BOCCACCIO.
The family of this celebrated writer, who claims a distinguished place among the founders of Italian literature, came from the village of Certaldo, in the valley of the Elsa, about twenty miles south-west of Florence. His father, Boccaccio di Chellino, was a Florentine merchant, who, in his visits to Paris, became acquainted with a Frenchwoman, of whom Giovanni Boccaccio, the subject of this memoir, was born, A. D. 1313. It is uncertain whether Paris or Florence was the place of his nativity. He commenced his studies at Florence, under Giovanni da Strada, a celebrated grammarian; but was apprenticed by his father, when hardly ten years old, to another merchant, with whom he spent six years in Paris. Attached to literature, he felt a strong distaste to his mercantile life. He manifested the same temper after his return to Florence; upon which his father sent him to Naples, partly upon business, partly because he thought that mingling in the pleasures of that gay city might neutralize his son’s distaste to the laborious profession in which he was engaged. Robert of Anjou, the reigning king of Naples, encouraged learning, and his court was the most polished of the age: and during an abode of eight years in that capital, Boccaccio became acquainted with most of the learned men of Italy, especially Petrarch, with whom he contracted a friendship, broken only by death. There also he fell in love with a lady of rank, whose real name he has concealed under that of Fiametta. Three persons have been mentioned as the object of his passion: the celebrated Joanna of Naples, grand-daughter of Robert; Mary, the sister of Joanna; and another Mary, the illegitimate daughter of Robert, who seems to have the best claim to this distinction. It was at Naples, that Boccaccio, inspired by a visit to Virgil’s tomb, conceived his first longings after literary fame. He determined to give up commerce, and devote himself entirely to study; and his father consented to this change, but only on condition that he should apply himself to the canon law. This was a new source of annoyance. For several years he pored over “dry decisions and barren commentaries,” as he expresses himself; until he obtained his doctor’s degree, and was left at liberty to follow his own pursuits.
Engraved by W. Hopwood.
BOCCACCIO.
From a Print by Cornelius Van Dalen.
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.
London, Published by Charles Knight, Pall Mall East.
After remaining some time at Florence he returned to Naples; where he employed himself in writing prose and verse, the Decameron and the Teseide. His father died in 1349: and having turned his inheritance into money, he travelled to Sicily, Venice, and other parts of Italy, collecting manuscripts, frequenting universities and libraries, studying Greek under Leontius Pilatus of Thessalonica, astronomy under Andalone del Negro, and Roman literature and antiquities. Manuscripts at this time were very costly; and he soon exhausted his patrimony in these pursuits. He then applied himself to transcribing works; and, by dint of expense and labour, collected a considerable library, which he bequeathed to the Augustine friars of Santo Spirito, at Florence. But his means were inadequate to gratify his liberal tastes: and at times he found himself in very straitened circumstances. It is said that he sometimes availed himself of his skill as a copyist, to eke out his resources. In Petrarch he found a generous friend and a wise counsellor.
Boccaccio enjoyed a high reputation among his countrymen for learning and ability; and he was several times employed by them on embassies and affairs of state. But of all his missions, the most pleasing was that of repairing to Padua, to communicate to Petrarch the solemn revocation of the sentence of exile passed on his father during the factions of 1302; and to inform him that the Florentines, proud of such a countryman, had redeemed his paternal property, and earnestly invited him to dwell in his own land, and confer honour on its then rising university. Though much affected by this honourable reparation, Petrarch did not at the time comply with their request.
About 1361, a singular circumstance wrought a total change in Boccaccio’s feelings and mode of life. A Carthusian monk came to him one day, and stated that father Petroni of Sienna, a monk of the same order, who had died not long before in the odour of sanctity, had commissioned him to exhort Boccaccio to forsake his studies, reform his loose life, and prepare for death. To prove the truth of his mission, he revealed several secrets, known only to Boccaccio and Petrarch, to both of whom both the monks were totally unknown. Terrified at this mysterious communication, Boccaccio wrote to Petrarch, expressing his resolution to comply with the advice, and shut himself up in a Carthusian cloister. Petrarch’s answer, which may be found among his Latin epistles, is full of sound sense. He tells his friend, that though this disclosure of secrets, supposed to be unknown to any living soul, appeared a mystery, yet “there is such a thing as artifice in imposture which may at times assume the language of supernatural inspiration; that those who practise arts of this kind examine attentively the age, the aspect, the looks, the habits of the man they mean to delude, his theories, his motions, his voice, his conversation, his feelings, and opinions: and from all these derive their oracles.” He adds, that as to the prediction of approaching death, there was no occasion for a message from the next world to say, that a man past the middle age, and infirm of body, could not expect to have many years to live: and, in conclusion, advises his friend to tranquillize his imagination, and to avail himself of the warning towards leading a more regular life; retaining at the same time his liberty, his house, and his library, and making a good use even of the heathen authors in the latter, as many holy men, and the fathers of the church themselves, had done before him. This letter restored Boccaccio to reason. He gave up his intention of retiring from the world, and contented himself with assuming the ecclesiastical dress; and being admitted to the first gradation of holy orders, he adopted a regular and studious course of life, and turned his attention to the study of the Scriptures.
About the following year he again visited Naples, but he was disgusted by the neglect which he experienced; and, in 1363, he went to Venice, and abode three months with Petrarch. He was sent twice, in 1365 and 1367, to Pope Urban V. upon affairs of the republic. In 1373, the Florentines determined to appoint a lecturer to explain the Divina Commedia of Dante, much of which was even then obscure or unintelligible without the aid of a comment. Boccaccio was chosen for this honourable office, with the annual stipend of one hundred florins. He had long and deeply studied, and knew by heart almost the whole of that sublime poem, which he had several times transcribed. He left his written comment on the Inferno, and also a life of Dante, both of which have been published among his works. But illness interrupted his lectures, and induced him to resort again to his favourite country residence at Certaldo. A disorder of the stomach, aggravated by intense application, terminated his existence, Dec. 21, 1375, at the age of sixty-two. He was buried in the parish church of Certaldo, and the following modest inscription, which he had himself composed, was placed over his tomb:—
“Hac sub mole jacent cineres ac ossa Johannis.