[478] Letter of Boccaccio "celeberrimi nominis militi Jacopo Pizzinghe." Corazzini, "Le Lettere edite ed inedite di Giovanni Boccaccio," Florence, 1877, 8vo, p. 195.
[479] Chaucer could not be present at the lectures of Boccaccio, who began them on Sunday, October 23, 1373; he had returned to London in the summer. Disease (probably diabetes) soon obliged Boccaccio to interrupt his lectures; he died in his house at Certaldo on December 21, 1375. See Cochin, in Revue des Deux Mondes, July 15, 1888.
[480] This meeting, concerning which numerous discussions have taken place, seems to have most probably happened. "I wol," says the clerk of Oxford in the "Canterbury Tales,"
I wol yow telle a tale which that I
Lerned at Padowe of a worthy clerk ...
He is now deed and nayled in his cheste ...
Fraunceys Petrark, the laureat poet.
Such a circumstantial reference is of a most unusual sort; in most cases, following the example of his contemporaries, Chaucer simply says that he imitates "a book," or sometimes he refers to his models by a wrong or fancy name, such being the case with Boccaccio, whom he calls "Lollius," a name which, however, does duty also with him, at another place, for Petrarch. But on this occasion it seems as if the poet meant to preserve the memory of personal intercourse. We know besides that at that date Chaucer was not without notoriety as a poet on the Continent (Des Champs' praise is a proof of it), and that at the time when he came to Italy Petrarch was at Arqua, near Padua, where he was precisely busy with his Latin translation of Boccaccio's story of Griselda.
[481] "The Othe of the Comptroler of the Customes," in Thynne's "Animadversions," Chaucer Society, 1875, p. 131.
[482] None in the handwriting of Chaucer have been discovered as yet; but some are to be seen drawn, as he was allowed to have them later, by another's hand, under his own responsibility: "per visum et testimonium Galfridi Chaucer."
[483] The lease is dated May 10, 1374; Furnivall, "Trial Forewords," p. 1. Such grants of lodgings in the gates were forbidden in 1386 in consequence of a panic (described, e.g., in the "Chronicon Angliæ," Rolls, p. 370) caused by a rumour of the coming of the French. See Riley, "Memorials of London," pp. 388, 489. A study on the too neglected Ralph Strode is being prepared (1894) by M. Gollancz.
[484] "Dimissio Portæ de Aldgate facta Galfrido Chaucer.—Concessio de Aldrichgate Radulpho Strode.—Sursum-redditio domorum supra Aldrichesgate per Radulphum Strode." Among the "Fundationes et præsentationes cantariarum ... shoparum ... civitati pertinentium." "Liber Albus," Rolls, pp. 553, 556, 557.
[485] Chaucer represents Jupiter's eagle, addressing him thus: