Giovanni Boccaccio (2024)

Giovanni Boccaccio has been called the father of Italianprose. He was a great admirer of Dante and acontemporary of Francesco Petrarca, whom heknew personally and who had a directinfluence on his development as a humanist scholar. Boccaccio's mostfamous work, the Decameron,was condemned by the Catholic Church and included in the index ofProhibited Books (Index librorum prohibitorum) in 1559 on the groundsof its "intolerable errors." In the USA the work was banned until the1930s.

"There may also be thoseamongyou who will say that I have an evil and venomous tongue, because incertain places I write the truth about the friars. But who cares? I canreadily forgive you for saying such things, for doubtless you areprompted by the purest of motives, friars being decent fellows,who forsake a life of discomfort for the love of God, whodo their grinding when the millpond's full, and say no more aboutit. Except for the fact that they all smell a little of the billy-goat,their company would offer the greatest of pleasure." (in the Decameron, translated by G.H.McWilliam, 1972)

Boccaccio was born in Florence or Certaldo, June or July 1313.Hewas the illegitimate son of Boccaccino di Chelino, a merchant and anagent of the Bardi bank, and an unknown French woman. After beingeducated in Florence by the grammarian Giovanni di Domenico Mazzuoli daStrada, he wassent to be an apprentice in his father's bank in Naples, where he wastrained as a money changer. Boccaccio thenstudied canon law at the University of Naples until 1336, staying onand working in bankinguntil 1341, but meanwhile deciding to be a writer.

During this period Boccaccio made the acquaintance withthe royal librarian, Paolo da Perugia, the Florentine mathematicianPaolo dell'Abbaco, the astrologer Andalò del Negro, and otherintellectuals. In an often cited passage of Genealogia deorum gentilium,Boccaccio asserted that his father's fruitless attemps to shakehim out of his attachment to literature had the disastrous result thathe "turned out neither a business man, nor a canon-lawyer, and missedbeing a good poet besides." (Boccaccio on Poetry, translated byCharles G. Osgood, 1930, pp. 131-132)

While in Naples hehad or imagined a love affair with a noblewoman, the "Fiammetta"(Little Flame) of his 1343 novel. Shehas been identified with Maria d'Aquino, illegitimate daughter of KingRobert, whose court Boccaccio frequented between 1328 and 13440. Manycritics have questioned the probability of their love affair, but likeDante's Beatrice or Petrarch's Laura, she served as his Muse.

Boccaccionever married but he fathered at least five natural children. In the Decameron, she is one of thecharacters who tell stories. Much of Boccaccio's early work there wasin the form ofromances in prose and verse. Ilfilostrato (The Filostrato), of about 1335, is the story ofTroilus and Cressada in terza rima.Later he moved away from the allegorical and figurative style of hisearly romances, pastorals and poems.

Due to financial setbacks, Boccaccio returned with his fatherto Florence in winter of 1340-1341,occupied some minor official posts and was there during the BlackDeath, 1348. He wrote in novel form the Elegia di Madonna Fiammetta(Amorous Fiammetta) and in ottawarima the love story Ilninfale fiesolano (The Nymph of Fiesole). It was followed by thefamous collection of tales, the Decameron,of 1348-51.

Christine de Pizan (ca.1365 - ca.1429)based her most famous feminist work, LeLivre de la cité des dames (1405, The Book of the City ofLadies), on Boccaccio's Demulieribus claris(1361-62), a collection of biographies of famous women. Boccaccioalso dedicated it to a woman, but written in Latin, the text wasprincipally aimed at male rather than female audience.

After meetings with Petrarch ‒ first time in October 1350 ‒Boccaccio devoted himself tohumanist scholarship. And following the example of his colleague, hedecided to take holyorders. As a diplomat he served the Signoria, the governing body ofFlorence.On behalf of his city, Boccaccio tried to persuade Petrarch to returnto Florence and take up professorship at the new university. Petrarch,who hada good psychological eye, said of Boccaccio's character: "I fearthat this fine humility of yours is pride." (Boccaccio's Naked Muse: Eros, Culture, andthe Mythopoeic Imagination by Tobias Foster Gittes, 2008, p. 7)

Accordingto some sources, Boccaccio met a Cathusian monk, whotold him to repent his sins; his warning prompted Boccaccio to destroyhis earlier, "profane" works. He produced mainly works of erudition inLatinand Italian, but his critics ‒ wrongly ‒ casted him as a diletanttishscholar, without recognizing the merits of his Latin works andvernacular fiction.Boccaccio himself wrote in the Decameron,that "I stray not so far from Mount Parnassus nor from the Muses asmany belike conceive."

