The Project Gutenberg eBook of Giovanni Boccaccio, a Biographical Study, by Edward HuttonThe Project Gutenberg EBook of Giovanni Boccaccio, a Biographical Study, byEdward HuttonThis eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and mostother parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictionswhatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms ofthe Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll haveto check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.Title: Giovanni Boccaccio, a Biographical StudyAuthor: Edward HuttonRelease Date: August 29, 2014 EBook #46722Language: EnglishCharacter set encoding: UTF-8.
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START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BOCCACCIO.Produced by Anna Tuinman, Ted Garvin, John Campbell andthe Online Distributed Proofreading Team athttp://www.pgdp.net. TRANSCRIBER'S NOTEObvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have beencorrected after careful comparison with other occurrences withinthe text and consultation of external sources.Modern practice in Italian texts contracts (removes the space from)vowel elisions, for example l'anno not l' anno, ch'io not ch' io.This book, in common with some similar English books of the time, hasa space in these elisions in the original text.
This space has beenretained in the etext. The only exceptions, in both the text andetext, are in French names and phrases, such as d'Aquino and d'Anjou.More details can be found at the.GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO. BY THE SAME AUTHORFREDERIC UVEDALE.
1901.STUDIES IN THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS. 1902.ITALY AND THE ITALIANS. Second Edition. 1902.THE CITIES OF UMBRIA. Third Edition. 1905.THE CITIES OF SPAIN. Third Edition.
1906.SIGISMONDO MALATESTA. 1906.FLORENCE AND NORTHERN TUSCANY. Second Edition. 1907.COUNTRY WALKS ABOUT FLORENCE. 1908.IN UNKNOWN TUSCANY.
1909.EDITED BY EDWARD HUTTONMEMOIRS OF THE DUKES OF URBINO.By James Dennistoun of Dennistoun.Illustrating the Arms, Arts, and Literature ofItaly, from 1440 to 1630. New Edition,with upwards of 100 Illustrations. 3 vols.Demy 8vo. 1908.CROWE AND CAVALCASELLE'S A NEW HISTORY OF PAINTING IN ITALY.3 vols.
CASA DI BOCCACCIO, CORBIGNANO, NEAR FLORENCEBut we know nothing of his childhood, only it seems tohave been unhappy. Till his return from Naples manyyear later, in spite of his hatred for business, he seemsalways to have got on well with his father. In rememberingwords which he then wrote concerning himwe must remind ourselves that Boccaccino was at thattime an old man, and had probably lost those 'excellentmanners' of which Villani speaks; and by then, too,Giovanni had altogether disappointed him, by forsakingfirst business, and later the study of Canon Law. 'Cernite RobertumRegem virtute refertum'wrote Petrarch of him later—'full of virtue.' While in aletter written in 1340 to Cardinal Colonna he says that ofall men he would most readily have accepted King Robertas a judge of his ability.
Nor were they poets and menof learning alone whom he gathered about him. In 1330Giotto, who had known Charles of Calabria in Florencein 1328, came to Naples on his invitation; while so earlyas 1310, certainly, Simone Martini was known to him, andseems about that time to have painted his portrait, laterrepresenting him in S. Chiara as crowned by his brotherS. Louis of Toulouse. It was then into a city wherelearning and the arts were the fashion that Boccaccio camein 1323.There were other things too: the amenity of one's dayspassed so much in the open air, the splendour of a cityrich and secure, the capital of a kingdom, and the residenceof a king—the only king in Italy—above all, perhaps,the gaiety of that southern life in the brilliantsunshine.
Boccaccio never tires of telling us aboutthis city of his youth. 'Naples,' he says in theFiammetta, 'was gay, peaceful, rich, and splendid aboveany other Italian city, full of festas, games, and shows.' 'One only thought, how to occupy oneself,' he says again,'how to amuse oneself, dancing to the sound of music, discussingaffairs of love, and losing one's heart over sweetwords, and Venus there was indeed a goddess, so thatmore than one who came thither a Lucrece returned aCleopatra. Sometimes,' he continues, 'the youths andmaidens went in the gayest companies into the woods,where tables were prepared for them on which were setout all manner of delicate meats; and the picnic over,they would set themselves to dance and to romp andplay. Some would glide in boats along the shore, others,dispensing with shoes and stockings, and lifting hightheir petticoats, would venture among the rocks or intothe water to find sea shells; others again would fish withlines.'
