, Garamita chiamata,

ripromise e servò, di cui nuova prole dopo piccolo spazio riceveo.

Io semplice e lascivo, come già dissi, le pedate dello ingannator

padre seguendo, volendo un giorno nella paternal casa entrare, due

orsi ferocissimi e terribili mi vidi avanti con gli occhi ardenti

desiderosi della mia morte, de' quali dubitando io volsi i passi

miei e da quell' ora innanzi sempre d' entrare in quella dubitai.

Ma acciocchè io più vero dica, tanta fu la paura, che abbandonati

i paternali campi, in questi boschi venni l' apparato uficio a

operare...."

[699] The document quoted by DELLA TORRE, _op. cit._, p. 24, seems to

prove that Francesco was born in 1321.

[700] Cf. DANTE, _Paradiso_, v. 82-4.

[701] Cf. S. ISIDORO DI SIVIGLIA, _Origines_ in _Opera Omnia_ (Paris,

1580), cap. 75. Also PAPIA, _Elementarium_ (Milan, 1476), under

_Aetas_; and see DELLA TORRE, _op. cit._, p. 73.

[702] _Ameto_ (_ed. cit._), p. 225.

[703] _Ibid._, p. 227.

[704] See G. BETUSSI, _La Genealogia degli Dei di Boccaccio_ (Venice,

1547). Cf. DELLA TORRE, _op. cit._, p. 123. The evidence is not good

enough to base an argument on unsupported.

[705] Cf. D' ANCONA E BOCCI, _Manuale della Lett. Ital._ (Firenze,

1904), Vol. I, p. 579.

[706] _Filocolo_ (_ed. cit._), I, pp. 4-5.

[707] Cf. _The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer_ (Clarendon Press,

1901), p. 401.

[708] _Op. cit._

[709] In _Dekameron von G. B. aus dem Italienischen übersetz_

(Leipzig, 1859), Vol. I, p. 22, note 2.

[710] _Op. cit._, p. 104.

[711] In _Nuova Antologia_ (1875), XXVIII, p. 562.

[712] _Op. cit._

[713] Cf. CRESCINI in _Kristischer Jahresbericht_, etc. (1898);

HAUVETTE: _Une Confession de Boccacce--Il Corbaccio_ in _Bulletin

Italien_ (1901), i, p. 7.

[714] See _Ameto_ (_ed. cit._), p. 227. I quote the passage: "Ed

ancorachè Febo avesse tutti i dodici segnali mostrati del cielo sei

volte, poichè quello era stato, pure riformò la non falsa fantasia

nella offuscata memoria la vedute effigie...." Then below: "Ma sedici

volte tonda, e altrettante bicorna ci si mostrò Febea...." That is

six years and sixteen months, or in other words, seven years and four

months.

[715] Witte's and Koerting's theory, based on 25 March as the

beginning of spring, certainly receives some support from Boccaccio's

comment on Dante, _Inferno_, i. 38-40:--

"E' l sol montava su con quelle stelle

Ch' eran con lui quando l' amor divino

Mosse da prima quelle cose belle...."

Boccaccio, after speaking of "Ariete, nel principio del quale

affermano alcuni Nostro Signore aver creato e posto il corpo del

sole," adds: "e perciò volendo l' autore dimostrare per questa

descrizione il principio della Primavera, dice che il Sole saliva su

dallo emisferio inferiore al superiore, con quelle stelle le quali

erano con lui quando il divino amore lui e l' altre cose belle creò;

... volendo per questo darne ad intendere, quando da prima pose la

mano alla presente opera essere circa al principio della Primavera; e

così fu siccome appresso apparirà: egli nella presente fantasia entrò

a dì 25 di Marzo."--_Comento_ (_ed. cit._), cap. i.

APPENDIX II

DOCUMENT OF THE SALE OF "CORBIGNANO" (CALLED NOW "CASA DI BOCCACCIO")

BY BOCCACCINO IN 1336

In Dei Nomine Amen. Anno ejusdem incarnationis millesimo trecentesimo

trigesimo sexto indictione quarta et die decimo octavo mensis Madij.

Pateat etc. etc. etc.

Item postea eodem die Bocchaccinus olim Chellini de Certaldo qui

olim morabatur in populo Sancti Petri maioris et hodie moratur in

populo Sancte Felicitatis de Florentia iure proprio et in perpetuum

dedit vendidit tradidit et concessit Niccholo olim Vegne populi

Sancti Simonis de Florentia ementi recipienti et stipulanti pro se

ipso suisque heredibus habentibusque causam ab eodem pro ducentis

quadraginta partibus pro indiviso ex trecentis quinquaginta partibus

et Niccholao nepoti dicti Niccholi et filio olim Pauli olim Vegne

dicti populi Sancti Simonis ementi stipulanti et recipienti pro se

ipso suisque heredibus habentibusque causam ad eodem pro residuis

centumdecem partibus pro indiviso ex trecentis quinquaginta partibus.

Quoddam Podere cum domibus, curte, puteo, portibus, terra laborativa

et vineata et olivis et arboribus, fossatis in medio, positis in

parte in populo Sancti Martini la Melsola et in parte in populo

Sancte Marie de Septignano Comitatus Florentie loco dicto Corbignano

que esse dicuntur ad cordam et rectam mensuram Comunis Florentiæ

stariorum trigintaocto et panorum duo vel circa et duo tamen capanne,

quatuor orgiorum vel circa et quamdam bigonciam _da ricever vino_

et quemdam suem ibidem existentem; quibus omnibus tales dixit esse

confines, a primo olim heredes Becit Bonaccursii, et hodie Cose olim

Banchi Cose, a secundo olim dictorum heredum Becti et hodie dicti

Cose, via dicti poderis et rerum venditarum in medio, a tertio

olim Chiarozzi de Lamone et hodie heredum Vantis Rimbaldesis, via

dictorum poderis et rerum venditarum in medio in partem, et olim

Omodeii Spadari et hodie Andree Aghinecti in partem, a quarto olim

dicti Homodey et hodie dicti Andree in partem et Pieri Boni in

partem; infra predictos confines vel alios si qui forent pluries vel

veriores, accessibus, aggressibus, ingressibus et egressibus suis

et cuiuslibet vel alterius earum usque in viam publican et cum omni

iure, actione, possessione, tenuta usu, usufructu seu requisitione

eidem Boccaccino pro dictis rebus venditis vel earum aliqua aut

ipsis rebus venditis vel earum alicui modo aliquo pertinenti vel

spectanti; et cum omnibus et singulis que super se, infra, seu

inter se habent dicte res vendite vel earum aliqua ad habendum,

tenendum, possidendum, fruendum, usufructandum, et quidquid eisdem

Nicchole Vegne pro partibus supradictis et Niccholao Pauli pro

partibus supradictis pro inde deiceps placuerit perpetuo faciendum.

Que quidem podere et res vendite et earum quamlibet predictus

Boccaccinus pro eisdem Niccholo Vegne pro partibus supradictis

et Niccholao Pauli pro partibus supradictis constituit possidere

donec exinde dicti Niccholas Vegne pro partibus supradictis et

Niccholaus Pauli pro partibus supradictis vel aliquis eorum pro se

et alio eorumdem vel aliis pro eis corporalem possessionem sumere

adeptas vel adeptis. Que et quas intrandi et exinde corporalem

possessionem adipisci et retinendi deinceps dictus Boccaccinus

venditor eisdem emptoribus et eorum cuilibet pro partibus supradictis

quandocumque, quocumque, quotiescumque et qualitercumque voluerint,

vel eorum aliquis licentiam concessit omnimodam atque dedit. Insuper

dictus Boccaccinus venditor fecit et constituit suum procuratorem

Bencivennem Mactheii dicti populi Sancti Simonis ibidem presentem et

recipientem specialiter ad ponendum et immittendum pro eo et eius

nomine dictos Niccholam Vegne pro partibus supradictis et Niccholaum

Pauli pro partibus supradictis, vel alium recipientem pro eis et

eorum quolibet in tenutam et corporalem possessionem dictorum poderis

et rerum venditarum, et cuiuslibet earum et earum cuiuslibet, earum

tenutam et corporalem possessionem tradendi cum omni iure eidem

Bocchaccino in dictis rebus venditis vel earum aliqua pertinentia.