From 1354 Boccaccio was active inFlorentine public life. In the 1350s and 1360s went traveled to Rome,Ravenna, Avignon, and Brandenburg on diplomatic missions. A master storyteller and acelebrity of his day, Boccaccio welcomed everywhere he went. It ispossiblethat Boccaccio also got sent on secret missions, like Chaucer, hisEnglish contemporary, who conducted secret negotiations for Edward IIIin Florence in 1373. There is no evidence that Chaucer had read the Decameron, but it has beensuggested that his Canterbury Taleswas influenced by the work.

Boccaccio gave publiclectures in Florence on Dante, 1373-74, but he only got as far as theseventh canto of the Inferno,before he died on December 21, 1375, in Certaldo, where he hadretired. He was famously fat and he suffered from health problemsassociated with obesity, scabies, and dropsy. A good part of the moneyhe earned went to paying his doctor's bill.

During his final months,Boccaccio received the news of Petrarch's death. In his testament, thepoet wrote that his friend Boccaccio will receive fifty Florentine goldflorins "for a winter garment to be worn by him while he is studyingand working during the night hours." (Petrarch: A Critical Guide to the CompleteWorks, edited by Victoria Kirkham & Armado Maggi, 2009, p.344)

Boccaccio's influence on early modern though andliterature has been shadowed by Petrarch's contribution to theemergence of Renaissance. Even Boccaccio belittled his achievements by describing himself in Genealogia as "slow talent and a fluid memory." (Boccaccian Renaissance:Essays on the Early Modern Impact of Giovanni Boccaccio and His Works,edited by Martin Eisner and David Lummus, 2019, p. 19) Nevertheless, the always sharp eyed Michel de Montaigne(1533-1592) said in one of his essays, that "[a]mongthe books that are simply amusing, I find, of the moderns, Boccaccio'sDecameron, Rabelais, and the TheKisses of Johannes Secundus, if they may be ranged under thattitle, worthy of being lingered over as pastime." (SelectedEssays by Michel de Montaigne, The Charles Cotton - W.C. Hazlitttranslation, 1949, p. 154)

The earliest knowntranslation into English of the complete text of the Decameron is ananonymous work of 1620, but the first uncencored translation did notappear until 1886. This translation is sometimes attributed toJohn Florio. He apparently worked from both theSalviati (1582) edition of the Decameronand Antoine Macon's (1582)French version.

The world of the Decameroncontains a subtle numerological structure, beginning from the numbersof tenand one hundred, which are given at the opening: "Here begins thebook called Decameron. . . wherein are contained a hundred stories,told in ten days by seven ladies and three young men." Moreover, thetitle of the book is a combination of two Greek words meaning "ten" and"day." Boccaccio's tales are unified by a frame narrative about the1348 plague in Florence and the group of young men and women, whogather inthe Dominican sanctuary of Santa Maria Novella. They decide to take arefuge from the Black Death outside the city. Led by the oldest womanof the group, they settle in a villa, where they passthe time by telling tales to each other. The subjects, which range fromlove and lust to celibacy, from religion to lascivious monks andlustful nuns, are scrutinized from many different perspectives.

It hasbeen said that the Decameronserved as Charles Bukowski's thematic and structural model for hisnovel Women (1978). (More Notes of a DirtyOld Man: The Uncollected Columns, ed. by Stephen Calonne, 2011,p. 229).The book was divided into 99 chapters, its workingtitle had been "Love Tale of the Hyena." According to Bukowski,Boccaccio knew that sex was funny. No doubt, Boccaccio was lessfeminist than his American colleague, but he portrayed women withunsual sympathy, when not plunging into stereotypical cliches of histime.

Thebreakdown of normal life, all law andorder, and all morality, provided Boccaccio a defendable excuse toattack all kinds of taboos, and embrace the healing power of love inthe time of the plague. Especially in the tales of the Third andthe Seventh Days, allconstraints and inhibitions are thrown aside. Boccaccio's laughtercontinued the tradition of carnivalization, which turned socialand moral hierarchies upside down. And for once, the Church authoritieslookedpopularcomic practices throughtheir fingers.

