Boccaccio, on returning to his native city, entered on a busier scene of life from that which he led among the Neapolitan nobles. He was sent almost immediately on various embassies to the Ordelaffi, to Malalesta, and to Polenta, lords of various towns of Romagna, for the purpose of engaging them in a league against the Visconti, who, being lords of the powerful city of Milan, and having lately acquired the signorship of Bologna, were desirous of extending their princely dominions beyond the Apennines.
He had soon after the happiness of being the bearer to Petrarch of the decree of the republic of Florence, which restored his patrimony, and the letters which invited him to fill a professor's chair in their new university. 1351.
Ætat.
38. During this visit they cemented their friendship. Petrarch was then residing at Padua, and his friend remained some weeks in his house. Boccaccio read or copied Petrarch's works, while the other pursued his ordinary studies; and in the evening they sat in the poet's garden, which was adorned with the flowers and verdure of spring, and spent hours in delightful conversation. Their hearts were laid bare to each other, they sympathised in their taste for ancient learning, in their love for their country, and in the views they entertained for the welfare of Italy.[71] Boccaccio brought back to Florence Petrarch's expressed intention to visit his native city. But other feelings interposed—probably the poet was averse to mingle too nearly with the violent factions that agitated the republic. He soon after made a journey to Vaucluse, and never again entered Tuscany.
Boccaccio was more of a citizen than his friend, and he fulfilled several offices intrusted to him by the government. Florence was at that time a little empire in itself, agitated by tumults, divided by intestine quarrels, and disturbed by wars with the neighbouring states. Scarce a day passed without an event. The citizens were full of energy and fire; volatile and rash, sometimes they acted a cowardly, sometimes a magnanimous part. They were restless and versatile—but ambitious, and full of that quick intuitive genius which, even now, in their fallen state, belongs to them. They were at enmity with the Visconti, who incited against them the hostility of the great company, a band of mercenary troops, the off-pourings of the invasion of France by the English, which had entered Italy, and sold their services to different standards, or made war on their own account for booty only. The peasants of the Florentine territory had gone out valiantly against them, and afterwards, assisted by the whole forces of the state, they attacked and destroyed these pernicious bandits. Still the Visconti continued powerful and implacable enemies. 1353.
Ætat.
40. Boccaccio was sent to Bohemia to invite Louis of Bavaria, Marquis of Brandenburgh, to come to the assistance of Florence and its league. 1354.
Ætat.
41. At another time he was despatched to Avignon, on occasion of the entrance of the emperor Charles into Italy, to discover the intentions of the pope with regard to this monarch.
These political negotiations could not be carried on by Boccaccio without inspiring him with violent party feelings: he hated the Visconti as tyrants, and as disturbers of the peace of Italy. He heard with pain and indignation that Petrarch had taken up his abode at Milan, under the protection of its archbishop and lord, Giovanni Visconti. He wrote to his friend to express his regret and disapprobation. "I would be silent," he wrote, "but I cannot; reverence restrains, but indignation impels me to speak. How has Petrarch forgotten his dignity, the conversations which we have held together concerning the state of Italy, his hatred of the archbishop, his love of solitude and independence, so far as to imprison himself at the court of Milan? As easily could I believe that the wolf fled the lamb, and the tiger became the prey of the fawn, as that Petrarch should act against the dictates of his conscience; and that he who called the Visconti a Polyphemus, and a monster of pride, cruelty, and despotism, should place himself under his yoke. How could Visconti win that which no pontiff, which neither Robert of Naples nor the emperor could obtain? Have you done this because the citizens of your native town have treated you with contempt, and taken back the patrimony which they at one time restored?"[72]
Petrarch's answer was moderate; his habits were peaceful and recluse, and he preferred trusting an absolute prince who was attached to him, with his safety, to confiding to the caprice of a mob. Personal intercourse also had shown him that the man whom he had denounced so bitterly from political animosity, was worthy of private friendship: he Avas unwilling to enter the very focus of dissention, such as Florence then was, and he sacrificed his public hatred to the gentler feelings of personal friendship and gratitude. "It is not likely," he says in his answer, "that I should learn servitude in my old age; but if I become dependent, is it not better to submit to one, than, like you, to a whole people of tyrants?" Petrarch was a patriot in an elevated sense of the word: he exerted himself to civilise his country, and to spread abroad the blessings of knowledge; peace was his perpetual cry; but in the various tyrannies that distracted Italy, he saw the same ambition under different forms; and taking no part with one against the other, but with the general good against them all, he held himself free to select his friends as sympathy and kindness dictated.