Et generaliter ad omnia facienda que ipse constituens posset facere

si adesset. Insuper etiam dictus Bocchaccinus ex caussa vendictionis

predicte dedit, cessit, transtulit et exinde eisdem Niccholò Vegne

et Niccholao Pauli et cuilibet eorum pro partibus supradictis

omnia et singula iura et actiones reales et personales, utiles et

directas mixtas tacitas et expressas preter civiles et conventionales

omnesque alias eidem Bocchaccino competentes et spectantes, et

que et quas ipse Bocchaccinus habet eidemque competunt contra et

adversus quemlibet et quoslibet et quemcumque et quoscum auctores

suos eidemque Bocchaccino pro dictis seu occasione dictorum poderis

et rerum quomodolibet obligavit faciens et costituens predictus

Bocchaccinus eosdem Niccholam Vegne et Niccholaum Pauli ibidem

presentes, procuratores in rem suam eosdemque ponens in locum suum

in iuribus et nominibus supradictis quo ad possint dicti Niccholas

Vegne et Niccholaus et quilibet eorum pro partibus supradictis,

pro dictis, et contra predictis agere etc. Et promisit et convenit

dictus Bocchaccinus venditor eidem Nicchole Vegne et Niccholao Pauli

et cuilibet eorum stipulanti et recipienti ut supra pro partibus

supradictis, pacifice et quiete permittere et permicti facere dictos

emptores et eorum quemlibet pro partibus supradictis eorumque et

cuiuslibet eorum heredibus, habentibusque caussam ab eisdem ipsum

podere et res vendite et earum quamlibet earumque et cuiuslibet

earum obventionum habere etc. Et nullam litem questionem seu brigam

eisdem emptoribus vel eorum alicui eorumque vel alicuius eorum

heredum habentibusque caussam ab eisdem in dictis rebus venditis vel

earum aliqua vel earum seu alicuius earum parte seu partiolam vel in

earum seu alicuius earum obventionis inferre facere vel movere seu

inferenti, facienti, vel moventi consentire. Set omnes et singulas

lites et questiones eisdem emptoribus vel eorum alicui eorumque vel

alicuius eorum heredum vel habentibusque caussam ab eisdem in dictis

rebus venditis vel earum aliqua vel in earum seu alicuius earum

parte seu particola, vel in earum seu alicuius earum obventionis

per libelli oblationem simplicem requisitionem, tenutam, notitiam

vel usuras, vel tenute dationem, pronumptiationem, acquisitionem,

vel immissionem vel partim de disgombrando, vel alio quocumque modo

motas vel movendas in se suscipere a die qua eidem Bocchaccino vel

eius heredibus delatum fuerit personaliter vel ad domum ad tres

dies tunc proxime secutoros. Ita quod a dictis emptoribus vel eorum

quolibet eorumque et cuiuslibet eorum heredum habentibusque causam

ab eisdem in totum tollantur et ad causam ire etc. Et ipsas res

venditas et earum quamlibet earumque et cuiuscumque earum obventionum

eisdem emptoribus stipulantibus et recipientibus ut supra defendere,

auctorizare, et disbrigare, et ab omni homine loco et universitate,

et ab omni obventione, conventione preterea atque pignoris, et ab

omni debito, negotio et contumacia, et ab omni tenuta, notitia,

et usuris et tenute datione, pronumptiatione, acquisitione vel

immissione et de iure et de facto in omnibus causis videlicet ab

omni libra, factione, prestantia, impositione, gabella quadam, banno

inquisitione heretice pravitatis eteius officio facto vel fiendo

et ab omne heresis ammonitione et ab officialibus Universitatis

Mercatorum et Mercantie Comunis Florentie, et ab omnibus et singulis

Sindacis et officialibus deputatis vel deputandis per Commune

Florentinum super negociis alicuius vel aliquorum mercatoris vel

mercatorum nunc vel in futurum pronumptiatione cessantium et

fugitivorum cum pecunia et rebus debitoris et eorum creditorum, et a

Iudice et Officio Bonorum Rebellium, exbannitorum et condepmnatorum,

et cessantium ac libris et factionibus Communis Florentie et ab omni

et quolibet officio dicti Communis Florentie presentibus et futuris

nec non a Comuni Florentino supradicto et eisdem emptoribus cuilibet

videlicet eorum ut supra stipulanti et recipienti ipsarum rerum

venditadum et cuiuslibet earum vacuam possessionem tradere et ipsos

ut supra stipulantes et recipientes in earum et cuiuslibet earum

possessionum facere et defendere penitus et in earum et cuiuslibet

earum possessu vero domino indepmne servare tueri et defensare.

Remissis eisdem emptoribus ut supra stipulantibus et recipientibus ex

pacto etiam appellandi necessitate si super evictione pronumptiatione

contigerit contra eos vel eorum aliquem vel eorum vel alicuius

eorum heredum vel habentibusque caussam ab eisdem. Et acto inter

eos expresse quod non possit dici, allegari vel exponi eisdem

emptoribus vel eorum alicui vel eorum vel alicuius eorum heredum

habentibusque caussam ab eisdem vel eorum aliquo pro eisdem vel

eorum alicui factum sit vel fuerit vel facta esset seu foret vel

fieret iniuria vel ininstitia. Si ipse res vendite vel earum aliqua

vel earum seu alicuius earum obventionis evinceretur ab eis vel eorum

aliquo vel quod ipsi vel eorum aliquis in curia seu ad curiam non

comparuerint vel non comparuerit, vel quod libellium seu caussam in

sè non susceperint vel non suceperit, vel quod litem non fuerint vel

non fuerit contestatam, vel quod ipsarum rerum vel alicuius earum

defensor non opposuerit vel non opposuerint, vel quod eorum vel

alicuius eorum culpa vel negligentia fuerit evictus. Et quod ipsi

vel eorum aliquis non teneantur seu teneatur in curia seo ad curiam

comparere, esse vel stare, vel libellum seu causam in se suscipere

vel litem contestari vel defensari dictarum rerum vel alicuius earum

aliqualiter se offereret. Et si, quod absit, evenerit dictas res

venditas in totum vel in partem dictis emptoribus vel eorum alicui

eorumque vel alicuius eorum heredum vel habentibusque caussam ab

eisdem vel eorum aliquo quoquo modo evinci vel super evictione etiam

contra eos vel eorum aliquem quoquo modo ferri sententiam proinde

et contra dictum Bocchaccinum, eisdem Nicchole Vegne et Niccholao

Pauli et cuilibet eorum stipulanti et recipienti ut supra et pro

partibus supradictis infrascriptum pretium cum omnibus et singulis

dapmnis expensis et interesse propterea secutis vel factis dare,

solvere, reddere et restituere a die videlicet evictionis quoquo

modo secute vel sententie super evictione quoquo modo late ad tres

dies tunc proxime secuturos Florentie, Prati, Pistorii, Luce, Senis,

Pisis, Aretii, Perusii et alibi ubicumque locorum et terrarum

dictus Bocchaccinus inventus vel conventus fuerit. Et promisit et

convenit dictus Bocchaccinus venditor eisdem emptoribus vel eorum

cuilibet stipulantibus et recipientibus ut supra, et pro partibus

supradittis predictam vendictionem, traditionem, concessionem,

promissionem et omnia et singula supracitata et eorum quodlibet

firma habere et tenere et haberi et teneri facere et se in omnibus

contra predicta dedit etc. Si vero contra predicta vel predictorum

aliquid idem Bocchaccinus venditor dederit vel fecerit aut dabit

vel faciet in futurum aut datum vel factum quomodolibet apparuerit

in aliquo capitulo in loco seu publico presenti contractu supra vel

etiam imposito aut si ut promissum est et superius expressum factum

non erit, promisit et convenit dictus Bocchaccinus eisdem Niccholo

Vegne et Niccholao Pauli et cuilibet eorum stipulanti et recipienti

ut supra, dare et solvere nomine pene et pena duplum infrascripti

pretii et insuper florenos aurei quadringentos bonos et puros solepni

stipulatione promisit cum refectione dapnorum etc. Que quidem pena

totiens committatur et peti et exigi possit cum effectu quotiens

contra predicta vel predictorum aliquid datum aut factum fuerit seu

ventum vel predictorum aliquid non servatum.

Et pena soluta vel non, exacta vel non, una vice vel pluribus

predicta omnia et singula firma perdurent; pro quibus omnibus et

singulis observandis obtulit et constituit precario etc. Pro qua

vero venditione, traditione et cessione et contractu et omnibus

et singulis supradictis fuit in veritate confessus et contentus

dictus Bocchaccinus venditor et non spe alicuius future numerationis

habuisse et recepisse sibique datum solutum et numeratum fuisse et

in presentia mei Notarii et infrascriptorum se habuit et recepit

in quodam cono sigillato prout ipse Bocchaccinus confessus fuit

tantam esse quantitatem nomine pretii et pretio a dicto Niccholo

Vegne florenos aurei Ducentos quadraginta bonos et puros. Et a

dicto Niccholao Pauli florenos dare centumdecem bonos et puros de

quibus se dictus Bocchaccinus bene pagatum tacitum et contentum

vocavit et dixit. Et quod plus valerent dicte res vendite pretio

supradicto, dictus Bocchaccinus eisdem Niccholo Vegne et Niccholao

Pauli et cuilibet eorum stipulanti et recipienti ut supra et

partibus supradictis inter vivos et irrevocabiliter nulla de

cetero ingratitudinis caussa obstante donavit. Insuper in agendo

et contrahendo et exercendo predicto casu predictus Bocchaccinus

per solepmnem stipulationem et pactum promisit et convenit eisdem

Niccholo Vegne et Niccholao Pauli et cuilibet eorum stipulanti

et recipienti ut supra se facturum et curaturum ita et taliter

omni exceptione remota quod hinc ad octo dies proxime venturos

seu infra ipsum tempus et terminum Biagius olim Pizzini dicti

populi Sancte Felicitatis vel alius eque bonus et hinc ad unum

mensem proxime venturum seu infra ipsum tempus et terminum Vanni

eius frater et filius olim dicti Chelini dicti populi vel alius

eque bonus et quilibet eorum in solidum et in totum predictis

venditioni, traditioni, concessioni proinde pretii soluti et

confessati donationi, contractui, ed instrumento et omnibus et

singulis supradictis actis, factis, gestis et promissis per dictum

Bocchaccinum fideiubebunt et se principales constituent auctores

et in omnibus et per omnia et quilibet eorum in solidum facient,

promictent et se et eorum quemlibet in solidum obligaverunt ut

ipse idem Bocchaccinus in presenti fecit promisit et se obligavit

contractu. Que si non fecerit et fieri curaverit promisit et

convenit dictus Bocchaccinus eisdem emptoribus et eorum cuilibet

stipulanti et recipienti ut supra dare et solvere nomine pene et

pro pena Florenos auri centum bonos et puros solepmni stipulatione

promisit cum refectione dapmnorum etc. sub ypotecha et obventione

etc. precario etc. et reservatione etc. Insuper dictus Bocchaccinus

iuravit ad sancta Dei evangelia corporaliter tactis scripturis deo,

et dictis emptoribus stipulantibus et recipientibus ut supra se non

venire contra predicta vel predictorum aliquid seu contra ea vel

eorum aliquid restitutionem aliquam in integrum impetrare seu petere

occasione minoris pretii vel alia occasione quacumque. Set predicta

omnia et singula totaliter et effectualitir observare et firma habere

et tenere perpetuo promisit convenit etc. Actum Florentie in populo

Sancte Felicitatis presentibus testibus Bene Manni populi Sancte

Lucie de Ligliano plebatus Campoli Comitatus Florentie. Salimbene

Benuccii dicti populi Sancte Felicitatis et Nerio Dati populi plebis

Sancte Marie in Pineta comitatus predicti ad hec vocatis etc.

Item postea eodem die. Actum Florentie in domo habitationis dicti

Bocchaccini sita in dicto populo Sancte Felicitatis presentibus

tunc supradictis etc. Domina Margherita uxor dicti Bocchaccini et

filia olim Jandonati de Martolis certificata ante omnia per me

ipsum notarium de iure suo et omnibus et singulis infrascriptis cum

consensu dicti Bocchaccini viri sui ibidem presentis, predictis

venditionem, traditionem, concessionem, promissionem, oblationem

pretii, solutionem et confessionem, donationi, contractui et

instrumento et omnibus et singulis supradictis actis, factis, gestis,

et promissis per dictum Bocchaccinum consensit et parabolam dedit,

et omni iuri, ypothece, et cuilibet alii iuri eidem domine in dictis

rebus venditis vel earum aliqua competentia seu spectantia occasione

dotis et donationis suarum vel alia occasione quacumque. Renuntiavit

eisdem Niccholo Vegne et Niccholao Pauli et cuilibet eorum stipulanti

et recipienti ut supra et pro partibus supradictis. Et promisit et

convenit dicta domina Margherita cum consensu dicti sui viri eisdem

emptoribus et cuilibet eorum stipulanti et recipienti ut supra nihil

in dictis rebus venditis vel earum aliqua in perpetuum petere vel

dicere nec aliquam litem molestiam vel gravamen inferre facere vel

movere aliqua occasione iure vel modo in causa vel extra, curia

vel extra vel aliquo alio modo qui dici vel exigi possit, et se

nihil contra predicta dedit etc. sub pena dupli pretii supradicti

et insuper Florenorum aurei quadringentorum sollepmni stipulatione

promisit et refectione dapmnorum etc. sub ypotheca et obligatione

etc. precario etc. et recusavit etc.

