[652] He leaves to the Friars of Santa Maria di Santo Sepolchro dal Pogetto or della Campora outside the walls of Florence "all and singular Holy Relics which the said dominus Johannes in a great while and with much labour has procured from divers parts of the world." (S. Maria della Campora is outside the Porta Romana of Florence; there are still frescoes of the school of Giotto there.) To the church of S. Jacopo of Certaldo he leaves an alabaster plaque of the Blessed Virgin, a chasuble, stole, and maniple of red silk, and a small altar pallium of red Lucca cloth, an altar cushion of the same cloth, and three cases for corporals; a vase of pewter for holy water, and a small cloak of yellow silk and cloth. He leaves a diptych in which is painted on the one side Our Lady with her Son in her arms and on the other a skull to Madonna Sandra, "who to-day is wife of Franciesco di Lapo Buonamichi." This extraordinary collection of things, which would only be in place in the house of a priest one might think, leads us to ask whether Boccaccio had received any Order. We cannot answer. Suares says he saw a papal bull that permitted him to receive Holy Orders in spite of his illegitimacy, and in his Will he is called "Dominus" and "Venerabilis." It is perhaps in place to note that, like Dante and S. Francis, Boccaccio has been claimed as a Protestant born out of due time. This amazing nonsense was set forth in a book by one Hager, entitled Programmata III de Joanne Boccatio veritatis evangelicæ teste (Chemnic, 1765).
[653] He may not have been utterly alone. In his Will he leaves to "Bruna, daughter of the late Ciango da Montemagno, who has long been with me, the bed she was used to sleep in at Certaldo," and other things.
[654] The title Il Decameron is badly composed from two Greek words, δέκα, ten, and ἡμέρα, day—ten days. Cf. Teza, La parola Decameron in Propugnatore (1889), II, p. 311 et seq., and Rajna, op. cit., who shows that the proper form is Decameron, not Decamerone. Later some one added the sub-title "cognominato il Principe Galeotto"; cf. Inferno, V, 137.
[655] Cf. Albertazzi, I novellatori e le novellatrici del Dec. in Parvenze e Sembianze (Bologna, 1892); Gebhart, Le prologue du Dec. et la Renaissance in Conteurs Florentins (Hachette, 1901), p. 65 et seq.; Morini, Il prologo del Dec. in Rivista Pol. e Lett., xvi. 3.
[656] The only interruption of the Decameron, if so it can be called, is the introduction of Tindaro and Licisca at the beginning of the sixth day. The diversion, however, has very little consequence.
[657] A few things we may gather, however. Pampinea was the eldest (Proem), and by inference Elisa the youngest. Some of the ladies were of Ghibelline stock (X, 8). For what life ingenuity can find in them, see Hauvette, Les Ballades du Décaméron in Journal des Savants (Paris, September, 1905), p. 489 et seq.
[658] He also tells two of the best tales in the book, that of Fra Cipolla and the Relics (VI, 10), and of the Patient Griselda (X, 10). These are the only stories he tells which are not licentious.
[659] See Mancini, Poggio Gherardo, primo ricetto alle novellatrici del B., frammento di R. Gherardo, etc. (Firenze, 1858); and Florentine Villas (Dent, 1901), by Janet Ross, p. 131. Mrs. Ross owns Poggio Gherardo to-day. Mr. J. M. Rigg denies that Poggio Gherardo is the place, but gives no reasons save that it does not tally with the description, which is both true and untrue. It tallies as well as it could do after more than five hundred years; and perfectly as regards situation and distance from the city and the old roads. Cf. my Country Walks about Florence (Methuen, 1908), cap. i.
[660] See my Country Walks about Florence (Methuen, 1908), pp. 23 and 26 et seq. Mr. J. M. Rigg, in the introduction to his translation of the Decameron (Routledge, 1905), here again denies the identity of Villa Palmieri with the second palace of the Decameron. He says it does not stand "on a low hill" amid a plain, but on "the lower Fiesolan slope." But Boccaccio even in Mr. Rigg's excellent translation does not say that, but "they arrived at a palace ... which stood somewhat from the plain, being situate upon a low eminence." This exactly describes Villa Palmieri, as even a casual glance at a big map will assure us.
[661] No doubt a vivid reminiscence of Madonna Fiammetta at Baia.