Alinari
ROOM IN BOCCACCIO'S HOUSE AT CERTALDO
Infirm and ill as he was, he must often have looked from his room over the world that lay there as fair as any in Tuscany, a land of hills about a quiet valley where the olives are tossed to silver in the wind, and the grapes are kissed by the sun into gold and purple, where the corn whispers between the vines—till for him too at last the grasshopper was become a burden. There, on December 21, 1375, he died and was buried, as he had ordained in his testament, in the church of SS. Jacopo e Filippo, leaving, as it is said, the following verses for his epitaph:—
"Hac sub mole jacent cineres ac ossa Johannis;
Mens sedet ante Deum meritis ornata laborum
Mortalis vitæ. Genitor Bocchaccius illi;
Patria Certaldum, studium fuit alma poesis."
There beside the quiet waters of the Elsa, which puts all to sleep, lies the greatest story-teller in the world.