Item postea anno, die, et indictione predictis die vigesima prima

mensis Maii actum Florentie in domo in qua Consules Artis Medicorum

Spetiariorum et Merciariorum Civitatis Florentie morantur ad iura

reddenda sita in populo Sancte Cecilie presentibus tunc S. Spigliato

Dini Notario populi Sancte Margherite et Sandro Fioris Spine populi

Sancte Marie in Campo de Florentia ad hec vocatis precibus et

mandatis dicti Bocchaccini et pro eodem Bocchaccino Biagius olim

Pizzini populi Sancte Felicitatis et Vanni olim Chelini de Certaldo

dicti popuii et quilibet eorum in solidum et in totum predictis

venditioni, traditioni, concessioni, promissioni, pretii solutioni,

et confessioni, donationi, contractui et instrumento, et omnibus et

singulis supradictis actis, factis, gestis, et promissis per dictum

Bocchaccinum fideiusserunt et se et eorum quemlibet in solidum

ipsarum rerum venditarum et cuiuslibet earum principales auctores

et defensores constituerunt principaliter ei quilibet eorum in

solidum et in totum promiserunt et convenerunt mihi Salvi notario

infrascripto tamquam persone pubblice stipulanti et recipienti vice

et nomine dictorum Nicchole Vegne et Niccholaj Pauli et cuiuslibet

eorum pro partibus supradictis eorumque et cuiuscumque eorum

heredibus habentibusque caussam ab eisdem se facturum et curaturum

ita et taliter omni exceptione remota quod dictus Bocchaccinus

pacifice et quiete permictet et permicti faciet dictos emptores et

eorum quemlibet pro partibus supradictis eorum et cuiuslibet eorum

heredibus habentibusque caussam ab eisdem ipsas res venditas et

earum quamlibet habere et lites et questiones in se suscipere et

ipsas res venditas et earum quamlibet earumque et cuiuslibet earum

obventionum defendet auctorizabit et disbrigabit, et predictam

venditionem traditionem, concessionem, promissionem, et omnia et

singula supradicta et eorum quodlibet firma habebit et tenebit et in

omnibus et per omnia faciet, attendet et observabit ut promisit et

superius continetur. Alioquin ipsi fideiussores et quilibet eorum in

solidum et in totum promiserunt et convenerunt mihi Salvi Notario

infrascripto tamquam persone pubblice stipulanti et recipienti ut

supra pacifice et quiete permicti facere dictos emptores et eorum

quemlibet pro partibus supradictis earumque et cuiuslibet eorum

heredibus habentibusque caussam ab eisdem ipsas res venditas et earum

quamlibet earumque et cuiuslibet earum obventionum habere et lites et

questiones motas vel movendas in se suscipere, et ipsas res venditas

et earum quamlibet earumque et cuiuslibet earum obventionum defendere

auctorizzare et disbrigare et in omnibus et per omnia et quilibet

eorum in solidum promiserunt et convenerunt et remiserunt et fecerunt

mihi Notario stipulanti et recipienti ut supra ut ipse Bocchaccinus

promisit convenit remisit et fecit ut supra continetur. Que si non

fecerint et fieri curaverint promiserunt et convenerunt predicti

fideiussores et quilibet eorum in solidum et in totum mihi iamdicto

notario stipulanti et recipienti ut supra dare et solvere nomine

pene et pro pena duplum pretii supradicti et insuper Florenos aurei

quadringentos bonos et puros solepmni stipulatone promiserunt cum

refectione dapmnorum etc. Que quidem pena totiens committatur et peti

et exigi possit cum effectu quotquot contra predicta vel predictorum

aliquid datum aut factum fuerit seu ventum vel predictorum aliquid

non servatum, et pena soluta vel non, exacta vel non, una vice vel

pluribus predicta omnia et singula firma perdurent sub ypoteca et

obligatione etc. precario etc. eisdem etc. Insuper dicti Biagius

et Vanni Fideiussores et quilibet eorum iuraverunt ad Sancta dei

Evangelia corporaliter tactis scripturis se vel eorum aliquem non

venturos contra predicta vel predictorum aliquid seu contra ea, vel

eorum aliquid restitutionem aliquam in integrum impetrare seu petere

occasione minoris pretii vel alia occasione quacumque, set predicta

omnia et singula totaliter et effectualiter observare et firma

habere et tenere perpetuo quibus domino et fideiussoribus precepi per

guarentigiam etc.

_Estratto dalle imbreviature di ser Salvi Dini a 164 esistenti nel

Pubblico Archivio dei Contratti._

APPENDIX III

FROM "LA VILLEGGIATURA DI MAIANO," A MS. BY RUBERTO GHERARDI; A COPY

OF WHICH IS IN POSSESSION OF MRS. ROSS, OF POGGIO GHERARDO, NEAR

SETTIGNANO, FLORENCE.

CAP IV OF MS.

_Messer Gio. di Boccaccio gode in proprietà la Villa che fu del Sig^r

Berti a Corbignano ove pare che egli nascesse e cresciuto restasse

invaghito della Vallata posta sotto il Convento de P. P^i MM.

Osservanti della Doccia e poi si trasportasse ad abitare in Firenze e

vi comprasse varie Case suo Padre. Si fa l' illustrazione del poema

di M^o Gio. nel quale narrati gli amori e gli accidenti seguiti fra

il fiume d' Affrico e Mensola e le fortune di Pruneo diloro figlio

si trova la moderna e antica topografia dè detti luoghi e dell'

origine dello Spedale di Bonifazio e del fine del Convento di S. M^a

a Querceto e del giogo delle collinette luogo detto Monte._

Fra gli ammiratori del nostro Villaggio di Maiano e delle sue

adiacenze fu il nostro celebre maestro della Toscana eloquenza Messer

Giovanni di Boccaccio di Chellino da Certaldo, il quale fino dalla

prima età e dipoi nel fiore della gioventù si trattenne molto tempo

nella piccola villetta unita al podere, che possedeva suo padre

pochi passi sotto il Sobborgo di Corbignano, che per la misura del

suo lo goduto con essa, per il fossato che sbocca in Mensola, che

lo divide, per i confini che lo specificano, e per le due Cure, una

di S. Martino a Mensola, e l' altra di S. Maria a Settignano che

vi esercitano la giurisdizione e vengono a individuarla altra non

può essere che quella di Corbignano dè Signori Berti posseduta di

presente con titolo Livellare dal Signor Ottavio Ruggeri, come il

tutto si può riscontrare dal Contratto di vendite della medesima,

fatta per rogito di Ser Salvi Dini esistente all' Archivio Fiorentino

del dí 18 Maggio 1336, allorchè il nostro Boccaccio si ritovava in

età d' anni 23. Questa fiorita età del medesimo e le dolci compagnie

di quella villeggiatura, chi sà che non gli infiammassero il cuore e

nella sua commedia delle Ninfe Fiorentine, lo portassero ad encomiare

e comparire nel Prologo sotto nome d' Ameto e principalmente a

fissare lo sguardo a quella parte "dilettevole di graziose Ville e

di campi fruttiferi copiosa, ove sorge un infruttuoso monte Corito

nominato, prima che Atlante vi salisse; nelle piaggie del quale fra

gli strabocchevoli balzi surgea d' alberi, di querce, di cerri, e

di abeti, un folto bosco e disteso fino alla sommità del monte.

Dalla sua destra un chiaro fiumicello, mosso dalla ubertà dei monti

vicini, fra le pietrose valli, discendeva gridando vesso il piano:

dove giunte le sue acque con l' Arno mescolando il poco avuto nome

perdea." Per il monte di Corito non vi ha dubbio che egli intenda il

monte di Fiesole, poichè nel fine dell' istessa commedia trattando

delle guerre tra i Fiesolani e i Fiorentini successe nell' anno 1125

allorchè furono distrutti i Fiesolani colla loro rocca e accomunate

le famiglie e l' insegne di questi due popoli. Egli dice che la

fortuna "dante nè principj i beni con mano troppo larga a quelli di

Corito, gli rendè invidiosi e tra loro determini della Jurisdizione

della loro Città, nata mortale questione, nuove battaglie cominciaron

tra popoli," e poco dopo parlando di Firenze, e de' suoi abitatori

dice "che levatosi l' aspro giogo dè Coritani già sovrastanti per le

indebolite virtudi si rintuzzarono le loro forze, che appena il monte

erano usati di scendere." Per il fiumicello, il quale a chi riguarda

il monte di Fiesole comparisce alla destra si conosce che egli intese

il fiume d' Affrico, che ha l' origine e discende per le balze

descritte; et Ameto chiamò Sarno il fiume d' Arno, in cui Affrico

si sperde poichè rappresentava tempi così remoti, giusta il parere

dello Storico Malaspina, allorchè il detto fiume non aveva ancora

mutato il suo nome Sarno con quello d' Arno. "Era di piacevoli seni

ed ombra graziosa la selva ripiena d' animali veloci, fierissimi, e

paurosi, e in più parti di se abbondanti fontane rigavano le fresche

erbette. In questa selva sovente Ameto vagabondo giovane i Fauni,

le Driadi abitatrici del luogo solea visitare. Et ella forse dalli

vicini monti avuta antica origine quasi da carnalità costretto,

di ciò avendo memoria con pietosi affetti gli onorava talvolta."

Dice, che Ameto vagabondo giovane perchè forse dalli vicini monti

avuta antica origine, quasi da umana simpatia costretto, e de ciò

ricordandosi solea visitare ed onorare talvolta i Fauni e le Driadi

abitatrici del luogo pieno di Ville, di fonti, di seni, e boschetti.

