[329] He received beside his board and lodging 19,000 florins of gold as salary. These were not paid by the Pope, whose servant he was, but by Queen Giovanna and the wretched Neapolitans. The amount was fixed by the Pope. Cf. Baddeley, op. cit.
[330] Cf. Baddeley, op. cit., p. 344. The Pope's account is as follows: "Immediately he was summoned by them he went into the gallery or promenade which is before the chamber. Then certain men placed their hands over his mouth so that he could not cry out, and in this act they so pressed their iron gauntlets that their print and character were manifest after death. Others placed a rope round his neck in order to strangle him, and this likewise left its mark; others 'vero receperunt eum pro genitalia, et adeo traxerunt, quod multi qui dicebant se vidisse retulerunt mihi quod transcendebant genua', while others tore out his hair, dragged him, and threw him into the garden. Some say with the rope with which they had strangled him they swung him as if hanging over the garden. It was further related to us that they intended to throw him into a well, and thereafter to give it out he had left the Kingdom ... and this would have been carried out had not his nurse quickly come upon the scene." Cf. Baluzius, Vitæ Paparum Avenonensium, 1305-94, Vol. II, p. 86, and Baddeley, op. cit., p. 344 et seq.
[331] e.g. another account states that "a conspiracy was formed against the young Andrew, and it is said, with some truth, that the Queen was the soul of it. One evening in September, 1345, the court being at the Castello of Aversa, a chamberlain entered the royal apartment, where Andrew was with the Queen, to announce to them that despatches of great importance were arrived from Naples. Andrew went out immediately, and as he passed through the salon which separated his room from the Queen's, he was seized and hanged from the window of the palace by a golden rope said to have been woven by the Queen's hands, and there he was left for two days. The Queen, who was, or pretended to be, stupefied with horror, returned to Naples. No real attempt, even at the behest of the Pope, was made to find the assassins." The Queen was within three months of the birth of her child when the murder occurred. She gained nothing by Andrew's death but exile. The murderers, so far as we can judge now, were undoubtedly the Catanese group in danger of losing their positions at court.
[332] Giovanna's own account is given in Baddeley, op. cit., p. 345, n. 2. Mr. Baddeley is her ablest English defender. See also a curious book by Amalfi, La Regina Giovanna nella Tradizione (Naples, 1892).
[333] See supra, [p. 108, n. 1.] All sorts of stories have been current as to Boccaccio's personal relations with Queen Giovanna. By some he is said to have been her lover, by others to have been in her debt for the suggestion of the scheme of the Decameron so far as it is merely a collection of merry tales. These tales he is supposed to have told her. No evidence is to be found for any of these assertions. But cf. Hortis, op. cit., p. 109 and n. 1.
[334] See Lett. 19 del Lib. XXIII, Epist. Familiarum. Fracassetti has translated this letter into Italian: see Lettere di Fr. Petrarca volgarizz. Delle Cose Fam., Vol. V, p. 91 et seq. Petrarch says: "Adriæ in litore, ea ferme ætate, qua tu ibi agebas cum antiquo plagæ illius domino eius avo qui nunc præsidet." It is Fracassetti who dates this letter 1365 (Baldelli dates in 1362, and Tiraboschi in 1367). If, as we believe, Fracassetti is right, then Boccaccio must have been in Ravenna in 1346, for in 1365 Guido da Polenta ruled there, the son of Bernardino who died in 1359, the son of Ostasio, who died November 14, 1346. Boccaccio had relations in Ravenna. In the proem to the De Genealogiis he tells us that Ostasio da Polenta induced him to translate Livy.
[335] Yet there may be something in it. Baldelli tells us that he wrote the Vita di Dante in 1351, and in 1349 we find him in communication with Petrarch. That Beatrice di Dante was in Ravenna in 1346 seems certain. Pelli, Memorie per servire alla vita di Dante (Firenze, 1823), p. 45, says: "As for the daughter Beatrice ... one knows that she took the habit of a religious in the convent of S. Stefano detto dell' Uliva in Ravenna." We know from a document seen by Pelli that in 1350 the Or San Michele Society sent Beatrice ten gold florins by the hand of Boccaccio. What I suggest is that Boccaccio found her in Ravenna in 1346 very poor. He represented the facts to the Or San Michele Society, who, after the Black Death of 1348, had plenty of money in consequence of all the legacies left them and, as is well known, were very free with their plenty.
I give the document Pelli saw as he quotes it. He says he found it in "un libro d' entrata ed uscita del 1350 tra gli altri esistenti nella cancelleria de' capitani di Or San Michele risposto nell' armadio alto di detta cancelleria." There, he says, is written the following disbursement in the month of September, 1350: "A Messer Giovanni di Bocchaccio ... fiorini dieci d' oro, perchè gli desse a suora Beatrice figliuola che fu di Dante Alleghieri, monaca nel monastero di S. Stefano dell' Uliva di Ravenna," etc. See also Bernicole in Giornale Dantesco, An. VII (Series III), Quaderno vii (Firenze, 1899), p. 337 et seq., who rediscovered the document which is republished by Biagi and Pesserini in Codice Diplomatico Dantesco, Disp. 5 (1900).
[336] Cf. Ferretus Vicentinus, Lib. VII, in R. I. S., Tom. IX.
[337] Corazzini, op. cit., p. 268. "Tertiæ vero Eclogæ titulus est Faunus, nam cum eiusdam causa fuerit Franciscus de Ordolaffis Forolivii Capitaneus, quem cum summe sylvas coleret et nemora, ob insitam illi venationis delectationem ego sæpissime Faunum vocare consueverim, eo quod Fauni sylvarum a poetis nuncupentur Dei, illam Faunum nominavi. Nominibus autem collocutorum nullum significatum volui, eo quod minime videretur opportunum."