La contrada di Bengodi (Leggere è un gusto) (Italian Edition)

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It is an attempt at a bio- graphical and critical study of one of the greatest creative writers of Europe, of one of the earliest humanists, in which, for the first time, in England certainly, all the facts are placed before the reader, and the sources and authority viii PREFACE for these facts quoted, cited, and named. Yet while I have tried to be as scrupulous as possible in this respect, I hope the book will be read too by those for whom notes have no attraction ; for it was written first for delight.

I have left it, then, for another opportunity, or for another and a better student than myself. In regard to the illustrations, I may say that I hoped to make them, as it were, a chapter on Boccaccio and his work in relation to the fine arts ; but I found at last that it would be impossible to carry this out To begin with, I was unable to get permission to reproduce M. In the second place, the subject was too big to treat of in the space at my command.

I wish now that I had dealt only with the Decameron; but in spite of a certain want of com- pleteness, the examples I have been able to reproduce 1 Mr. Berenson Burlington Magtuine, Vol. I , p. Home to Botticelli See Crows and Cavalcaselle ed. Nothing on this subject has yet been published, though something of the sort with regard to Petrarch has been attempted. Beyond the early part of the seventeenth century I have not sought to go, but an examination of the work of the eighteenth century in France at any rate should repay the student in this untouched field.

I have to thank a host of people who in many and various ways have given me their assistance in the writing of this book. Especially I wish to thank Mrs. Ross, of Poggio Gherardo, Mr. Paget Toynbee, and Mr. And I must also express my gratitude to Messrs. Leighton, of Brewer Street, London, W. Without the profound mysticism of Dante or the extraordinary sweetness and perfection of Petrarch, he was more complete than either of them, full at once of laughter and humility and love — that humanism which in him alone in his day was really a part of life.

For him the centre of things was not to be found in the next world but in this. To the Divine Comedy he seems to oppose the Human Comedy, the Decameron, in which he not only created for Italy a classic prose, but gave the world an ever-living book full of men and women and the courtesy, generosity, and humanity of life, which was to be one of the greater literary influences in Europe during some three hundred years. In England certainly, and indeed almost eveiy where to-day, the name of Boccaccio stands for this book, the Decameron.

Yet the volumes he wrote during a laborious and really uneventful life are very numerous both in verse and prose, in Latin and in Tuscan. His earlier romances are without exception romans d clef ; under a transparent veil of allegory he tells us eagerly, even passionately, of himself, his love, his suffer- ings, his agony and delight He too has confessed himself with the same intensity as St Augustine; but we refuse to hear him. Over and over again he tells his story.

One may follow it exactly from point to point divide it into periods, name the beginning and the ending of his love, his enthusiasms, his youth and ripeness; yet we mark him not, but perhaps wisely reach down the Decamerotk from our shelves and silence him with his own words ; for in the Decameron he is almost as completely hidden from us as is Shakespeare in his plays.

And yet for all this, there is a profound unity in his work, which, if we can but see it, makes of all his books just the acts of a drama, the drama of his life. The Decameron is already to be found in essence in the Filocolo, as is the bitter melancholy of the Corbaccio, its mad folly too, and the sweetness of the songs. For the truth about Boccaccio can be summed up in one statement almost, he was a poet before all things, not only because he could express himself in perfect verse, nor even because of the grace and beauty of all his writing, his gifts of sentiment and sensibility, but because he is an interpreter of nature and of man, who knows that poetry is holy and sacred, and that one must accept it thankfully in fear and humility.

He was the most human writer the Renaissance pro- duced in Italy ; and since his life was so full and eager in its desire for knowledge, it is strange that nothing of any serious account has been written concerning him in English , 1 and this is even unaccountable when we remem- ber how eagerly many among our greater poets have been his debtors. Though for no other cause yet for this it will 1 The best study is that of J. Symonds's Boccaccio as Mast and Author Nimmo, It is unfortunately among the less serious works of that scholar.

But no study of Boccaccio can be successful, or in any' sense complete, without a glance at the period which pro- duced him, and especially at those eight-and-forty years so confused in Italy, and not in Italy alone, which lie be- tween the death of Frederic II and the birth of Dante in and the death or Henry VII and the birth of Boc- caccio in This period, not less significant in the general history of Italy than in the history of her litera- ture, begins with the fall of the Empire, its failure, that is, as the sum or at least the head, of Christendom; it includes the fall of the medieval Papacy in and the abandonment of the Eternal City, the exile of the Popes.

These were years of immense disaster in which we see the passing of a whole civilisation and the birth of the modern world. The Papacy had destroyed the Empire but had failed to establish itself in its place. It threatened a new tyranny, but already weapons were being forged to combat it, and little by little the Papal view of the world, of government, was to be met by an appeal to history, to the criticism of history, and to those political principles which were to be the result of that criticism.

In this work both Petrarch and Boccaccio bear a noble part If we turn to the history of Florence we shall find that the last thirty-five years of the thirteenth century had been, perhaps, the happiest in her history. From the triumph of the Guelfs at Benevento to the quarrel of Neri and Bianchi she was at least at peace with herself, while in her relations with her sister cities she became the greatest power in Tuscany.

Art and Poetry flourished within her walls. In , the last sparks, as it was thought, of Tuscan Ghibellinism had been stamped out at Cam- paldino. The Ghibellines were no more, but the Grandi, those Guelf magnates who had done so well at Campaldino, hating the burgher rule as bitterly as the old nobility had done, began to exert themselves.

In the very year of the great battle we find that the peasants of the contrada were enfranchised to combat them. In the famous Ordin- ances of Justice which excluded them from office were passed, and the Gonfaloniere was appointed to enforce these laws against them. A temporary alliance of burghers and Grandi in drove Giano della Bella, the hero of these reforms, into exile, and the government remained in the hands of the Grandi. The quarrel thus begun came to crisis in , the famous year of the jubilee, when Boniface VIII seemed to hold the whole world in his hands.