E chi ne assicura, che il Boccaccio non fosse nato nella sua villa

di Corbignano quivi poco distante? Infatti per quanto sia cognita l'

età e in conseguenza la nascita del nostro M^o Giovanni di Boccaccio,

nulladimeno però fino ad ora ne il Sig^r Manni, ne altro Scrittore

della sua vita hanno potuto indagare dove ei nascesse, non essendo

stato procreato qual frutto di legittimo matrimonio, ma bensi quale

aborto di malnata passione, come si può riscontrare dalla dispensa

addomandata per farsi cherico, riferita nella storia d' Avignone e

dalla dilui legittimazione narrata dal Sig^r Della Rena. Io credo,

che raccontandoci in figura d' Ameto il Boccaccio avere avuta forse

l' origine nei colli vicini a Maiano, e che perciò spinto da natural

simpatia andava spesso a visitare le Ninfe e le Driadi di quelle

magioni, abbia voluto farci comprendere essere egli venuto alia

luce nella sua piccola villetta unita al Podere posto parte nel

popolo di S. Martino a Mensola, e parte di S. Maria a Settignano, e

tramezzato dal fosso che forma con altri due fossi dipoi il fiume

di Mensola presso il Borgo di Corbignano, distante circa a mezzo

miglio dalle Ville di Maiano. Tuttociò si rende vie più credibile,

quanto è naturale il persuadersi che il dilui genitore abbandonata

la sua patria di Certaldo comprasse tosto quella villetta e podere

di Corbignano, e che poi essendogli nato il nostro Messer Giovanni

facesse acquisto circa al 1314 d' una Casa nella Città di Firenze

presso quella porta, che conduceva alla sua Villetta, come si usava

in quei tempi, e questa casa la scegliesse posta nel popolo di S.

Pier Maggiore in via S. Maria e nel Gonfalone delle Chiavi come si

scuopre dal libro delle Riformagioni segnato R. che tira dal 1313 al

1318 sotto di 10 Ottobre 1318 ove si ordina che detto Boccaccio sia

levato dalla Libra delle gravezze di Certaldo, e resti aggravato in

quella di Firenze, per essere egli tornato ad abitarvi nel Gonfalone

delle Chiavi dai quattro anni già scorsi. Questa casa del Boccaccio

non può essere altro, che quella posta nel detto popolo di S. Pier

Maggiore nella detta Via S. Maria presso la cantonata che fa la detta

strada con la via del Giardino di proprietà in oggi dei P. P^i Minori

Conventuali, scoperta da me per mezzo dei confini d' altra casa che

le sta al fianco venduta nè tre Luglio 1333 per rogito di Ser Salvi

Dini e descritta come App^o "Una Casa posta nel popolo di S. Pier

Maggiore, ed in Via S. Maria cui a primo detta Via, a secondo, la

Chiesa di S. Reparata, a terzo di Ruggero di Scotto o degli Albizi,

a quarto, a tempo d' altra vendita delle medesima, seguita nel 25.

Aprile 1326 per rogito de Sig^r Bonacosa di Compagno etc. confinava

Boccaccio da Certaldo e in oggi gli Eredi di Cino Bicchierai."

Osservandosi il contorno dei confini di questa Casa venduta si

scuopre esser quella istessa che in' oggi è divenuta dell' Opera

del Duomo che sta in mezzo all' altra, che ora, e fin di quel tempo

è stata posseduta dall' Opera medesima che fa cantonata in via del

Giardino, e dall' altra parte, vale a dire vesso mezzogiorno resta

accanto alia Casa dei P. P^i di S. Croce di Firenze presentemente, e

che in antico fu di proprietà del Boccaccio il quale bisogna che la

vendesse poco dopo al 1326 poichè avendo egli emancipato Francesco,

altro suo figlio, che si trovava vicino alia pubertà gli fece

comprare nel 31. Agosto 1333 un altra casa in Firenze nel popolo di

S. Felicità per rogito di Ser Salvi Dini, ove esso con i suoi figli

abitò, e di cui parla il Signor Manni nella sua illustrazione, che

confina a primo e secondo Via a terzo Domenico Barducci, a quarto

Vanni di Cera e degli Eredi di Ghino Canigiani. Lo stesso Boccaccio

fece poscia acquisto d' altra mezza Casa il di 13. Dicembre 1342 pei

rogiti di Sig^{ri} Francesco di Ser Matteo, come si riscontra da un

Libro di Gabella di detto tempo esistente nell' Archivio del Monte

Comune di Firenze, la quale penso che sia quella posta nel popolo di

S. Ambrogio donata dipoi alla Compagnia d' Orsanmichele, come dal

registro della medesima principiato nel 1340 a N 133 si vede.

Dopo questa breve digressione torniamo a Fiesole coll' istesso

Giovanni di Boccaccio, il quale non solo nella sua Genealogia degli

Dei, ma ancora nel Ninfale riconosce Atlante per fondatore della

medesima, ed insieme nel suo poema Toscano, primo, che si trovi alla

luce in ottava rima, rappresenta gli amori di Affrico e Mensola

piccoli fiumicelle che irrigano la nostra celebre Campagna e mette in

vista i casi veri, o finti che siano, seguiti nel contorno di Maiano

situato in mezzo a questi due fiumi. Racconta egli adunque che

Pria che Fiesole fosse edificata

Di mura o di steccato o di fortezza

venne Diana Dea Cacciatrice in quelle vicinanze ed armata d' arco e

di strali con gran corteggio di Driadi, e che era nel Mese di Maggio.

Quando la Dea Diana a Fiesol venne,

E con le Ninfe sue consiglio tenne

Intorno ad una bella e chiara fonte

Di fresca erbetta e di fiori intorniata.

La quale ancor dimora a piè del monte

Ceceri, che in quella parte che il Sol guata

Quand' è nel mezzogiorno a fronte a fronte,

E fonte è oggi quella nominata

Intorno a quella Diana ancor si volse

Essere, e molte Ninfe vi raccolse....

Incominciò la Dea la sua concione alle Ninfe compagne, esortandole

al disprezzo e alla fuga degli uomini ed alla vita celibe, solitaria

ed occupata nella caccia di Belve. Africo, che languiva d' amore per

Mensola una delle Ninfe fra quelle più vistosa dell' altre, udendo

nascoso tali consigli l' andava ricercando col cupido sguardo, e non

avendola potuta scoprire ne ivi ne altrove già lasso e sbigottito:

E verso Fiesol volto piaggia a piaggia

Giudato dall' amor ne già pensoso,

Cercando la sua amante aspra e selvaggia,

Che faceva lui star maninconioso;

Ma pria che mezzo miglio passat' haggia

Ad un luogo perviene assai nascoso,

Dove una valle due monti divide

Quivi udi cantar Ninfe, e poi le vide.

Perchè senza iscoprisse s' appressava

Tanto che vidde donde uscia quel canto

Vidde tre Ninfe, che ognuna cantava

L' una era ritta e l' altre due in un canto

A un acquitrin, che il fiossato menava

Sedieno elle e lor gambe vidde al quanto,

Chi si lavavano i pie bianchi e belli

Con lor cantavan li dimolti uccelli.

Incontratosi Africo presso l' acquitrino, che per la valle scorrea

interrogò le Ninfe per sapere qualche nuova di Mensola diloro

compagna, ma veggendosi elleno scoperte dal pastorello piene di

vergogna fuggirono senza darli risposta, esso le segue, nè le puote

raggiungere e finalmente disperato.

Verso la casa sua prese la via.

Giunge tardi alla magione e inganna Calimena e Girafone suoi genitori

sopra il motivo del suo ritardo; il tenero padre finse non avvedersi

della passione del figlio ed esortollo a fuggire l' amore delle Ninfe

come pericoloso, adducendoli in esemplo la vendetta presa da Diana

con Mugnone suo genitore trasmutato in fiume per un tale delitto.

Non curò il giovane gli avvertimenti del vecchio, nè l' esempio del

nonno, e non avendo non che sfogata neppure sopita la sua fiamma

per mezzo dei disprezzi istessi e delle repulse di Mensola che lo

fuggiva, ma prendendo augurio di poter sodisfare le pazze brame dal

sacrifizio fatto a Venere, che gli comparve scoprendoli la maniera

d' ingannare la sua Ninfa ritrosa risolve di tutto azzardare per

sodisfazione di sua follia. Prende ancor esso le spoglie e le divise

di Ninfa, e trovata Mensola con la comitiva delle altre ingannandole

tutte et infingendosi verginella si mette con esse a tirar dardi e

a saettar per giuoco. Delusa Mensola scorre i boschi ed i monti di

Fiesole con chi le tende le più terribili insidie.

Elle eran già tanto giù per lo colle

Gite, che eran vicine a quella valle

Che due monti divide----

Non furon guari le Ninfe oltre andate

Che trovaron due Ninfe tutte ignude

Che in un pelago d' acque erano entrate

Dove l' un monte con l' altro si chiude

E giunte li s' ebber le gonne alzate

E tutte quante entrar nell acque crude.

Ove ora risiedeva il pelagaccio sotto il Convento dei P. P^i

della Doccia in questo bagno il giovanetto Africo in abito di

Ninfa immersosi in compagnia di Mensola tradì la semplicità della

verginella e la lasciò di se incinta. Fugge ella per la vergogna di

tanto oltraggio e per l' inganno del garzoncello; smania e paventa

per lo timore di Diana, talchè avría detto di lei l' Ariosto:

Di selva in selva timida s' en vola

E di paura freme e di sospetto,

E ad ogui sterpo, che passando tocca

Esser le pare alla gran Diva in bocca.

Erivoltandosi contro l' insidiatore affermato che

Tra l' invita e natural furore

A spiegar l' unghie a insanguinar le labbia

Amor la intenerisce e la ritira

Affrico a rimirare in mezzo all' ira.

Prevasse all' odio al furore e alla paura l' amore talmente che

promesse Mensola al pastorello di ritornare in quel luogo

Affrico se ne va inverso del piano

Mensola al Monte su pel colle tira,

Molto pensosa col suo dardo in mano

E del mal fatto forte ne sospira ...

Cosi passò del gran mente la cima[716]

E poi scendendo giu per quella costa

Laddove il sol perquote quando prima

Si leva e che a Oriente e contrapposta

E secondo che il mio avviso stima

Era la sua caverna in quella posta,

Forse a un trar d' arco sopra il fiumicello

Che a piè vi corre un grosso ruscello.

A qual precipizio non conduce un forsennato amore! Tornò più volte

Africo all ingannevole luogo insidioso; ma si trovò più volte deluso

ancor esso dalla sua Ninfa, che non vi comparve; sicchè vinto infine

dalla disperazione di rivederla,

E pervenuto a piede del vallone

E sopra all acque del fossato gito.

Disperato e pien di furore si trafisse col proprio dardo: dicendo

Io me ne vo all inferno angoscioso

E tu, fiume, terrai il nome mio

E manifesterai lo doloroso

Caso, ch' è occorso si crudele e rio

A chiunque ti vedrà si sanguinoso

Correre, o lasso, del mio sangue tinto

Paleserai dove amor m' ha sospinto.