After Petrarch consideredthat the tales were written for common people, the Decameronwas generally ignored by intellectuals and the upper classes, but itwas popular in the circles of merchants and financiers. Veryprobably the book was among the pile of "vanities" burned by GirolamoSavonarola in the Piazza della Signoria, Florence, in 1497.

Pasolini's Il Decameronis the most famous recreation of Boccaccio's medieval world for the bigscreen. It was not the first film adaptation of Boccaccio's stories.The American director Fred Wilcox made in 1924 a silent-film epic, Decameron Nights, starring LionelBarrymore. Hugo Fregonese's DecameronNights from 1953 combined elements from the novellas and theauthor's life. In this film Boccaccio tells three love stories toFiammetta and other women. Joan Collins appeared as Pampinea.Pasolini's selection of stories were arranged in a chronology thatdiffered from that of the book. A number of the actors werenonprofessional; theirbad teet added to the realism of the film. Pasolini's sympathies wereon the side of his mischievous, double-dealing but clever characterswho defy bourgeois morality. IlDecameronwas first passed by Italy's censorship committee with some cuts, butthen it was denounced as an "offence to public morality." Against thedirector's expectations, the film was a commercial success and createda boom ofsoft-p*rn versions of Decameronin Italy.

Among the recent films based on the book is Jeff Baena's The Little Hours(2017), shot in Tuscany. The unapologetically raunchy dialogue wasalmost entirely improvised. "When people are committed to things andthe world view they have is no longer in alignment with our world view,then it becomes funny," Baena said in an interview. (The New Yorker, July 3, 2017)

For further reading:Boccaccio and His Imitators in German, English, French, Spanish, andItalian Literature by Florence Nightingale Jones (1910); The FirstEnglish Translation of the Decameron, 1620 by Herbert G. Wright(1953);An Anatomy of Boccaccio's Style by Marga Cottino-Jones (1968); CriticalPerspectives on the Decameron, ed. by Robert S. Dombrowski(1976); TheDecameron: A New Translation: 21 Novelle, Contemporary Reactions,Modern Criticism, translated and edited by Mark Musa and PeterE. Bondanella (1977); The Decameron"Cornice": Allusion, Allegory andIconology by Lucia Marino (1979); Boccaccio by Thomas G. Bergin(1981);'Giovanni Boccaccio 1313-1375: Italian Story Writer, Poet and Scholar'by Nancy M. Reale, in Encyclopediaof Literary Translation IntoEnglish: Volume1: A-L, editedby Olive Classe (2000); 'Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1374)' by Victoria E.Kirkham, in Encyclopedia of ItalianLiterary Studies 1: A-J, edited byGaetana Marrone (2007); Boccaccio'sNaked Muse: Eros, Culture, and theMythopoeic Imagination by Tobias Foster Gittes (2008); The EnglishBoccaccio: A History in Books byGuyda Armstrong (2013); Five Framesfor the Decameron by Joy HambuechenPotter (2014); Boccaccio thePhilosopher: An Epistemology of the Decameron by Filippo Andrei(2017); Boccaccian Renaissance:Essays on the Early Modern Impact of Giovanni Boccaccio and His Works,edited by Martin Eisner and David Lummus (2019); Petrarch and Boccaccio in the FirstCommentaries on Dante's Commedia: a Literary Canon Before Its OfficialBirth by Luca Fiorentini (2020); Love and Sex in the Time of Plague: aDecameron Renaissance by Guido Ruggiero (2021); Boccaccio's Florence: Politics and Peoplein his Life and Work by Elsa Filosa (2022); Boccaccio and Exemplary Literature: Ethicsand Mischief in the Decameron by Olivia Holmes (2023)

Editions:

• Elegia di Costanza, ca. 1332
  
• Epistole mitologica, 1332-1334
  
• Caccia di Diana, 1334-35
  - Diana's Hunt/Caccia di Diana: Boccaccio's First Fiction (translatedby Anthony K. Cassell and Victoria Kirkham, 1991)
  