The dissensions in Florence had not been lost upon the Pope, who, appar- ently hoping to repress the Republic altogether and win the obedience of the city, intrigued with the Neri, those among the magnates who, unlike their fellows of the Bianchi faction, among whom Dante is the most con- spicuous figure, refused to admit the Ordinances of Justice, even in their revised form, and wished for the tyrannical rule of the old Parte Guelf a. Already, as was well known, the Pope was pressing Albert of Austria for a renuncia- tion of the Imperial claim over Tuscany in favour of the Holy See; and Florence, finally distracted now by the quarrels of Neri and Bianchi, seemed to be in imminent danger of losing her liberty.

It became necessary to redress the balance of power, destroyed at Benevento, by an attempt to recreate the Empire. The actual solution was to come, however, from their opponents: These leaders were but tyrants in disguise: Corso Donati, for instance, the head and front of the Neri, was of an old Ghibelline stock, yet he trafficked with the Pope, not for the Church, we may be sure, nor to give Florence to the Holy See, but that he might himself rule the city.

Nor did the Pope disdain to use him. Alarmed even in Rome by the republican sentiments of the populace, who wished to rule them- selves even as the Florentines, he desired above all things to bring Florence into his power. On May 15, , the Pope despatched a letter to the Bishop of Florence, in which he asked: Do not emperors and kings of the Romans yield submission to us, yet are they not superior to Florence?

But though the city gave him many promises, she would not invest him with the Balia. Joined by the exiles in November, , he entered Florence with some horse, part French, part Italian. Maria Novella to keep the peace. On that same day, No- vember 5, Corso Donati entered the city with an armed force. The French joined in the riot, the Priors were driven from their new palace, and the city sacked by the soldiers with the help of the Neri.

The proscription, already begun, continued, and before January 27, , Dante went into exile. But if the Pope had failed to do more than establish the Neri in the government of Florence, Corso Donati had failed also ; he had not won the lordship of the city. He tried again, splitting the Neri into two factions, and Florence was not to possess herself in peace till his death in a last attempt in 1 It was during these years so full of disaster that Petrarch was bom at Arezzo on July 20, The medieval idea of the Papacy has been expressed once and for all by S. In his mind so profoundly theological, abhorring variety, the world was to be governed, if at all, by a constitutional monarchy, strong enough to enforce order, but not to establish a tyranny.

The first object of every Christian society, the salvation of the soul, was to be achieved by the priest under the absolute rule of the Pope. This supreme authority is vested in the Pope, who is infallible, and from whom there can be no appeal at any time as to what is to be believed or what condemned. Before these claims the Empire had fallen in ; but a reaction, the result of the success of Boniface, soon set in, and we find the most perfect expression of the revived and reformed claims of the Empire in the De Monarchia, which Dante Alighieri wrote in exile. It was never- theless as hopeless an anachronism as the dream of S.

Thomas Aquinas, and even less clairvoyant of the future, for it disregarded altogether the spirit to which the future belonged, the spirit of nationalism. With a mind as theo- logical as S. He was dreaming of the Roman Empire. The end for which we must strive, he would seem to say in the De Monarchia , that epitaph of the Empire, is unity ; let that he granted.

And since that is the end of all society, how shall we obtain it but by obedience to one head — the Emperor. And this Empire — so easy is it to mistake the past for the future — belongs of right to the Roman people who won it long ago. And what they won Christ sanctioned, for He was bom within its confines.

And yet again He recognised it, for He received at the hands of a Roman judge the sentence under which He bore our sorrows. Yet let Caesar be reverent to Peter, as the first-born should be reverent to his father. So much for the philosophical defence of the reaction. It is rarely, after all, that a rigidly logical conception of society, of the State, has any existence in reality.

The future, as we know, lay with quite another theory. Yet which of us to-day but in his secret heart dreams ever more hopefully of a new unity, that is indeed no stranger to the old, but in fact the resurrection of the Empire, of Christendom, in which alone we can be one? After all, is it not now as then, the noblest hope that can inspire our lives? The future was his, and his success was to be so great that for more than seventy years the Papacy was altogether under the influence of France, the first of the great nations of the Continent to become self-conscious.

Thus when Boniface died broken-hearted in , it was the medieval Papacy which lay in state beside him. Two years later, after the pathetic and ineffectual nine months' reign of Benedict XI, Clement V, Bertrand de Goth, an Aquitanian, was elected, and, like his predecessor, fearful before the turbulent Romans and the confusion of Italy, in fled away to Avignon, which King Charles II of Naples held as Count of Anjou on the borders of the French kingdom. The Papacy had abandoned the Eternal City and had come under the influence of the French king.

Yet in spite of every disaster the Pope and the Emperor remained the opposed centres of European affairs. No one as yet realised the possibility of doing without them, but each power sought rather to use them for its own end. He immediately supported the candidature of his brother, Charles of Valois; but in this he reckoned without the Pope, who with the Angevins in Naples and himself in Avignon had no wish to see the Empire also in the hands of France.

His position forbade him openly to oppose Philip, but secretly he gave his support to Henry of Luxemburg who was elected as Henry VII on 27 November, A German educated in France, the lord of a petty state, Henry, in spite of the nobility of his nature, of which we hear so much and see so little, had but feeble Latin sympathies and no real power of his own.

He dreamed of the universal empire like a true German, believing that the feudal union of Germany and Italy which had always been impossible was the future of the world. With this mirage before his eyes he raised the imperial flag and set out southward ; and for a moment it seemed as though the stars had stopped in their courses. For he was by no means alone in his dream.