And then there were the Courts of Love held inthe spring, when the girls, adorned with splendid jewels,he tells us in the Filocolo, tried to outshine one another,and while the old people looked on, the young mendanced with them, touching their delicate hands. Andseeing that he was surrounded by a life like this, is itany wonder that he fell in love with love, with beauty? POPE JOANA woodcut from the 'De Claris Mulieribus.' (Berne, 1539.) (By the courtesy of Messrs. Leighton.)All this probably happened at the end of 1329, andFiammetta was still more than a year away.
By this time,however, Boccaccio was already studying Canon Law.Who was his master? He does not himself tell us.
Allhe says is in the De Genealogiis, and many reading thatpassage have at once thought of Cino da Pistoja, chieflyperhaps because it is so delightful to link together twofamous men. But while it is true that Cino was a doctor ofLaw in Naples in 1330, we know that Boccaccio studiedCanon Law, and that Cino was a Doctor of Civil Law anda very bitter enemy of the Canonisti. It seems indeedimpossible to name his master. Whoever he may havebeen, the study of Canon Law which presently became sorepugnant to Giovanni must have been at first, at any rate,much more delightful than business. It probably gavehim more liberty for reading and for pleasure.
He had,of course, begun to study Latin again, and no doubt heread Ovid, whom he so especially loved—. 'Quattro via sei volte il soleCon l' orizzonte il ciel congiunto aveva.' It appeared that his courting pleased his lady, and heseemed to understand from her that there was no distancehowever great, between lover and beloved, that love couldnot annihilate. But, said she, one ought to serve her only,and not to run after other ladies.Crescini interprets this to mean that twenty-four daysafter Boccaccio first saw Fiammetta, she gave him reasonto hope.
And he arrives at this conclusion because heconsiders that the sun is in conjunction with the horizononly once a day, whereas it might seem to be so twice aday, at sunrise as at sunset. The other 135 days ofCrescini's chronology come from the following verses ofchapter xlvi. Of the Amorosa Visione, in which Boccacciotells us that he was able to possess Maria after. 'nella braccia la Donna pietosaIstupefatto gli parea tenere.' Taken thus we may divide the story of his love for Fiammettainto three periods. The first of these ends twelvedays after the first meeting, and is the period of uncertainty.The second period is that in which he is accepted as courtier,as it were, on his trial. The third begins when his lady,moved by long service and repeated proofs of his devotions,returns his love; it is the period of 'dolce signoria' andlasts one hundred and thirty-five days, at the end of whichshe gives herself to him.Of these periods we know only the length, then, of thefirst and the last.
The first began on the 30th March andlasted till the 12th April, 1331, when the second began, tolast how long? Well, at least two months, it seems, perhapsthree.
In that case all three periods belong to thesame year. If this be not so, the second period was oflonger duration than three months, perhaps much longer.Boccaccio himself tells us that it was 'non senza moltoaffanno lunga stagione.' Now it seems reasonable tosuppose that even so eager a lover as Boccaccio cannotcall three months 'lunga stagione,' though he were dyingfor her and each minute was an eternity. He can scarcelyhave hoped to seduce a woman of his own class in lesstime. Common sense, then, is on our side when remindingourselves that Maria d'Aquino was of the noblestfamily, married, too, to a husband who loved her, andgenerally courted by all the golden youth of Naples—whileGiovanni was the son of a merchant—we insist thathe cannot mean a paltry three months when he speaks ofa long time. But if the second period lasted more thanthree months, and so does not belong to the year 1331, towhat year or years does it belong?Della Torre seems to have found a clue in the followingsonnet, whose authenticity, though doubted by Crescin.