Boccaccio continued to correct and add to his Decameron, which it is conjectured was published at this time. It spread rapidly through Italy; its popularity astounded even the author, and must have gratified him, though aware of its errors, and tendency to injure the principles of social life. This sentiment increased in after-times, so that he reproached his friend Mainardo de' Cavalcanti, a Florentine by birth, but living at the court of the queen of Naples, for having promised his wife and other ladies of his house that they should read the Decameron. He entreats him to revoke this promise for his own sake, and theirs, that their minds might not be contaminated by narrations in which delicacy and even decency were forgotten; "and if not for their sake," he continues, "for the sake of my honour. They will, on reading it, think me the most wicked and licentious of men; for who will be near to allege in my excuse that I wrote it while young, and urged to the work by commands not to be disobeyed?"
Worse for the fame of Boccaccio than the blots that slur the beauty of the Decameron, is a work, which it is to be lamented fell from his pen. This was entitled the "Corbaccio." He fell in love with a beautiful and noble widow of Florence, who treated him with scorn and derision, and he revenged himself by this production, in which he vilifies the whole sex in general, and this lady in particular, in a style that prevents any one of the present day from attempting to read it.
While we lament such gross ill taste, it is agreeable to forget it, and to record and remember the vast benefits which Boccaccio bestowed on mankind, through his ardent and disinterested love of letters, and especially his extraordinary efforts to create and diffuse a knowledge of the Greek language and writers. In this labour he far excelled Petrarch, who possessed a Homer, but was unable to read it.
He proved his enthusiasm in the most undeniable manner. He was born poor, even to privation; yet he spent large sums of money in the acquisition of ancient manuscripts: he transcribed many with his own hand. His labours in this way were immense: many volumes of the poets, orators, and historians, were copied by him: among these are mentioned the whole of the works of Tacitus and Livy, Terence and Boetius, with various treatises of Cicero and Varro, besides many of the productions of the fathers. He made journeys in search of manuscripts, and records one anecdote, which shows how often disappointment must have attended his labours. He visited the celebrated convent of Monte Cassino, under the idea that he might find some ancient manuscripts, hitherto unknown. He asked for the library, and was taken up a ladder into a loft, exposed to the weather, where the books were lying on the floor moth-eaten, and covered with damp mould. While he indignantly regarded the materials of learning which lay desolate before him, he was told, to add to his horror, that the monks were in the habit of effacing the writing from their venerable parchments, and of replacing it by scraps from the ritual, for which they found a ready sale among the neighbouring villagers.
Nor was his enthusiasm, like Petrarch's, confined to the ancients. He could not only feel and appreciate the genius of Dante, but exerted himself to inspire others with the admiration with which he was filled. He awoke the Florentines to a just sense of the merits of this sublime poet, and persuaded them to erect a professorship in their university for the explanation of the Divina Commedia. He himself first filled the chair, and wrote a commentary on several of the books, besides a Life of Dante. This has been usually considered unauthentic, but it is difficult to see on what grounds this judgment rests. He takes the account of Dante's love of Beatrice from his own work of the Vita Nuova; and in all other particulars of his life the information he gives is slight; but, as far as we are enabled to form an opinion, correct. His genuine enthusiasm for the beauties of his favourite author led him to regret that Petrarch did not sufficiently admire him. He copied for his use the whole of his poem with care and elegance, and sent it to the laureate, with a poetic epistle, in which he besought him to bestow more attention and admiration on their illustrious countryman. Petrarch was bigoted to the notion that any thing written in the vulgar tongue was beneath the regard of a learned man; and received his present with a coldness that penetrates through his assumed praises. This celebrated manuscript belongs to the Vatican library. The epistle mentioned is addressed "To Francis Petrarch, illustrious and only poet," and is subscribed "thy Giovanni da Certaldo." The manuscript is illuminated, and the arms of Petrarch, consisting of a gold bar in an azure field, with a star, adorns the head of each canto. There are a few notes of emendation, and the whole is written in a clear and beautiful hand. By a strange oversight, no care has been taken to collate any modern edition of Dante with this celebrated copy.