[62] Crescini, op. cit., p. 47.
[63] This letter is printed in Corazzini, Le Lett. edite e ined. (Firenze, 1877), p. 457. "Te igitur carissime," writes Boccaccio, "tam delectabilia tam animum attrahentia agentem cognovi, si recolis, et tui gratia tantæ dulcedinis effectus sum particeps tuus, insimul et amicus, in tam alto mysterio, in tam delectabili et sacro studio Providentia summa nos junxit, quos æqualis animi vinctos tenuit, retinet et tenebit...." This is the letter beginning "Sacræ famis et angelicæ viro," which we shall allude to again.
[64] Cf. De Blasiis, De Casibus, u.s., IX, 26, and Della Torre, op. cit., p. 112.
[65] Cf. Faraglia, Barbato di Sulmona e gli uomini di lettere della Corte di Roberto d' Angiò in Arch. St. Ital., Ser. V, Vol. III (1889), p. 343 et seq.
[66] We fix the approximate date of Boccaccio's presentation at court by his own words in the De Casibus Illustrium Virorum, Lib. IX, cap. 26: "Me adhuc adulescentulo versanteque Roberti Hierosolymorum et Sicilicæ Regis in aula..." As we have seen, adolescence began, according to the reckoning then, at fourteen years. To strengthen this supposition, we know that Boccaccino was in Naples at that time, and in relations with King Robert. See [Appendix I].
[67] See supra [p. 5, n. 1.]
[68] Cf. De Blasiis, op. cit., p. 506, note 1. Davidsohn, Forschungen zur Geschichte von Florenz (Berlin, 1901), III, p. 182, note 911. Della Torre, op. cit., pp. 117-18. "Boccaccius de Certaldo de Societate Bardorum de Florencia, consiliarius, cambellanus, mercator, familiaris et fidelis noster," wrote the king of him. Cf. Davidsohn, op. cit., III, p. 187, note 942; and Ibid., Il padre di Gio. Boccaccio in Arch. St. It., Ser. V, Vol. XXIII, p. 144.
[69] Cf. De Genealogiis, XV, 10; "Quoniam visum est, aliquibus ostendentibus inditiis, me aptiorem literarum studiis, issuit ... ut pontificum sanctiones dives exinde futurus, auditurus intrarem."
[70] See supra, [p. 19, n. 2], where, as we find in the De Genealogiis, he says that for six years he did nothing but waste irrecoverable time. Thus if he came to Naples in 1323 it was in 1329 that he began to study Law. The last we hear of his father in Naples is in 1329.
[71] "E come gli altri giovani le chiare bellezze delle donne di questa terra andavano riguardando, ed io" (Ameto, ed. cit., p. 225). In the Filocolo (ed. cit., Lib. IV, p. 246) he tells us that this was especially true in the spring.