L' infelice garzone cadde morto nell' acqua, e quella

Dal sangue tinta si divenne rossa,

Facea quel fiume siccome fa ancora

Di se due parti alquanto giù più basso.

Presso alla maggior riviera, de cui era situata la casa di Girafone,

sicchè l' onda che scorrea sanguinosa scuopri all' infelice padre la

disgrazia del figlio; Mensola poi per lo peccato, e lo timor di Diana

e delle Ninfe sue compagne nascosa e palpitante aspettava l' ora

del parto; partori finalmente; ma in quel tempo appunto, che la Dea

Cacciatrice essendo tornata a Fiesole e ne suoi contorni a rivedere

le sue seguaci fra le quali non avendo ritrovata Mensola piena d'

ira e sospetto la ricercava. Mensola occultò il piccolo figlio in

una macchia fra i pruni (onde Pruneo fu chiamato) e si dette alia

fuga; ma per il vagito del bambinello avendo scoperto Diana il di lei

delitto; gridò

Tu non potrai fuggir le mie saette

Se l' arco tiro o sciocca peccatrice

Mensola già per questo non ristette

Ma fugge quanto puote alia pendice,

E giunta al fiume dentro vi si mette

Per valicarlo, na Diana dice

Certe parole e al fiume le manda

E che ritenga Mensola comanda.

La sventurata era già in mezzo all' acque

Quand ella i piè venir meno sentia

E quivi siccome a Diana piacque

Mensola in acqua allor si convertia

E poi sempre in quel fiume si giacque

Il nome suo, che ancora tuttavia

Per lei quel fiume Mensola è chiamato

Or v' ho del suo principio raccontato.

Dopo seguito l' atroce caso e l' orribile metamorfosi prese Diana

quel piccolo pargoletto, che per essere stato trovato tra i pruni,

Pruneo fu chiamato, e lo consegnò a Sinidechia scaltra vecchia ed

informata del tutto abitante in quei contorni, che dopo lo condusse

a Girafone e Calimena suoi avi, ai quale l' affido con gran premura,

essi l' educarono con sommo amore e attenzione.

Passo allora Atlante in questa parte

D' Europa con infinita gente

Atlante fece allora fare

Una Città, che Fiesole chiamossi....

E tutti gli abitanti del paese

Atlante gli volle alla Cittade

Girafon quando questo fatto intese

Tosto n' andò con bona volontade

E menò seco il piacente, il cortese

Pruneo, etc. etc.

Piacque fuor di misura Girafone ad Atlante perlochè lo dichiarò suo

consigliere ed al giovane Pruneo dilui nipote:

Atlante gli pose tanto amore,

Veggendo ch' era si savio e valente,

Che Siniscalco il fe con grande onore

Sopra la terra, e sopra la sua gente,

E di tutto il paese guidatore,

Ed ei guidava si piacevolmente

Che da tutti era amato e benveduto

Tanto dava ad ogn' uno il suo dovuto

E gia più di venticinqu' anni avea

Quando Atlante gli diè per mogliera

Una fanciulla, la qual Tironea

Era il suo nome e figliola si era

D' un gran Baron, che con seco tenea

E dielli tutta ancor quella riviera

Che è in mezzo tra Mensola e Mugnone,

E questa fù la dote del garzone.

Pruneo fe far dalla Chiesa a Maiano

Un po di sopra un nobil casamento

D' onde ei vedeva tutto quanto il piano,

Et afforzollo d' ogui guernimento,

E quel paese ch' era molto strano

Tosto dimentico siccome sento, etc. etc.

Morirono dopo gli avi suoi Girafone e Calimena e Pruneo avendo

avuti da sua moglie Tironea dieci figlinoli tutti gli accoppiò con

vantaggioso Imeneo sicchè:

In molte genti questa schiatta crebbe

E sempre furon a Fiesol cittadini

Grandi e possenti sopra i lor vicini.

Morto Pruneo con grandissimo duolo

Di tutta la Città fu seppellito,

Così rimase a ciascun suo figliuolo

Tutto il paese libero e spedito,

Che Atlante donato avea a lui solo,

E bene l' ebbon tra lor dipartito

E sempre poi le schiatte di costoro

Signoreggiaron questo territoro.

Narrati gli amore, i casi, e le seguite trasformazione di Africo

e Mensola, rappresentate nel Ninfale di Giovanni Boccaccio senza

ricercare quello che abbia voluto indicare nel favoloso racconto

noterò i luoghi descritti dal medesimo. Osservo che Diana colle sue

seguaci conduce a tenere assemblea.

Intorno ad una bella e chiara fonte

Di fresche erbette e di fiori intorniata,

La quale ancor dimora appiè del monte

Ceceri in quella parte, che il sol guata

Quand' è nel mezzodi a fronte a fronte,

E Fonte è oggi quella nominata, etc. etc.

Questa fonte è l' istessa chiamata modernamente Fonte all' erta, a

piè e nel base di Monte Ceceri situata a Mezzogiorno e sotto la Villa

dei Signori Pitti Gaddi, della qual fontana ora non se ne veggono

che le scomposte mura, le rovine ed i vestigi nella pubblica strada

al principio della costa; ma vivono persone, che mi hanno assicurato

che circa all' anno 1710 ne fu deviata l' acqua procedente dal

vivaio un po superiore alla medesima e dall' unione di quelle, che

vi concorrevano d' altrove perchè infrigidiva i terreni sottoposti

e noceva alle piante e alle raccolte dell istesso podere. Al tempo

del nostro Boccaccio (chiamerò da qui avanti con tal nome benchè di

suo padre il nostro M^o Giovanni) io trovo che questo podere con

case, vivaio etc., esistente alla fine del piano di S. Gervasio fu

venduto nel 5 Giugno 1370 per rogito di Sig^{re} Ristoro di Jacopo da

Figline, da Giovanni di Agostino degli Asini a Messer Bonifazio Lupo

Marchese di Soragona e Cavaliere Parmigiano, che in quel tempo fu

ascritto alla fiorentina cittadinanza, il quale spinto da lodevole

pietà e grata riconoscenza alla repubblica fiorentina ottenne dalla

medesima fino sotto li 23 Dicembre 1377 come attesta l' Ammirato nel

Libro decimo terzo, di poter fondare lo Spedale in Via S. Gallo di

detta città chiamato appunto di Bonifazio dal nome de sì pio e grato

benefattore; fu posto questo Spedale nel luogo comprato sino ne 2

Febbraio 1309 da Messer Giovanni del già Migliore dè Chiaramontesi di

Firenze per edificare il Monastero e Convento di S. Maria a Querceto

per rogito di Ser Benedetto di Maestro Martino come si vede dall'

Archivio dell' Arcivescovado e dagli spogli del Migliore, le quale

Monache vi tornarono e vi si trovavano ancora nell' anno della peste

del 1348 come per i rogiti di Ser Lando di Ubaldino da Pesciola del

4 Maggio 1336, e di Ser Benvenuto di Cerreto Maggio del dì 24 Marzo

1346, e d' altri si riscontra, e dopo molto tempo Eugenio Quarto

uni ed assegnò al predetto Spedale il detto monastero e Monache di

Querceto quivi contigue come dallo Zibaldone di No. 90 Del Migliore

a 127 e 202 nella Magliabechiana si può vedere. Ecco scoperto il

luogo ove declamava Diana (ma senza frutto) se riguardo a Mensola

che all' altre Ninfe di quei contorni, poiche io osservo, che tutti

quei villeggianti s' imparentavano e sposavano le zittelle dei

villeggianti vicini. Partito Africo dalla fonte predetta salendo

verso Fiesole, traversando la costa formata da più effetti della Casa

Albizi, Covoni, Asini ed altre posti tanto nel popolo della Canonica,

che della Badia di Fiesole e di S. Gervasio dei quali per non tediare

non produrrò i Contratti ritrovati, quali Poderi tutti si denominano

Monte negli antichi Istrumenti per essere situati sul poggio ove

risiede in oggi il Convento di S. Domenico. E dopo tal viaggio

giunse il pastorello alla Valle formata da questo giogo dè Colli di

Fiesole; e da quelle degli altri di Maiano sotto la Doccia, chiamata

nel Decamerone la Valle delle Donne di cui in seguito ragioneremo.

Le acque delle superiori piagge che scorrevano, formavano gli

acquitrini, quali si univano e davano l' origine al fiume d' Affrico

ed in uno di questi acquitrini vidde il pastorelle le Ninfe lavarsi

le piante, e che s' involarono da lui tostochè lo scopersero; onde

afflitto e turbato scese verso la pianura di detta Valle e tornò

alla sua magione. Venere lo speranza, egli si traveste da Ninfa

cerca di Mensola, la ritrova, gira con essa verso le cime del Monte

di Fiesole saettando per giuoco, ritorna al pelago sotto la Doccia

nella valle vede le Ninfe che si bagnavano s' immerge ancor esso con

la compagna nelle acque, e quivi principiano le comuni sciagure.

Questo luogo pare, che sia devenuto cosi famoso nell' antichità e nei

tempi del nostro Boccaccio da potere aver comunicata la denominazione

agli stessi fondi di terreni che lo compongono, o perchè fosse ivi

seguito qualche accidente che avesse dato luogo al favoloso poema, o

perchè la favola istessa sia stata forse adattata al luogo medesimo.