Every disappointed ambition in Italy, noble and ignoble, greeted him with a feverish enthusiasm. The Bianchi and the exiled Ghibellines joined hands, enormous hopes were conceived, and in his triumph private vengeance and public hate thought to find achievement But when Henry entered Italy in September, , he soon found he had reckoned without the Florentines, who had called together the Guelf cities, and, leaguing themselves with King Robert the Wise of Naples, formed what was, in fact, an Italian confederation to defend freedom and their common independence.

It is true that in these acts Florence thought only of present safety: Bitter with loneliness, imprisoned in the adamant of his personality, Dante, amid the rocks of the Casentino, hurled his curses on Florence, and not on Florence alone. Is there, I wonder, anything but hatred and abuse of the cities of his Fatherland in all his work? He has judged his country as God Himself will not judge it, and he kept his anger for ever.

In the astonishing and dis- graceful letters written in the spring of he urged Henry to attack his native city. Brescia, Bergamo, and other cities will continue to revolt until thou hast extirpated the root of the evil. Art thou ignorant perhaps where the rank fox lurketh in hiding?

The beast drinketh from the Amo, polluting the waters with its jaws. Knowest thou not that Florence is its name? He entered Rome before attacking Florence, in May, He easily won the Capitol, but was fiercely opposed by King Robert when he tried to reach S. Angelo he was repulsed with heavy loss.

The Roman people, however, presently took his part, and by threats and violence compelled the bishops to crown him in the Lateran on June If Rome greeted him, however, she was alone.

Florence remained the head and front of the unbroken League. The Latins must always hold the Germans in enmity, seeing that they are opposed in act and deed, in manners and soul ; not only is it impossible to serve, but even to hold any intercourse with that race. From mid-September to the end of October the Imperial army lay about the City of the Lily, never daring to attack.

Then the Emperor raised the siege and set out for Poggibonsi, his health ruined by anxiety and hardship, and his army, as was always the case both before and since, broken and spoiled by the Italian summer. He spent the winter and spring between Poggibonsi and Pisa, then with some idea of retrieving all by invading Naples, he set off southward in August to meet his death on S.

And Florence announced to her allies: The Middle Age had come to an end. The morning of the Renaissance had already broken on the world. The Rime — The Sonnets to Fiammetta. Boccaccio as Ambassador— The Meeting with Petrarch. Petrarch and Boccaccio— The Latin Works. Ross, of Poggio Gherardo, near Settignano, Florence. The Will of Giovanni Boccaccio. Boccaccio and Chaucer and Shakespeare. Synopsis of the Decameron , together with some Works to be consulted.

Frontispiece From the frescoes in the Spanish Chapel at S. Show- case V, MS. Casa di Boccaccio, Corbignano, near Florence. By the courtesy of Messrs. Boccaccio and Mainardi Cavalcanti. Sapor mounting over the prostrate Valerian. Manlius thrown into the Tiber. Allegory of Wealth and Poverty. The Murder of the Emperor and Empress. This cut originally appears in the Troy Book. Unique copy at Dresden. Du m, Paris, Paris, 80 By the cou r tesy of Messrs. Frontispiece of the Decameron. The Duke of Athens. Cimon and Iphigbnia Dec. Gulfardo and Guasparruolo Dec. Madonna Francesca and her Lovers Dec.

The Knight who thought himself ill-rewarded Dec. The Story of Grisblda Dec. The Story of Griselda Dec. The Marquis of Saluszo, while out hunting, meets with Griselda, a peasant girl, and falls in love ; he clothes her in fine things. From the picture in the National Gallery by? Her two children are taken from her, she is divorced, stripped, and sent back to her father's house. The Palace of the Popes at Avignon. By the conrteiy of Mean. Masbtto and the Nuns Dac. Monna Tessa Exorcising the Devil. A Woodcut from the Decameron. A Woodcut from the Decameron Venice, Title to Day V By the courtesy of Messrs.

Petrarch and Boccaccio Discussing Paulina, Mundus, and the God Anubis. The Torture of Regulus. Villa Palmibri, near Florence. La Valle delle Donne. To begin with, we are uncertain of the place of his birth and of the identity of his mother, of whom in his own person he never speaks. I Scritti intomo al Boccaccio e alia fortuna delle sue opere. That he was of humble birth seems certain, but his career, what we know of his career, would suggest that he was in a position of considerable importance.

We know that in he was in business in Florence, the name of his firm being Simon Jannis Orlandini, Cante et Jacobus fratres et filii q. Ammannati et Boccaccinus Chelini de Certaldo.

BUY ON AMAZON'S NEVER EASY

In the first half of he was among the aggiunti deputati of the Arte del Cambio for the election of the Consiglieri della Mercanzia ; 6 in 1 he was him- self one of the five Consiglieri ; in the latter part of 1 See Pbtrarca, Senili , VIII, i. Davidsohn, Il Padre di Gio. Idem, Forschungen zur Geschichte von Florenz Berlin, , pp. Boccaccio tells us his father saw. In 1, indeed, we find the Florentines address- ing a letter to the King of France, 4 lamenting that at such a moment His Majesty should have taken measures hurtful to the interests of their merchants, upon whom the pros- perity of their city so largely depended.

Boccaccio di Chellino seems to have remained in Paris in business; 5 that he was still there in we know, for 1 In the carteggio of the Signoria Fiormtina missive iv. The Signoria on April 12, , write to King Robert that the lack of corn in the city is so great as to cause fear of tumult ; wherefore they pray him to order the captains of his ships to send certain galleys they had taken with com to Talamone, wheie they might buy what they needed. Under this letter is written: Predicta notificata sunt Boccaccio de Certaklo, Baldo Orlandini et Acciaiolo dc Acdaiolis, et mandatum est et scriptum, quod litteras predictas domino regi presententur.