• Filocolo, 1336-40
  - Giovanni Boccaccio's Il Filocolo, or The Labours of Love (translatedby Rocco Carmelo Blasi, 1974) / Il Filocolo (translated by DonaldCheney and Thomas G. Bergin, 1985)
  
• Filostrato, 1338
  - Chaucer's Troylus and Cryseyde . . . Compared with Boccaccio'sFilostrato (translated by Wm. Michael Rossetti, 1875-1883) / IlFilostrato: The Story of the Love of Troilo as It Was Sung in Italianby Giovanni Boccaccio (translated by Hubertis Cummings, 1924) / TheFilostrato of Giovanni Boccaccio (translated by Nathaniel EdwardGriffin and Arthur Beckwith Myrick, 1929) / Il Folostrato (translatedby Robert P. Roberts and Anna Seldis Bruni, 1986) / Troilus andCriseyde (edited by Stephen A. Barney, 2006)
  
• Epistole allegoriche, 1339
  
• Epistole, 1339-1374
  
• Teseida, c.1340-41
  - The Book of Theseus: Teseida delle nozze d'Emilia (translated byBernadette Marie McCoy, 1974)
  
• La Commedia delle ninfe fiorentine (Ninfale d'Ameto),1341/43
  
• - The Comedia delle ninfe fiorentine, or Ameto, ofGiovanni Boccaccio (translated by Bernadette Marie McCoy, 1978) /L'Ameto (translated by Judith Powers Serafini-Sauli, 1985)
  
• Amorosa visione, 1342 (revised c. 1365)
  - Amoroso Visione (translated by Robert Hollander, Timothy Hampton andMarhherita Frankel, 1986)
  
• Elegia di Madonna Fiammetta, 1343
  - Amorous Fiammetta (translated by Bartholomew Young, 1587) / LaFiametta (translated by James Clark Brogan, 1907; rev. version byEdward Hutton, 1926) / The Elegy of Lady Fiammetta (translated byMariangela Causa-Steindler and Thomas Mauch, 1990)
  - Fiammetta (suom. A.R. Koskimies, 1952)
  
• Ninfale fiesolano, 1344
  - A Famous Tragicall Discourse of Two Louers, Affrican, and Mensola,Their Lives Infortunate Loues, and Lamentable Deaths (London: WilliamBlackman, 1597) / Two Tracts: Affrican and Mensola. an ElizabetheanProse Version of Il ninfale fiesolano by Giovanni Boccaccio (translatedby John Taylor, ed. by C.H. Wilkinson, 1946) / The Nymph of Fiesole(translated by Daniel Donno, 1960)
• De vita et moribus Domini Francisci Petracchi de Florentiasecundum Iohannem Bochacii de Certaldo, ca. 1348-1350
  