Infatti io ritrovo nei rogiti di Ser Roberto di Talento da Fiesole

del 27 Novembre 1347 e del 28 Maggio 1352 descritto un podere di

Tuccio del già Diedi de Falconieri posto verso Ponente e perciò nel

popolo della Canonica di Fiesole con Case etc. chiamato il Bagno allo

Scopetino, ed in quelli di Ser Giovanni Bencini da Montaione si vede

una reciproca donazione fra Andreola, figlia del già Carlo dei Pazzi,

e Vedova di Piero di Cione Ridolfi e Carlo Pazzi suo fratello, di

più luoghi, fra i quali si trova un podere nel popolo di S. Martino

a Maiano luogo detto la Valle al Bagno, fino sotto di II Luglio

1343. Di più nel libro F Primo a ć 76 della Gabella dei Contratti

si osserva nè dì II Dicembre 1349 per rogito di Ser Francesco di

Bruno di Vico Dal Pozzo, che M^a Dolce figlia di Mannino e Vedova

di Bindo Buonaveri (famiglia molto illustre di Firenze) vendè a M^a

Simona Pinzochera di S. Maria Novella, e Sorella di Cenni di Giotto,

ma non del pittore, per fiorini 500 d' oro un podere etc., posto

nel popolo di S. Martino a Maiano luogo detto la Valle del Bagno in

Affrico. Nel Decamerone veggo descritta dal Boccaccio questa medesima

Valle, e che la medesima adunanza d' acque in essa valle, che due "di

quelle montagnette divideva, e cadeva giù per balzi di pietra viva,

e cadendo facea un rumore a udire assai dilettevole, e sprizzando

parea da lungi ariento vivo, che d' alcuna cosa premutta minutamente

sprizzasse; e come giù al piccol pian pervenire, così quivi in un bel

canaletto raccolta infino al mezzo del piano velocissima discorreva

ed ivi faceva un piccol laghetto quale talvolta per modo di vivaio

fanno ne lor giardini i Cittadini che di ciò hanno destro." Il

podere con casa etc., etc., posto nel popolo di S. Martino a Maiano

che gode di presente la Signora Berzichelli, Vedova del già Signor

Barone Agostino Del Nero, nella Valle d' Ameto e delle Donne, e

presso addove s' unisce il poggio della Doccia con quel di Maiano, si

chiama il Vivaio, e più Vivaietti e Acquitrini si trovano in quella

valle sovrabbondante di acque, le quali dettero varie denominazioni

ad esse allusive di luoghi circonvicini, e credo, che il detto luogo

sia il medesimo, che donò una volta M^a Andreola de' Pazzi al suo

fratello, e dipoi pervenuto in M^a Dolce, Vedova del Bonavieri, lo

vendè alla figlia di Giotto suddetto, situato d' appresso all' altro

del Falconieri. Quest' effetto acquistarono i Signori Del Nero del

Sig^r Jacopo del Feo nel 1568 in cui era passato nel 1559 dal Sig^r

Niccolo di Filippo Valori, e questo lo avea descritto in suo conto

alla Decima del 1498 nel Gonfalone delle Chiavi a 176. Questo Jacopo

di Feo di Savona ebbe per moglie Caterina Sforza de' Duchi di Milano

naturale, Vedova Girolamo Riario Signore di Forlì e poi rimaritata a

Gio. di Pier Francesco de' Medici e Nonna percio di Cosimo I Gran

Duca di Toscana. Mensola intimorita varca il poggio in cui risiede

Maiano e si nasconde nel suo refugio sotto le cave in faccia a

Levante ed al piano di Novoli presso del Fiume, Affrico all' incontro

scende verso la pianura, e dopo esser tornato e ritornato poi vesso

del pelago disperato per non avere rintracciata la Ninfa si trafigge

col proprio dardo vicino alla magione di Girafone suo padre posta

sul ramo maggiore, uno chiamato Affrico e l' altro Affricuzzo, che

poi s' uniscono insieme formandone il suo fiume presso allo sbocco

della valle predetta. Altro per ora non resta da notarsi sopra la

Topografia del racconto, poichè nato il figlio Pruneo e trasmutata da

Diana in pena del delitto nel fiume che porta il suo nome, Mensola

sua Madre, e dalla disperazione il padre in quello d' Affrico, fu

chiamato dipoi questo pargoletto Pruneo dall' essere stato scoperto

fra i pruni dalla Dea. Nel corso degli anni comparve a Fiesole

Atlante ed edificò quella Città, ed a questo fanciullo, già fatto

adulto, diede per moglie Tironea, e per dote tutto il paese collocato

fra il Fiume Mensola e quel di Mugnone.

FOOTNOTE:

[716] cioè di Monte Ceceri....

APPENDIX IV

THE ACROSTIC OF THE _AMOROSA VISIONE_ DEDICATING THE POEM TO FIAMMETTA

This acrostic consists of three _ballate_ composed by reading the

first letters of the first verses of each _terzina_ throughout the

poem.

I

Mirabil cosa forse la presente

Vision vi parrà, donna gentile,

A riguardar, sì per lo novo stile

Sì per la fantasia ch' è nella mente.

Rimirandovi un dì subitamente

Bella, leggiadra et in abit' umile,

In volontà mi venne con sottile

Rima trattar parlando brievamente.

Adunque a voi, cui tengo Donna mia,

Et chiu sempre disio di servire,

La raccomando, madama Maria:

E prieghovi, se fosse nel mio dire

Difecto alcun, per vostra cortesia

Correggiate amendando il mio fallire.

Cara Fiamma, per cui 'l core ó caldo,

Que' che vi manda questa Visione

Giovanni è di Boccaccio da Certaldo.

II

Il dolce immaginar che 'l mio chor face

Della vostra biltà, donna pietosa,

Recam' una soavità sì dilectosa,

Che mette lui con mecho in dolce pace.

Poi quando altro pensiero questo disface

Piangemi dentro l' anim' angosciosa,

Cercando come trovar possa posa,

Et sola voi disiar le piace.

Et però volend' i' perseverare

Pur nello 'nmaginar vostra biltate,

Cerco con rime nuove farvi onore.

Questo mi mosse, Donna, a compilare

La Visione in parole rimate,

Che io vi mando qui per mio amore.

Fatele onor secondo il su' valore

Avendo a tempo poi di me pietate.

III

O chi che voi vi siate, o gratiosi

Animi virtuosi,

In cui amor come 'n beato loco

Celato tene il suo giocondo focho;

I' vi priego c' un poco

Prestiate lo 'ntelletto agli amorosi

Versi, li quali sospinto conposi,

Forse da disiosi

Voler troppo 'nfiammato: o se 'l mio fioco

Cantar s' imvischa nel proferer broco,

O troppo è chiaro o roco,

Amendatel' acciò che ben riposi.

Se in sè fructo, o forse alcun dilecto

Porgesse a vo' lector, ringratiate

Colei, la cui biltate

Questo mi mosse affar come subgiecto.

E perchè voi costei me' conosciate,

Ella somigli' amor nel su' aspecto,

Tanto c' alcun difecto

Non v' à a chi già 'l vide altre fiate;

E l' un dell' altro si gode di loro

Ond' io lieto dimoro.

Rendete allei il meritato alloro,

E più non dic' omai,

Perchè decto mi par aver assai.

APPENDIX V

THE WILL OF GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO

In Dei nomine amen. Anno Domini millesimo trecentesimo septuagesimo

quarto, indictione duodecima, secundum cursum et consuetudinem

Florentiæ. Tempore domini Gregorii, divina providentia Pape XI,

die vigesimo octavo mensis augusti. Actum Florentiæ in ecclesia et

populo Sanctæ Felicitatis, presentibus testibus Pazino Alessandri

De Bardis populi Sanctæ Mariæ supra Arnum de Florentia, Angelo

Niccoli dicti populi Sanctæ Felicitatis, Andrea Biancardi, Orlandino

Jacobi, Burando Ugolini, Francisco Tomasi, omnibus dicti populi

Sanctæ Felicitatis, et Brunellacio Bianchini de Certaldo, comitatus

Florentiæ, ad infrascripta vocatis et rogatis et ab infrascripto

testatore suo proprio hore [_sic_] habitis et rogatis et aliis

suprascriptis.

Cum nil sit certius morte et incertius ora mortis et actestante

veritate, vigilare sit opus, cum diem ignoremus et horam qua qua

[_sic_] homo sit moriturus idcircho venerabilis et egregius vir

dominus Johannes olim Boccacii de Certaldo Vallis Elsæ, comitatus

Florentiæ, sanus mente, corpore et intellectu, suorum bonorum

dispositionis per presens nuncupativum testamentum sine scriptis in

hunc modum facere procuravit.

In primis quidem recomendavit animam suam Deo omnipotenti et beatæ

Mariæ semper Virgini gloriosæ et sepulturam sui corporis si eum mori

contigerit in civitate Florentiæ elegit in ecclesia Fratrum Sancti

Spiritus Ordinis heremitarum Sancti Augustini de Florentia, in eo

loco ubi videbitur magistro Martino in sacra theologia, venerabili

Magistro dicti Ordinis. Si autem mori contigerit in castro Certaldi,

judicavit corpus suum sepelliri in ecclesia Sancti Jacobi de

Certaldo, in ea parte ubi videbitur actinentibus et vicinis suis.

Item reliquit ecclesiæ Sanctæ Reparate de Florentia soldos decem

florenorum parvorum.

Item reliquit constructioni murorum civitatis Florentiæ soldos decem

florenorum parvorum.

Item reliquit societati Sanctæ Mariæ de Certaldo libras quinque

florenorum parvorum.

Item reliquit constructioni seu operi ecclesiæ Sancti Jacobi de

Certaldo pro remedio animæ suæ et suorum parentum libras decem

florenorum parvorum.

Item reliquit Brunæ filiæ Cianchi de Montemagno, quæ antiquitus moram

traxit cum eo, unum lectum in quo ipsa erat consueta dormire in

castro Certaldi, cum letteria, cultrice, pimacio [_sic_] una coltre

alba parva at usum dicti letti cum uno pario litiaminum, cum pancha

que consueta est stare iuxta lettum predictum.

Item unum dischum parvum pro comedendo de nuce, duas tabolettas

[_sic_] usitatis longitudinis trium brachiorum pro qualibet.

Item duas tovagliuolas.

Item unum botticellum capacitatis trium salmarum vini.

Item unam robam Panni Monachini foderatam zendadi porperini, unam

gonellam, guarnachiam et caputeum et sibi Brunæ etiam de omni eo,

quod a dicto testatore restat habere occasione sui salarj.

Item voluit, disposuit et mandavit et reliquit omnibus et singulis

hominibus et personis qui reperirentur descripti in quodam suo libro

signato _A_ debentibus aliquid recipere vel habere a dicto testatore,

et omnibus aliis, qui legiptime ostenderent debere habere, non

obstante quod non reperirentur descripti in dicto libro, quod eis

et cuilibet ipsorum satisfiat per infrascripto eius executores de

massaritiis, rebus et bonis dicti testatoris, exceptis libris dicti

testatoris, et maxime de una domo posita in Certaldo, cui a primo via

vocata Borgho, a secundo Fornaino Andree domini Benghi de Rubeis,

a tertio la _Via Nuova_, a quarto dicti testatoris vendenda per

infrascriptos ejus executores vel majorem partem ipsorum, et si hoc

non sufficeret, possint vendere de aliis suis bonis.

Item reliquit venerabili fratri Martino de Signa, Magistro in sacra

theologia, conventus Sancti Spiritus Ordinis heremitarum Sancti

Augustini omnes suos libros, excepto Breviario dicti testatoris cum

ista condictione, quod dictus Magister Martinus possit uti dictis

libris, et de eis exhibere copiam cui voluerit, donec vixerit, ad hoc

ut ipse teneatur rogare Deum pro anima dicti testatoris, et tempore

suæ mortis debeat consignare dictos libros conventui fratrum Sancti

Spiritus, sine aliqua diminutione, et debeant micti in quodam armario

dicti loci et ibidem debeant perpetuo remanere ad hoc ut quilibet

de dicto conventu possit legere et studere super dictis libris, et

ibi scribi facere modum et formam presentis testamenti et facere

inventarium de dicti libris.