But see injra, He must have come into personal relations with King Robert on this occasion, even though hitherto he had not done so. Havkmann, Geschichte des ausgangs des Tempelherrenordens Stutt- gart, , pp. Let us now examine such evidence as we may gather from the allegories of his own poems and plays, though there he speaks in parables. The Ameto , like the Ftlocolo, was written to give expression to his love for Fiammetta, the bastard daughter of King Robert of Naples.

Again, in another part of the same book the story is related of a young Italian merchant, not distinguished by birth or gentle breeding, who went to Paris and there seduced a young French widow. The fruit of their intercourse was a boy, who received the name of Ibrida. The evidence to be gathered from the Filocolo is even more precise, but, briefly, it may be said to confirm the story in the Ameto?

We find there, how- ever, that the name of the father was Eucomos, which may be bad Greek for Boccaccio ; that the name of the mother was Gannai, which might seem to be an anagram for Giovanna or Gianna ; and that the father deserted the mother in order to marry Gharamita, 4 which sounds like 1 Boccaccio, De Cat. L ; Antona Travbrsi, Della patria di Gio. Montier Firenze, , Vol. Crbscini, Contributo agli etude sul Boccaccio Torino, , cap.

If he was born in , he was conceived and born in Paris, for we know that Boccaccio di Chellino was there in the years between and He was a man distinguished by excellence of manners. The course of his commercial that if our theory be correct, Giovanni Boccaccio bears the names of both his parents — Giovanna and Boccaccio. It is necessary to point out, how- ever, that there is not much in this, for a paternal uncle was called Vanni, and Giovanni may have been named after turn, as his brother was named after another uncle. Baldblli, Vita di Gio.

Boccaccio Firenze, , p. Villani was a contemporary of Boccaccio, and succeeded him in the chair founded at Florence for the exposition of the Divine Comedy. There then it befell that he was inspired by love for a girl of Paris, belonging to the class between nobility and bourgeoisie, for whom he conceived the most violent passion ; and, as the admirers of Giovanni assert, she became his wife and afterwards the mother of Giovanni. But others were not slow to say that his father and mother were never married; and indeed, this without doubt was the ordinary opinion.

Again, Salvini and Manni, following perhaps the well-known sonnet of Acquettino, say he was born in Florence. Liber de Civitatis Florentine fames is civibus ex codice Mediceo Laurcntiano , nunc primum editus , etc. Casciano, 1 PP- Boccaccio Citta di Castello, , cap. See also Crescini, op, cit.

Felicita quarter, close to the Via Guicciardini. This is the corner-stone of their structure. But the story of his illegitimacy and foreign birth was current long before this date was established. It was the commonly received opinion. Doubtless because Boccaccio himself had practically stated so in the Filocolo and the Ameto. Was Boccaccio speaking the mere truth concerning himself in these allegories? Filippo Villani himself, as we have seen, believed that he was bom at Certaldo ; so did Domenico Aretino.

For myself, I do not think that enough has been allowed for the indirect influence of Fiammetta in the Filocolo and the Ameto. They were written for her — to express his love for her. She doubtless thought herself a very great lady, and was probably prouder of her royal blood than a legitimate princess would have been. But Boccaccio was just the son of a small Florentine trader ; and he was a Poet. To proclaim himself— half secretly — illegitimate was a gain to him, a gain in romance. How could a youthful poet, in love with a princess too, announce himself as the son of a petty trader, a mere ordinary bourgeois, to a lady so fine as the blonde Fiammetta?

Indeed the Filocolo seems to suggest that he did not. Where was this hill dark with oaks where one might find sea-shells, the tiny shells of sea-snails? We do not know for certain. So he invented a romantic birth — he too would be the result of a love-intrigue, even as Fiammetta was. And because he loved her, and therefore wished to be as close to her and as like her as possible, he too would have a French mother.

Suppose all this to be true, and that after all Boccaccio is the son of Margherita, the wife of his father ; that he was born in wedlock in ; that he met Fiammetta not on March 30, see Appendix I , but on March 30, , and that he told Petrarch he was bom in because he knew his father was in Paris at that date — this last with his usual realism to clinch the whole story he had told Fiammetta.

Pier Maggiore for some four years. See Manni, Istoria del Decameron Firenze, , p. This may mean little, however, for the residence may have been purely formal, and have signified merely that a business was carried on there in his name. But see Crescxni, op. As though unable to forget the lines of just those hills, the shadows on the woods there, the darkness of the cypresses over the olives, he returns to them again and again. It is, then, to the hills about Settignano, to the woods above the Mensola and the valley of the Affrico, that we should naturally turn to look for the scenes of his boyhood.

And indeed any doubt of his presence there might seem to be dismissed by a document discovered by Gherardi, which proves that on the 18th of May, , by a contract drawn up by Ser Salvi di Dini, Messer Boccaccio di Chel- lino da Certaldo, lately dwelling in the parish of S. Pier Maggiore and then in that of S. Felicity, sold to Niccoli di Vegna, who bought for Niccol6 the son of Paolo his nephew, the poderi with houses called Corbignano, partly in the parish of S. Martino a Mensola and partly in that of S. The fact that the parish of S. Of those early years we have naturally very little know- ledge.

Against this mode of life he conceived then a most lively hatred, which was to increase rather than to diminish as he grew older. Such work, he assures us in his Commentary on the Divine Comedy , cannot be followed without sin. Great wealth, he tells us in the Filocolo , prohibits, or at least spoils virtue: Casa di Boccaccio is within sight and almost within hail of Poggio Gherardo, the supposed scene of the first two days of the Decameron.