• Decamerone, 1348-53 (rev. 1373)
  - The Palace of Pleasure,Beautiful, Adorned and Well Furnished... (by William Painter, 1566-67,ed. by Joseph Jacobs, in The Palace of Pleasures: Elizabethan Versionsof Italian and French Novels, 3 vols., 1966) / The Decameron,Containing An Hundred Pleasant Novels (London: IsaacJaggard, 1620) / The Decameron of Giovanni Boccacci (Il Boccaccio), NowFirst Completely Done Into English Prose and Verse by John Payne (3vols., 1886) / Tales from Boccaccio (translated by Joseph Jacobs, 1899)/ The Decameron (translated by J.M.Rigg, 2 vols, 1903) / The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio (translatedbyRichard Aldington, 1930) / The Decameron (translated by Frances Winwar[pseudonym], 1930) / The Decameron (translated by George HenryMcWilliam,1972) / The Decameron: A New Translation: 21 Novelle, ContemporaryReactions, Modern Criticism (translated and edited by Mark Musa andPeter E.Bondanella, 1977) / Decameron (3 vols., revised and annotatedversion of the John Payne translation, by Charles S. Singleton, 3vols., 1982) / The Decameron (translated by Guido Waldman, 1993) /Decameron (translated by J.G. Nichols,2008) / The Decameron (translated by Wayne A. Rebhorn, 2013);Decameron: a New Translation, Contexts, Criticism (translated andedited by Wayne A. Rebhorn, 2016)
  - Boccaccion Decameron 1-3 (suom. 1908-1910) / Novelleja GiovanniBoccaccion Decameronesta (suom. Joel Lehtonen, 1914) / RakkaustarinoitaDecameronista (suom. 1926) / Prinsso Galeotto eli jutelmiaDecameronista (suom. 1932) / Decamerone. 1 osa (suom. F.E. Wickström,1936) / Decamerone. Neljäs päivä ja siihen kuuluvat 10 kertomusta(suom. Anja Elenius-Pantzopoulos, 1947) / Decamerone (suom. IlmariLahti ja Vilho Hokkanen, 1947) / Decamerone. Ensimmäinen päivä jasiihen kuuluvat 10 kertomusta (suom. Anja Elenius-Pantzopoulos, 1947) /Decamerone. Toinen päivä ja siihen kuuluvat 10 kertomusta (suom. AnjaElenius-Pantzopoulos, 1947) / Decamerone. Kolmas päivä ja siihenkuuluvat 10 kertomusta (suom. Anja Elenius-Pantzopoulos, 1947) /Decamerone. Seitsemäs päivä ja siihen kuuluvat 10 kertomusta (suom.Anja Elenius-Pantzopoulos, 1947) / Decamerone. Kuudes päivä ja siihenkuuluvat 10 kertomusta (suom. Anja Elenius-Pantzopoulos, 1947) /Decamerone. Viides päivä ja siihen kuuluvat 10 kertomusta (suom. AnjaElenius-Pantzopoulos, 1947) / Decamerone: valikoima kertomuksia (3. p.;suom. Ilmari Lahti ja Vilho Hokkanen, 1955) / Novelleja Decameronesta(suom. Joel Lehtonen; piirrokset Aimo Virtasalo, 1972) / Decamerone 1-2(suom. Ilmari Lahti ja Vilho Hokkanen, 1973) / Decamerone (suom. IlmariLahti, Vilho Hokkanen, kuv. Arnee Ungermann, 1983) / Decamerone (16.p.; suom. Ilmari Lahti ja Vilho Hokkanen, 2000)
• De montibus, silvis, fontibus, lacubus, fluminibus, stagnisseu paludibus, et de diversis nominibus maris, 1350-1365
• De genealogie deorum gentilium, 1350-60
  - Boccaccio on Poetry Being the Preface and Fourteenth and FifteenthBooks of Boccaccio's Genealogia Deorum Gentilium (translated by CharlesG. Osgood, 1930) / Genealogy of the Pagan Gods. Vol. 1: Books I-V(translated by Jon Solomon, 2011)
• Bucolicon Carmen, 1351-56
  - Boccaccio's Olympia (translated by I. Gollancz, 1913) / Pearl: AnEnglish Poem of the XIV Century. Edited with Modern Rendering, Togetherwith Boccaccio's Olympia (translated by Sir Israel Gollancz, 1921)
• IlDe origine, vita, studiis et moribus viri clarissimi Dantis Aligeriiflorentini, più noto come Trattatello in laude di Dante . . .(Trattatello in laude di Dante; Vita diDante), ca. 1351; ca. 1359-66; third redaction before 1372
  - A Provisional Translation of the Early Lives of Dante and of HisPoetical Correspondence with Giovanni del Virgilio (translated byPhilip H. Wicksteed, 1898) / A Translation of Giovanni Boccaccio's Lifeof Dante, with an Introduction and a Note on the Portraits of Dante(translated by G.R. Carpenter, 1900) / The Earliest Lives of Dante(tranlated by James Robinson Smith, 1901) The Life of Dante Trattateloin laude di Dante (translated by Vincenzo Zin Bollettino,1990)
• Corbaccio, or Laberinto d'amore, ca. 1355
  - The Corbaccio (translated by Anthony K. Cassell, 1975; rev. as TheCorbaccio, or The Labyrinth of Love, 1993) / Boccaccio's Revenge: ALiterary Transposition of the Corbaccio (translated by Normand R.Carrtier, 1977)
• Argomentie rubriche dantesche Argumentum super tota prima parte Comedie DantisAligherii florentini . . ., 1355 (as Brieve raccoglimento dicio che in se superficialmente contiene la lettera della prima partedella Cantica overo Comedia di Dante Alighieri di Firenze, ca. 1363-66)
  