Item reliquit et dari voluit et assignari per infrascriptos ejus

executores, et majorem partem ipsorum superviventem ex eis,

Monasterio fratrum Sanctæ Mariæ de Sancto Sepulcro dal Pogetto sive

dalle Campora extra muros civitatis Florentie omnes et singulas

reliquias sanctas, quæ dictus dominus Johannes, magno tempore, et cum

magno labore, procuravit habere de diversis mundi partibus.

Item reliquit operariis ecclesiæ Sancti Jacobi de Certaldo pro dicta

ecclesia recipientibus unam tabulum alebastri Virginis Mariæ, unam

pianetam cum istola et manipolo zendadi vermigli, unum palium parvum

pro altare drappe vermigli, cum uno guancialetto pro altare cum

tribus guainis corporalium.

Item unum vasum stagni pro retinendo aquam benedictam.

Item unum paliettum parvum drappi, foderatum cum fodera zendadi

gialli.

Item reliquit dominæ Sandræ, uxori Francisci Lapi Bonamichi unam

tavolettam in qua est pictum signum Virginis Mariæ cum suo filio in

brachio et ab alio latere uno teschio di morto.

In omnibus autem aliis suis bonis mobilibus et immobilibus

presentibus et futuris, Boccacium et Antonium ejus nepotes et

filios Jacobi Boccacii predicti de Certaldo equis portionibus, sibi

universales heredes instituit et omnes alios filios et filias, tam

natos quam nascituros de dicto Jacobo ex legiptima uxore dicti Jacobi

una cum dictis Boccacio et Antonio equis portionibus sibi heredes

instituit cum pacto quod omnes fructus et redditus bonorum dicti

testatoris debeant duci in domo dicti Jacobi, prout dictus Jacobus

voluerit, ad hoc ut possit alere se et ejus uxorem et filios, quos

tunc habebit, et hoc quoque pacto quod suprascripti ejus heredes

non possint, audeant, vel presumant directe, vel indirecte, tacite

vel expresse vendere vel alienare de bonis dicti testatoris, nisi

excesserint ætatem triginta annorum, et tunc cum consensu dicti

Jacobi eorum patris, si tunc viveret, salvo quod in casu in quo

vellent nubere aliquam vel aliquas eorum sorores, et tunc fiat cum

consensu infrascriptorum tutorum.

Et simili modo mandavit infrascriptis suis heredibus ne aliquo

tempore donec, et quousque invenirentur de discendentibus Bocchaccii

Chellini patris dicti testatoris, et dicti Jacobi per lineam

masculinam, etiam posito quod non essent legiptimi, possint audeant

vel presumant vendere vel alienare domum dicti testatori, positam in

populo Sancti Jacobi de Certaldo, confinatam a primo Via Publica,

_Chiamato [sic] Borgho_ a secundo dicti testatoris, a tertio la

_Via Nuova_, a quarto Guidonis Johannis de Machiavellis.

Item unum petium terræ laborativæ et partim vineatæ positum in comuni

Certaldi in dicto populo Sancti Jacobi loco dicto Valle Lizia cui a

primo Fossatus, a secundo dicti testatoris et Rustichelli Nicolai a

tertio dicti testatoris, a quarto Andrea vocato Milglotto.

Tutores seu defensores dictorum heredum Bocchacii et Antoni

licet de jure non expedit reliquit, fecit et esse voluit Jacobum

Lapi Gavaciani, Pierum Dati de Canigianis, Barducium Cherichini,

Franciscum Lapi Bonamichi, Leonardum Chiari domini Bottis, Jacobum

Boccacii et Angelum Turini Benciveni cives florentinos et majorem

partem ipsorum superviventem in eis.

Executores autem dicti testamenti reliquit, fecit et esse voluit

fratrem Martinum de Signa predictum, Barducium Cherichini, Franciscum

Lapi Bonamichi Angelum Turini Bencivenni, Jacobum Bocchacii cives

Florentinos et majorem partem ipsorum superviventum ex eis, dans

et concedens dictus testator dictis suis executoribus et majori

parti ipsorum non obstantibus omnibus supradictis plenam baliam et

liberam potestatem de bonis dicti testatoris pro hujusmodi executione

sequenda et adimplenda vendendi et alienandi et pretium recipiendi et

confitendi et de evictione bonorum vendendorum promictendi tenutam et

corporalem possessionem dandi et tradendi jura et actiones dandi et

vendendi et quamlibet quantitatem pecunie petendi et recipiendi et

finem et remissionem de receptis faciendi, et si opus fuerit coram

quibuscumque rogandi, agendi et defendendi, et omnia faciendi quæ sub

agere et causari nomine et principaliter ordinaverit et omnia alia

faciendi quæ in predictis fuerint opportuna.

Et hanc suam ultimam voluntatem asseruit esse velle, quam valere

voluit jure testamenti, quod si jure testamenti non valeret, seu

non valebit, valeat et valebit, et ea omnia valere jussit et voluit

jure codicillorum, et cujuscumque alterius ultime voluntatis, quo et

quibus magis valere et tenere potest, seu poterit, cassans, irritans

et annullans omne aliud testamentum, et ultimam voluntatem actenus

per eum conditum, non obstantibus aliquibus verbis derogationis

inscriptis in illo vel illis, quorum omni etiam derogatione idem

testator asseruit se penitere, et voluit hoc presens testamentum et

ultimam voluntatem prevalere omnibus aliis testamentis, actenus per

eum conditis, quo et quibus magis et melius valere et tenere potest

seu poterit.

* * * * *

Ego Tinellus filius olim ser Bonasere de Pasignano, civis

fiorentinus, imperiali auctoritate judex ordinarius et notarius

publicus predictis omnibus dum agerentur interfui, et ea rogatus

scripsi et publicavi, in quorum etc. me subscripsi.

APPENDIX VI

ENGLISH WORKS ON BOCCACCIO

(_a_) BIOGRAPHY

Creighton, M.

In _The Academy_, vol. i (London, 1875), p. 570. A review of

CORAZZINI: _Le Lettere edite e inedite_.

Dubois, H.

Remarks on the Life and Writings of Boccaccio (London, 1804).

Hewlett, Maurice.

Giovanni Boccaccio as Man and Author, in _The Academy_, vol. xlvi

(1894), pp. 469-70.

Hutton, Edward.

Giovanni Boccaccio. Introduction to _The Decameron_ in _The Tudor

Translations_ (London, 1909).

Hutton, Edward.

Country Walks about Florence (London, 1908).

Deals with the Casa di Boccaccio, Poggio Gherardo, and Villa

Palmieri.

Landor, W. S.

The Pentameron, or Interviews of Messer Giovanni Boccaccio and

Messer Francesco Petrarca, etc. etc. (London). Cf. also _The

Quarterly Review_, vol. lxiv (1839), pp. 396-406.

Owen, J.

The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance (London, 1893), pp. 128-47.

Preston, H. W., and Dodge, L.

Studies in the Correspondence of Petrarch, in _The Atlantic

Monthly_ (Boston, U.S.A.), vol. lxxii (1893), pp. 89, 284, and 395.

Robinson, J. H., and Rolfe, H. W.

Petrarch, the First of Modern Scholars, etc. (New York and London,

Putnams, 1898).

A selection from his correspondence with Boccaccio and others.

Ross, Janet.

A Stroll in Boccaccio's Country, in _National Review_, May, 1894,

pp. 364-71.

Deals with the country about Fiesole and Settignano, where

Boccaccio spent his earliest childhood.

Symonds, J. A.

Giovanni Boccaccio as Man and Author (London, 1895).

This was, till the publication of the present work, the fullest

account of Boccaccio in English; but it is untrustworthy and

altogether unworthy of the author.

Wilkins, E. H.

Calmeta, in _Modern Language Notes_, vol. xxi, no. 7.

Mr. Wilkins tries to identify Calmeta with Andalò di Negro. See

_supra_, p. 20.

(_b_) WORKS

Anon.

The Decameron of Boccaccio, in _The Edinburgh Review_ (1893).

Anon.

Novels of the Italian Renaissance, in _The Edinburgh Review_ (1897).

Anon.

Boccaccio as a Quarry, in _The Quarterly Review_, (1898), p. 188.

Collier, J. P.

The History of Patient Grisel: two early tracts in black-letter,

with introd. and notes. _Publications of the Percy Society_, vol.

iii (London, 1842).

Cotte, C.

An Old English Version of the Decameron, in _The Athenæum_ (1884),

no. 2954.

Cunliffe, J. W.

Gismond of Salern. _Publications of the Modern Language Association

of America_, vol. xxi (1906), part 2.

This deals with the origins of Decameron, iv, 1.

Dibdin, T. F.

The Bibliographical Decameron (London, 1817).

Deals with editions of the _Decameron_, the _Fiammetta_, and the

_Ameto_.

Einstein, Lewis.

The Italian Renaissance in England (New York, 1902).

Deals with the influence of Boccaccio on English Renaissance

Literature.

Garnett, R.

A History of Italian Literature (London, 1898).

Cap. vii deals with Boccaccio.

Kuhns, O.

Dante and the English Poets from Chaucer to Tennyson (New York,

1904).

The author speaks also of Boccaccio.

MacMechan, M.

The Relation of Hans Sachs to the Decameron (Halifax, 1889).

Melhuish, W. F.

Boccaccio's "Genealogy of the Gods," in _The Bookworm_, (1890), pp.

125-8.

Neilson, A. W.

The Origins and Sources of the Court of Love, in _Harvard Studies

and Notes in Philology and Literature_, vol. vi (1899).

Neilson, A. W.

The Purgatory of Cruel Beauties: a Note on Decameron, v, 8, in

_Romania_, xxix, p. 85 _et seq._ (1900).

Scott, F. N.

Boccaccio's "De Genealogia Deorum" and Sidney's _Apologie_, in

_Modern Language Notes_, vi (1891), part iv.

Spingarn, J. E.

A History of Literary Criticism in the Renaissance (New York, 1899).

Stillmann, W.

The Decameron and its Villas, in _The Nineteenth Century_, August,

1899.

Symonds, J. A.

The Renaissance in Italy, vol. iv (Italian Literature), (London,

1881).

Toynbee, Paget.