But see Crbscini, op. See Corazzini, Le Lett. Firenze, , p. It was probably the Metamorphoses of Ovid that he read with Mazzuoli, though in the Filocolo he speaks of the Ars Atnandi l The Metamorphoses were read for the sake of the mythology as well as for the exercise in Latin. Heckbr, Boccaccio Funde Braunschweig, , p , and Massera, op.

But we know nothing of his childhood, only it seems to have been unhappy. Till his return from Naples many years later, in spite of his hatred for business, he seems always to have got on well with his father. We have already relied so much on the Filocolo and the Avneto that it will only confuse us to forsake them now. In the former , 8 he tells us that one day the young 1 Della Torre, op.

These two bears who chased Giovanni from home, not directly but indirectly, by caus- ing the fear which hatred always rouses in the young, were, it seems, Margherita and her son Francesco, born about It may well be that Boccaccino had come to the con- clusion about this time that Giovanni would never make a banker, and hoping yet to see him prosperous in the Florentine manner, sent him to Naples to learn to be a merchant.

If we add to this inference the evidence of the allegory of the two bears in the Filocolo, we may conclude that his father, disappointed with him already, was not hard to persuade when Margherita, loath to see the little bastard beside her own son Francesco, urged his departure.

All this, however, is conjecture. Boccaccio a Napoli in Arch. The route given above is, according to De Blasiis, the one he took, though of course there is no certainty about it. Heywood informs me that at that date the country about Perugia was in a state of war. This route then via Perugia would have been dangerous if not impossible. The explanation may be that the Florentines and Sienese were allied with the Perugians. Certainly in the spring of there were Florentine troops in the Perugian camp before Spoleto.

Perhaps the boy found protection fay travelling with some of his military compatriots. And as he slept, a dream came to him. Naples was then at the height of its splendour, under Robert th e Wise. If his titles had little reality, for that of Jerusalem merely commemorated an episode of history, and Sicily itself had passed' into the hands of Aragon, as Kinef of Nap les and Count of Provence he possessed an exceptional influence in the affairs of Europe, while in Italy he was in some sort at the head of the tri umpha nt Guelf cause.

However that may be, in June, , 1 My translation is free ; I give therefore the original: Of such is the symmetry of Latin work. He himself calls this a prevision of Fiammetta. We cannot help reminding ourselves that the Vita Nuova was already known to him when he wrote thus. He stayed in the house of the Peruzzi dal Parlagio, and Villani 2 says: The brilliancy of his statecraft, or even, perhaps, of his states- manship, added to the splendour of Naples, whither his magnanimity and the brilliance of his court attracted some of the greatest men of the time.

Villani, Cronica , Lib. Nor were they poets and men of learning alone whom he gathered about him. Chiara as crowned by his brother S. There were other things too: Boccaccio never tires of telling us about this city of his youth. Some would glide in boats along the shore ; others, dispensing with shoes and stockings, and lifting high their petticoats, would venture among the rocks or into 1 See Caows and Cavalcaselle, ed.

Hutton Dent, I 9 o 8 ,Vo 1. And seeing that he was surrounded by a life like this, is it any wonder that he fell in love with love, with beauty? Of the first years of his sojourn in that beautiful southern place we have only the vaguest hints. He always hated business, and precocious as he was in his love for literature, in the gaiety and beauty of Naples he grew to despise those engaged in money-making; for, as he says in the Cor- bacctOy they knew nothing of any beautiful thing, but only how to fill their pockets.

He most bitterly reproaches his father in the De Genealogiis 4 for having turned him for so many years from his vocation. I became neither a man of affairs nor a canonist, and I lost all chance of succeeding in poetry. It was in , 1 it seems, that those conversazioni astronomiche began with Calmeta, which aroused in him the desire of wisdom. But who was this Calmeta, this benefactor to whom, after all, we owe so much? Andal6 di Negro, says Crescini; 8 but as Della Torre reminds us, his work was done in Latin, and Giovanni knew but little of the tongue.

It will be seen in the Filocolo , to which we must turn again for guidance, that Calmeta and Idalagos have the same profession; they are both shepherds, and it is in their leisure that Calmeta teaches Idalagos astronomy. It seems then that Calmeta was also in business in Naples. That such an one there was Della Torre proves by draw- ing attention to a letter he will not allow to be apocryphal.

For in the same year, , it seems likely that he was presented at the court of King Robert, 1 a court, as we have already said, full of gay, delightful people and learned men. Before his father left Naples, Giovanni, who was then about sixteen years of age, had had the courage to tell him that he could not pursue a business career. Ill 1S89 , p et seq. To strengthen this supposition, we know that Boccacdno was in Naples at that time, and in relations with King Robert. So his father left him. Whatever his duties had been or were to be, neither they nor his studies with his friend the young merchant occupied all his time.

He enjoyed life, entering with gusto into the gaiety of what was certainly the gayest city in Italy then and later. Like Romeo, Boccaccio had his Rosaline. These were not profound passions, of course, but the sentimental or sensual ardours of youth that were nevertheless an introduction to love himself.

Thus if he came to Naples in it was in that he began to study Law. The last we hear of his father in Naples is in In the Filocolo ed. Whether Abrotonia and Pampinea were the earliest of his loves seems doubtful. Who was the Lia of the Amtto, and when did he meet her? Was she the same person as the Lucia of the Amorosa Visions? Or is the Lucia of the Amorosa Visions not a person at all? See Crescini, lucia non Lucia in Giom. These are questions too difficult for a mere Englishman.

I have, as in almost all concerning the youth of Boccaccio, found myself in agreement with him.

Italian cooking

And again, as once before, a vision came to him. He seemed to be sitting, where indeed he was, all sorrowful, when suddenly Abrotonia and Pampinea appeared to him. For some time they watched him weeping, and then began to make fun of his tears. He prayed them to leave him alone since they were the first and only cause of his grief, but the two damsels redoubled their laughter, so that at last he turned to them and said: Then he awoke; it was still night, and, tearful as he was, he rose to light the lamp, and sat thus thinking for a time.