• De casibus virorum illustrium, 1355-1360 (8 vols.)
  -The Fall of princes (translated by John Lydgate, 1494) / The Tragedies,Gathered by John Bochas, of All such Princes as Fellfrom Theyr Estates throughe the Mutability of Fortune since theCreation of Adam (translated by John Lidgate, 1554?) / Lydgate's Fallof Princes (ed. by Henry Bergen, 4 vols., 1924-27) / The Fates ofIllustrious Men (translated and abridged by Louis Brewer Hall, 1965)
  
• Epistola consolatoria a Pino de Rossi, 1361-62
  
• De claris mulieribus / De mulieribus claris, 1361-62
  - De Preclaris Mulieribus, That Is to Say in Englyshe, Of the RyghtRenoumyde Ladyes (translated by Henry Parker, 1789) / Forty-six LivesTranslated from Boccaccio's De ClarisMulieribus (by Henry Parker, Lord Morley, edited by Herbert G. Wright,1943) / Concerning Famous Women (translated by Guido Guarino,1963) / Famous Women (edited and translated by Virginia Brown, 2001)
• Vita sanctissimi patris Petri Damiani, 1361-62
• Testamento, 21 August 1365
  
• Esposizioni sopra la Comedia di Dante / Commento allaDivina Commedia, 1373-74
  
• Il Decameron di messer Giovanni Boccacci cittadinfiorentino . . ., 1582 (edited by Lionardo Salviati)
  
• Opere volgari, 1827-34 (17 vols., ed. J. Moutier)
  
• Le lettere edite a inedite di Messer Giovanni Boccaccio,1877 (edited by Francesco Corazzini)
  
• Lettere, carni ed altri scritti minori, 1789 (edited byAttilio Hortis)
  
• Opere latine minori, 1928 (ed. A.F. Massera)
  
• Boccaccio On Poetry: Being The Preface And The FourteenthAnd Fifteenth Books Of Boccaccio's Genealogia Deorum Gentilium, 1930(translated with introductory essay and commenary by Charles G. Osgood)
  
• Opere minori. La Fiammetta, L'Ameto, Il corbaccio, Letteraconsolatoria a m. Pino de' Rossi, 1932
• L'ameto. Lettere. Il corbaccio, 1940 (ed. NicolaBruscoli)
• Teseida, delle nozze d'Emilia, 1941 (ed. Aurelio Roncaglia)
• Novelle burlesche del Decamerone, 1943 (ed. SalvatoreBattaglia)
  
• L'elegia di madonna Fiammette, 1944 (ed. SalvatoreBattaglia)
• Boccaccio on Poetry, 1954 (translated by Charles G. Osgood)
  
• Tutte le opere di Giovanni Boccaccio, 1964-1998 (ed.Vittore Branca, Antonio Enzo Quaglio, Alberto Limentani, ArmandoBalduino)
• Opere in versi; Corbaccio; Trattatello in laude di Dante;Prose latine; Epistole, 1965 (ed. Per Giorgio Ricci)
• Opere, 1967 (ed.. Bruno Maier)
• Decameròn e opere minori. Antologia, 1969 (ed. AldoBorlenghi)
  
• Opere minori in volgare, 1969-72 (4 vols., ed. MarioMarti)
• Decamerone, Boccaccio IV, 1976 (in Classici Mondadori,edited by Vittore Branca)
  
• Opere, 1980 (ed. Cesare Segre, Maria Segre Consigli,Antonia Benvenuti)
• Eclogues, 1987 (edited and translated by Janet LevarieSmarr)
• Vite di Petrarca, Pier Damiani e Livio, 1992 (edited byRenata Fabbri, in Tutte le opera, vol. 5)
  
• Le rime, 2010 (ed. Antonio Lanza)
• The Latin Eclogues, 2010 (translated by David R. Slavitt)
  
• Rime, 2013 (ed. Roberto Leporatti)
  
• Decameron: a New Translation, Contexts, Criticism, 2016(translated and edited by Wayne A. Rebhorn)
  
• The Downfall of the Famous: New Annotated Edition of TheFates of Illustrious Men, 2018 (translated and abridged by Lous BrewerHall)
  
• Vida de Dante Alighieri: tratado en honor de DanteAlighieri florentino, poeta ilustre, 2020 (edición crítica ytraducción; edited by Carmen F. Blanco Valdés)