Benvenuto da Imola and the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_, in _Romania_,

vol. xxix (1900), No. 115.

Toynbee, Paget.

The Bibliography of Boccaccio's _Genealogia Deorum_, in _Athenæum_,

1899, No. 3733.

Wagner, C. P.

The Sources of El Cavallero Cifar, in _Revue Hispanique_, vol. x

(1903), Nos. 33-4, p. 4 _et seq._

Wiltshire, W. H.

The master of the subjects in the _Bocace_ of 1476, in _Catalogue

of Early Prints in the Brit. Mus._, vol. ii, p. 113 _et seq._

(London, 1883).

Woodbridge, E.

Boccaccio's Defence of Poetry as contained in Lib. XIV of the _De

Genealogia Deorum_, in _Pub. of the Mod. Lang. Assoc. of America_,

vol. xiii (1900), part 3.

(_c_) BOCCACCIO AND DANTE

Cook, A. S.

The Opening of Boccaccio's Life of Dante, in _Modern Language

Notes_, vol. xvii (1902), pp. 276-9.

Dinsmore, C. A.

Aids to the Study of Dante (Boston, 1903). Cap. ii speaks of

Boccaccio's life of Dante.

Moore, E.

Dante and his Early Biographers (London, 1890). Cap. ii deals with

the _Life_ and lives attributed to Boccaccio, pp. 4-5.

Smith, T. R.

The Earliest Lives of Dante, translated from the Italian of

Giovanni Boccaccio and Leonardo Bruni Aretino (New York, 1901).

Toynbee, P.

Boccaccio's Commentary on the _Divina Commedia_, in _Mod. Lang.

Rev._ (Cambridge, 1907), vol. ii, p. 97 _et seq._

Wicksteed, P. H.

The Early Lives of Dante (London, 1907).

Witte, K.

The Two Versions of Boccaccio's _Life of Dante_, in _Essays on

Dante_, etc., p. 262 _et seq._ (London, 1898).

APPENDIX VII

BOCCACCIO AND CHAUCER AND SHAKESPEARE

(_a_) BOCCACCIO AND CHAUCER

The standard histories, e.g. _Cambridge History of English

Literature_; Jusserand, _Histoire Littéraire du Peuple Anglaise_; and

Ten Brink, _English Literature_, I have not mentioned.

ENGLISH WORKS

Axon, W. E. A.

Italian Influence on Chaucer. In _Chaucer Memorial Lectures_

(London, Asher, 1900).

Bryant, A.

Did Boccaccio Suggest the Character of Chaucer's Knight? In _Modern

Language Notes_, vol. xvii (1902), part 8.

Buchheim, C. A.

Chaucer's _Clerke's Tale_ and Petrarch's Version of the Griselda

Story. In _Athenæum_, 1894, No. 3470, p. 541 _et seq._

Child, C. G.

Chaucer's _House of Fame_, and Boccaccio's _Amorosa Visione_. In

_Modern Language Notes_, vol. x (1895), part 6, pp. 190-2.

Child, C. G.

Chaucer's _Legend of Good Women_ and Boccaccio's _De Genealogia

Deorum_. In _Modern Language Notes_, vol. xi (1896).

Clerke, E. M.

Boccaccio and Chaucer. In _National Review_, vol. viii (1886), p.

379.

Hamilton, G. L.

The Indebtedness of Chaucer's _Troilus and Criseyde_ to Guido

delle Colonne's _Historia Troiana_ (New York, 1903). Speaks of the

_Filostrato_.

Hammond, E. P.

Chaucer: a Bibliographical Manual (New York, 1908). This is a

splendid piece of work. For Chaucer and Boccaccio, see pp. 80-81,

151-2, 270-3, 305-7, 398-9, 486-7.

Jusserand, J. J.

Did Chaucer meet Petrarch? In _The Nineteenth Century_, No. 232

(1899), pp. 993-1005.

Ker, W. P.

Essays in Mediæval Literature (London, 1906).

Koch, Johann.

Essays on Chaucer, pp. 357-417 (1878).

Launsbury, Thos.

Studies in Chaucer, his Life and Writings, p. 235 (London, 1892).

Lowes, J. L.

The Prologue of the _Legend of Good Women_ considered in

Chronological Relation.

_Publications of Mod. Lang. Ass. of America_, vol. xx (1906).

Mather, A.

Chaucer in Italy. In _Modern Language Notes_, vol. xi (1896).

Ogle, G.

Gualtherus and Griselda, or The Clerke of Oxford's Tale, from

Boccace, Petrarch, and Chaucer (Bristol, 1739).

Palgrave, F. T.

Chaucer and the Italian Renaissance. In _The Nineteenth Century_,

vol. xxiv (1838), pp. 350-9.

Rossetti, W. M.

Chaucer's _Troylus and Criseyde_ (from Harl. M.S., 3943), compared

with Boccaccio's _Filostrato_. Chaucer Society (Trübner), part 1,

1875--part 2, 1883.

Tatlock, J.

Chaucer's _Vitremyte_. In _Modern Language Notes_, vol. xxi (1906),

p. 62.

Tatlock, J.

The Dates of Chaucer's _Troilus and Criseyde_. In _Modern

Philology_ (Chicago, 1903).

Ward, A. W.

_Chaucer_, (London, 1879), p. 166.

FOREIGN WORKS

Ballmann, O.

Chaucers einfluss auf das englische drama im Zeitalter der Königen

Elisabeth und der beiden ersten Stuart-Könige. In _Anglia,

Zeitschrift für Eng. Philologie_, xxv (1902), p. 2 ET SEQ.

Bellezza, P.

Introduzione allo studio de' fonti italiani di G. Chaucer, etc.

(Milano, 1895).

Chiarini, C.

Dalle "Novelle di Canterbury" di G. Chaucer (Bologna, 1897).

Chiarini, C.

Intorno alle "Novelle di Canterbury" di G. Chaucer. In _Nuova

Antologia_, vol. lxxii (1897), fasc. 21, p. 148, and fasc. 22, p.

325.

Demogoet, J.

Histoire des littératures étrangères considérées dans leurs

rapports avec le développement de la littérature française.

Littératures Méridionales. Italie-Espagne (Hachette, 1880). See

cap. vi.

Engel, E.

Geschichte der englischen Litteratur von ihren Anfangen bis auf

die neueste Zeit mit einem Anhange: Die amerikanische Litteratur

(Leipzig, 1883).

Vol. iv of the _Geschichte der Weltlitteratur in

Einzeldarstellung_. At pp. 54-76, Boccaccio and Chaucer are spoken

of; at p. 133, Boccaccio and Sackville; at p. 263, Boccaccio and

Dryden, etc.

Fischer, R.

Zu den Kunstformen des mittelalterlichen Epos. Hartmann's Iwein,

Das Nibelungenlied, Boccaccio's Filostrato und Chaucer's _Troylus

und Cryseide_. In _Weiner Beiträge zur Englischen Philologie_, vol.

ix (1898).

Hortis, A.

Studj sulle opere Latine di Gio. Boccaccio con particolare riguardo

alla storia dell' erudizione nel medioevo e alle litterature

straniere (Trieste, 1879).

Kissner, A.

Chaucer in seinen Beziehungen zur italienischen Litteratur (Bonn,

1867).

This is the only general study of Chaucer's indebtedness to Italy.

Koch, T.

Chaucer Schriften. In _Englische Studien_, vol. xxxvi (1905), part

i, pp. 131-49.

Koch, J.

Ein Beitrag zur Kritik Chaucers. In _Englische Studien_, vol. i

(1877), pp. 249-93.

Koeppel, Emil.

Boccaccio's _Amorosa Visione_. In _Anglia_ (under Chauceriana),

vol. xiv (1892), pp. 233-8.

Landau, Marc.

Beiträge zur Geschichte der italienischen Novelle (Vienna, 1875).

Especially iv, 5.

Mounier, M.

La Renaissance de Dante à Luther (Paris, 1884).

See p. 183 _et seq._ for Boccaccio and Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dryden.

Rajna, P.

Le origini della novella narrata dal "Frankeleyn" nei Canterbury

Tales del Chaucer. In _Romania_, xxxii (1903), pp. 204-67.

Refers to _Decameron_, v, 5.

Segré, C.

Chaucer e Boccaccio. In _Fanfulla della Domenica_, vol. xxii

(1900), p. 47.

Segré, C.

Studi petrarcheschi (Firenze, 1903).

Torraca, F.

Un passo oscuro di G. Chaucer. In _Journal of Comparative

Literature_, vol. i (1903).

Von Wlislocki, H.

Vergleichende Beiträge zu Chaucers Canterbury-Geschichten. In

_Zeitschrift für vergleichende Litteraturgeschichte und Ren.

Litt._, N.S., ii (1889), pp. 182-99.

Willert, H.

G. Chaucer, _The House of Fame_. Text, Varianten, Ammerkungen,

Progr. Ostern., 1888 (Berlin, 1888).

For the _Amorosa Visione_ and Chaucer.

(_b_) BOCCACCIO AND SHAKESPEARE

See also under Chaucer.

Chiarini, G.

Le fonti del mercante di Venezia. In _Studi Shakespeariani_

(Livorno, 1897).

Concerned with Gower and Shakespeare, _Decameron_, x, 1.

Koeppel, E.

Studien zur Geschichte der italienischen Novelle in der Englischen

Litteratur des sechzehnten Jahrhunderst (Strassburg, 1892).

This is vol. lxx of the _Quellen und Forschungen zur Sprach und

Culturgeschichte der Germanischen Völker_. A most important study

of the English versions of the _Decameron_.

Leonhardt, B.

Zu Cymbelin. In _Anglia_, vii (1884), fasc. iii.

Levi, A. R.

Shakespeare e la parodia omerica. In _Nuova Rassegna di Lett.

Mod._, vol. iv (1906), fasc. 2, pp. 113-16.

Concerning the _Filostrato_.

Levy, S.

Zu Cymbelin. In _Anglia_, vii (1884), p. 120 _et seq._

S. Levy contends that _Decameron_, ii, 9 is the source of

_Cymbeline_. B. Leonhardt denies it.

Mascetta-Caracci, L.

Shakespeare e i classici italiani a proposito di un sonetto di

Guido Guinizzelli (Lanciano, 1902).

Ohle, R.

Shakespeares Cymbeline, und seine romanischen Vorläufer (Berlin,

1890).

P[aris], G.

Une version orientale du thème de "All's well that ends well." In

_Romania_, vol. xvi (1887), p. 98 _et seq._

Segré, C.

Un' eroina del B. e l' "Elena," Shakespeariana.

In _Fanfulla della Domenica_, vol. xxiii (1901), p. 16.