But weary at last he returned to bed, and presently falling asleep he dreamed again. Once more the two girls stood before him, but with them was another, fairer far, all dressed in green. So the dream ended. What are we to think of these visions? Did they really happen, or are they merely an artistic method of stating certain facts — among the rest that Fiammetta was about to renew his life?

But we have gone too far to turn back now; we have already relied so much on the alle- gories of the A me to, the Filocolo, and the Fiammetta, that we dare not at this point question them too curiously. We must accept them, though not necessarily the explanations that have been offered of them. By this time, however, Boccaccio was already studying Canon Law. Who was his master? He does not himself tell us. All he says is in the De Genecdogiis , 2 and many reading that passage have at once thought of Cino da Pistoia. XI , p. Again, the course seems to have been for six years under the same master, and although Cino was called to Naples in August, , he was in Perugia in He adds that this man was in Paris in , and that Boccaccio there in that year began work under him.

In defence of this theory he cites a letter from Boccaccio himself to Niccola Acciaiuoli of 28th August, , in which he says: But the conjecture itself gains a certain new strength from the feet that Roberti was a professor in Naples. In , however, he proves to have been in Paris, and in fact he did not arrive in Naples till It probably gave him more liberty for reading and for pleasure. At any rate, he" read him, and shortly after he imitates and speaks of him.

Besides, in Boccaccio had returned to Florence. Roberti seems, indeed, to have been the protector rather than the master of Boccaccio, even as Acciaiuoli was, and it is for this reason that Boccaccio alludes to him in writing to Acciaiuoli in when Roberti was dead.

The doctors in Naples in are named by Db Blasiis, op. Hortis, Studi sulk Opere Latino di Gio. Trieste, , p. Pistoiese [ , Vol. It seems probable, then, since they were in personal relations, that Cino introduced the works of Dante to Boccaccio. I quote the following: Perhaps it was one of the many friends he doubtless had among the rich Florentine merchants and their sons then in Naples ; 2 but indeed he could hardly have failed to meet with them in that Angevin Court.

Dante si cantino, il quale tu, siccome piccolo servidore, molto dei reverente seguire. See too the quotations from Dante, for they are really just that in the Filostrato 9 part n. Andal6 di Negro was bom in , it seems, at Genoa. In he was chosen by the Signoria of Genoa as ambassador to Alessio Comneno of Trebizond, and he carried out his mission excellently. He had already travelled much, and after his embassy seems to have gone to Cyprus Genealogiis , u. His pay was six ounces of gold annually Bbrtolotto, u. He died in the early summer of He was a learned astronomer and astrologer, and probably one of the most remarkable men of his time.

Amorosa Visions , cap. He saw her first on a Holy Saturday, on the Vigil of Easter, as he himself tells us, and as we think on 30th March, Lorenzo of the Franciscans. And there amid that great throng of all sorts and conditions of men he first caught sight of the woman who was so profoundly to influence his life and shape his work.

And there, there was a singing compact of sweetest melody. I was listening to the Holy Mass celebrated by a priest, successor to him who first girt himself humbly with the cord, exalting poverty and adopting it. Now while I stood there, the fourth hour of the day, according to my reckoning, having already passed down the eastern sky, there appeared to 1 See Appendix I. Yet little by little in his work Fiammetta lives 1 Ct Sophocles, Antigone , etseq. The scene is described also in the Filostraio 9 i. In the Fiammetta , cap. We should have expected a green dress to agree with the prevision ; but it was Sabbato Santo.

On Easter Day she is in green. Lorenzo on her way home. When she was gone he went back to his room with his friends, who remained a short time with him. These, as soon as might be, ex- cusing himself, he sent away, and remained alone with his thoughts. The morrow was Easter Day, and again he went to S.

Lorenzo to see her only. We know really very little about her, though he speaks of her so often, but in three well-known places, in the Filocolo, the Ameto, and the Atnorosa Visione, he tells us of her origin. It is in the Ameto that he gives us the fullest account of her. Della Torre 4 thinks that it was on this occasion the great festa described by Boccaccio took place. Its chief feature seems to have been a banquet of the greatest magnifi- cence, to which all the court as well as many of the leading subjects of the Kingdom were bidden.

Well, to make a long story short, a little later the king seduced this lady, but as it seems, on or about the same night she slept also with her husband, so that when nine months later a daughter was born to her, both the king and her husband believed them- selves to be the father. It is like a story out of the Decameron. This daughter, the Fiammetta of his dreams, was bom, he tells us, in the spring 6 — the spring then of 6 — and was named Maria. In the Fiammetta, ed. Benedict, to whom belonged the very ancient church of S. Scholastica appeared to her 1 and invited her to take the vow.

But happily this was not to be. She was too beautiful for the cloister, and indeed already the fame of her beauty had gone beyond the convent walls, which were in fact by no means very secure or unassailable. Little by little she began to adorn herself , 6 she received offers of marriage which by no means shocked her, 1 Ameto , ed. The young man, however — we do not know his name — was not easily discouraged, and, renewing his suit, was accepted. So she was married perhaps when she was about fifteen years old, in As to these early marriages, cf.

Decameron , X, There was temptation every- where, as the Decameron alone without the evidence of the other novelle would amply prove. Every sort of shift was resorted to. Procuresses, hired by would-be lovers, forced themselves into the house of the young wife and compelled her to listen to them. They deceived even the most jealous husbands. But no sooner was the fire spent than I broke the vase which contained the water and flung away the pieces. Such, then, was the blonde Fiammetta whom Boccaccio loved. By means of poetry?

But before replying fully a seducer. The society in which she moved had no moral honor of this sort of thing ; as to-day, the sin lay in being found out. She thought poorly of marriage, consoling herself when her lover marries by saying: We may find, as it happens, two dates to begin with in the Amoroso, Visions.

They have not escaped Crescini, 1 who, founding himself on them, has concluded, though not too certainly, that between the day of innamoramento and that of possesso completo 1 59 days passed. He arrives at this tentative conclusion in the following manner. But, said she, one ought to serve her only, and not to run after other ladies. Crescini interprets this to mean that twenty-four days after Boccaccio first saw Fiammetta, she gave him reason to hope.

And he arrives at this conclusion because he considers that the sun is in conjunction with the horizon only once a day, whereas it might seem to be so twice a day, at sunrise as at sunset. This, however, is but a small matter, merely reducing the days to Let us examine this matter somewhat closely. The sun then entered Scorpio on the 17th October and left it on the 14th November. Supposing, then, the date most favourable to him, to wit, that Boccaccio possessed Fiammetta in the night of October: Suppose we take our own date, 30th March, we are in worse case still.

It seems then certain that between these two periods of 12 and days there was an interval. To decide on its length is the difficulty. He then passes on to describe the long and faithful service he gave her: The first of these ends twelve days 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 first began on the 30th March and lasted till the 12th April, , when the second began, to last how long? Well, at least two months, it seems, 4 per- 1 1 s Amoresa Visione , cap. In that case all three periods belong to the same year. If this be not so, the second period was of longer duration than three months, perhaps much longer.

He can scarcely have hoped to seduce a woman of his own class in less time. How long did L an c elot serve for Guinivere? And he was the best Knight that there was in the whole world. Now let us see whither the other facts we have will lead us. But we know from Son- nets xlvii.

Here is the letter, or part of it: Propter quod si tantae dominationis mandata, ad plenum inclyte Princeps, non per- traho, in excutationem animi anxiantis fata miserrima se ostendant Della Torre, op, dt , 9 p. This third period is divided, as we have seen, into three parts, and comprises three bathing seasons.

The first of these falls between 3rd June— 2nd July, , and the 17th October to 15th November, i. The second is a period in which their love had become calmer: That she was married does not seem to have distressed him or appeared as an obstacle at all, for the court was corrupt j 1 but he seems to have been disturbed by the knowledge that she was surrounded by a hundred adorers richer, nobler, and with better opportunities than himself. And so he seems to have come to the conclusion that there was nothing to be done but to make fun of himself for having entertained a thought of her.

It was appar- ently in these states of mind that he passed the days from Holy Saturday to 12th April, , when he found suddenly to his surprise that she was content he should love her if he would. What happened is described in the forty-fourth chapter of the Amorosa Visione. The twelve days were passed, 1 And such was the fashion. It seems that there was evidently an occasion in which Fiammetta gave him to understand that she was not averse from his love. What was this occasion? Della Torre 1 — certainly the most subtle and curious of his interpreters — thinks he has found it: In the prologue to that romance Boccaccio tells us that after leaving the temple of S.

Arcangelo a Baiano, where Fiammetta had been. I have said that it was quite usual for nuns to receive visitors, both men and women, from the outside ; the Fiammetta 2 itself confirms it if need be. The convents were in some sort fashionable resorts where one went to spend an hour in talk.

On some such occasion Boccaccio went to S. When he had 1 Della Tores, op. In the Filocolo he tells us that he first began to hope after this interview. No doubt she wished to play with him as with the rest. Certainly he was not easy in his mind. Then come the words I for one find so suspicious concerning his birth.

In order, he says, to bring her nearer to him, he thinks of his birth which, different in social position as they are, was not unlike hers in its romance. His mother was noble, he tells her, and he feels this nobility in his heart. About this time, then, he began to go more to court, to enter eagerly into the joy of Neapolitan life in search of Fiammetta.

At the same time his studies suffered — he neglected them to the dismay, as we shall see, not only of his father, but of his friends. Something has already been said of the life at the court of King Robert The very soul of it was the three ladies: We find his father complaining of his slackness. However, Giovanni only immersed himself more in Ovid, and doubt- less the throb of hexameter and pentameter silenced the prose of the merchants.

The young women delighting in these things, garlanded with spring flowers, either from high windows or from the doors below, glanced gaily at their lovers ; one with a new gift, another with tender looks, yet another with soft words assured her servant of her love. Chi gli altri poeti a lasciare di loro etema fama ne f santi versi, li quali mai ai nostri orecchi pervenuti non sarieno se costui non fosse?

How he praises her! This burning and eager love was, however, hindered in one thing — he had the greatest difficulty in seeing Fiammetta: Dobbllz and Manicardi and Massera: He humili- ated himself, and at last came to despair. It was in some such moment, during her absence, we may think, that he began the Filostrato , 4 and at length finally abandoned those studies which in some sort his love had killed.

In this feverish state of mind, of soul, sometimes hope- ful, sometimes in despair, Boccaccio passed the next five years of his life, from the spring of to the spring of 1 Fiammetta , ed. Him Boccaccio held in the highest venera- tion, and no doubt Paolo was very useful to him. As for prose, it is possible that he now read the Meta- morphoses of Apuleius, which he certainly knew and ad- mired.

Hecker, Boccaccio- Funde , Braunschweig, , p. V, Vol III, p. Perhaps at the moment Fiammetta lacked a lover, though that is hard measure for her. Some cause there must have been, for a woman does not surely let a lover sigh for five years unheard, and then for no reason at all suddenly requite him. Certainly Giovanni had made many beautiful verses for her, but when did that touch a woman's heart? All this seems to have come to pass at Baia, perhaps, as Boccaccio seems himself to suggest, one day in the woods of Monte Miseno whither they were gone with a gay company holding festa there in the golden spring weather.

Giovanni, we may be sure, was no mean strategist ; he was capable of playing his part in the game of hide- and-seek with the world. Fiammetta, like a very woman, denied it him over and over again, though very willingly she would have given it to him.

Such, even to-day, are Italian manners. It seems to have come during the absence of the husband in Capua. Presently she came in with the maid, who undressed her and put her to bed, and left her, half laughing, half in tears. The gastronomic element in this work is particularly interesting: Recipes are clearly explained and simply ordered in three sections. Ingredient doses and cooking times have been adapted to modern tastes and technologies.

This book is enriched by thirty erotic photographic and graphic illustrations. Luigi Veronelli was an oenologist and a great expert of cooking, whose authority is a guarantee of the interest of this unconventional work. Con un ricettario di cucina tedesca. With a German recipe book.

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DeriveApprodi pages with illustrations 15,00 euro. Gropius at the time of the Weimar Republic. Memories and recipes build a peculiar biography, showing both the artist and the activist. Hannah and her comrades seem to challenge those middle class people that a few years later will welcome the National Socialism. It is a significant portrait of brave people: A 17th century Neapolitan painting, Paris in during the Commune, a cooking school for managers - three apparently different fictional cues that are linked by the narrating character, Ginevra.

So, the reader is told about both the victims of the repression which follows the unsuccessful insurrection and a cook who has to serve arrogant middle class people, after experiencing hunger. Gianni Emilio Simonetti is both an artist and a theorist of art. L'agonia e i suoi sarti.

DeriveApprodi pages with illustrations 16,00 euro. Nadine's diary was written between and , the years of the Spanish civil war, one the most tragic times in modern history. This book certainly offers a testimony of extraordinary experiences and remarkable people, with their strong ideals, but also illusions and limits. In the same time, Nadine tells the reader about everyday life in war, about the search of the most essential goods, about food: Tales and dishes from half-caste cookery.

There are few things that distinguish a people more than its cooking: Who decides or is forced to live in a foreign country is forced to change his habits and language, but always tries to maintain something of his traditional cooking. In Italy , a country the identity of which is most due to its cooking tradition, immigration is a quite recent phenomena and the cooking habits of newcomers are often marginalized.

However, in spite of the domination of spaghetti and pizza, there are many curious people who, in the shadow of their kitchens, are beginning to mix tastes and traditions, to create new dishes. The result is a series of incorrect recipes that you cannot find neither in the Italian nor in the ethnic recipe books: Andrea Perin works in Milan as museum architect and exhibition designer the most recent, Maestri della scultura in legno nel Ducato degli Sforza and museums including the National Archaeological Museum of Vigevano. He is also author of Cose da museo , published with Eleuthera as well.

Il Leone Verde Series: Pages , November A journey through Chaplin's recipes, that enable us to sweep from the poor kitchen of London 's slums to the traditional recipes across the Channel, from the specialties of the American Gold Fever to the French haute cuisine. Germana Merenda wrote theatre pieces for children, tales and stories. She has a passion for travels and international cooking. Pages , October Jules Verne was so greedy that he could't control himself in front of a table full of delights.

And he was as well greedy of scientific knowledge: His stories describe an atlas of world's flavours, of spices and sauces that are no more surprising nowadays because writers as Verne helped us to understand that a travel is knowledge, even of tastes. Irene Cabiati is a journalist of the "Stampa" newspaper. Born in Genoa, Since she has made researches in musicology and history of music, publishing several books, including Carlo Felice, un teatro nella storia with R.

She collaborates with musical programmes for the public TV Rai. Ugo Tognazzi Cremona — Roma started playing with the company of Wainda Osiris, than formed a famous Italian couple of comics with Raimondo Vianello. His cinematographic career started in In the he directed his first movie Il mantenuto, where he plays as an actor too. From to he dedicated to satiric cinema, working with major Italian directors.

He had a big passion for cooking: Good Cuisine in Hard Times. Eleuthera, cm 12,5 x Who says that only rich cuisine is good? Each recipe is thoroughly commented and reveal the culture and tastes of the lower classes at the beginning of twentieth century, showing how even cooking reflected the distance from the power. All 50 recipes were tested by the author himself and by his friends, so that the judgement on taste played a determining role in the choice for publication.

Andrea Perin is an architect and a museums designer based in Milan. He designs archaeology, art and anthropology exhibitions. As a hobby he studies food traditions, and is a skilled cook too. With an appendix of original recipes Foreword by Antonio Fiore. A surprising travel from Lofoten island to your table. The series Cooking and Culture explores culinary traditions and tastes, approaching gastronomic habits, ancient and modern recipes and dishes from a cultural or literary point of view. Offering the reader an original insight into the peculiarities of the ancient gastronomic culture, the books also serve as practical cooking guides, presenting detailed recipes with lists of ingredients and accurate suggestions for the preparation of the dishes.

The books are edited by Attilio A. He is a great and versatile expert in food, gastronomic culture and environmental mathematical models. Edited by Attilio A. Del Re Viennepierre, pp. The recipes include indication of all ingredients and suggestions for their realisation. Professional cooks and cooking lovers will find very interesting and valuable dishes, peculiar cooking techniques and unexpected combinations of ingredients.

The faithful preparation of these dishes projects the cook into the world of ancient Roman and Mediterranean patrician gastronomy. The Latin treatise offers us a selection of culinary masterpieces. The whole book is characterised by uncommon but effective combinations of tastes, bizarre cooking methods, funny and particular presentations. Fresh fish was among the most desired and expensive food in the cities of the Roman Empire. Cooks in patrician manors put great care in its preparation and often looked at the Greek world for inspiration.

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