Everything about Giovanni Boccaccio totally explained
Giovanni Boccaccio (
1313 –
1375) was an
Italian author and poet, a friend and correspondent of
Petrarch, and an important
Renaissance humanist in his own right and author of a number of notable works including
On Famous Women, the
Decameron, and his
poetry in the Italian
vernacular. Boccaccio is particularly notable for his dialogue, of which it has been said that it surpasses in
verisimilitude that of just about all of his contemporaries, since they were
medieval writers and often followed formulaic models for character and plot.
Biography
The exact details of his birth are uncertain, a number of sources state that he was born in
Paris and that his mother was a Parisian, but others deprecate this as a romanticism by the earliest biographers. In this case his birthplace was possibly in
Tuscany, perhaps in Certaldo, the town of his father. . He was almost certainly
illegitimate,
His father introduced him to the Neapolitan nobility and the French-influenced court of
Robert the Wise in the 1330s. At this time he fell in love with a married daughter of
Robert the Wise (known as, King Robert of Naples) and she's immortalized as the character
"Fiammetta" in many of Boccaccio's prose romances, particularly
Filocolo (1338). Boccaccio became a friend of fellow Florentine
Niccolò Acciaioli, and benefited from his influence as administrator and, perhaps, the lover of
Catherine of Valois-Courtenay, widow of
Philip I of Taranto. Acciaioli later became counsellor to
Queen Joanna and, eventually, her
Grand Seneschal.
It seems Boccaccio enjoyed law no more than banking, but his studies allowed him the opportunity to study widely and make good contacts with fellow scholars. His early influences included Paolo da Perugia (a curator and author of a collection of
myths, the
Collectiones), the humanists Barbato da Sulmona and Giovanni Barrili, and the theologian
Dionigi di Borgo San Sepolcro.
Children
In the 1330s Boccaccio became a father of two illegitimate children, Mario and Giulio. In the 1340s Boccaccio became a father again, of another illegitimate child, Violante. He was born in
Ravenna, where Boccaccio was a guest of
Ostasio I da Polenta from about 1345 through 1346.
Mature years
In Naples, Boccaccio began what he considered his true vocation,
poetry. Works produced in this period include
Filostrato and
Teseida (the source for
Chaucer's
Troilus and Criseyde and
The Knight's Tale respectively),
Filocolo, a prose version of an existing French romance, and
La caccia di Diana, a poem in octave rhyme listing Neapolitan women. The period featured considerable formal innovation, including possibly the introduction of the
Sicilian octave to Florence, where it influenced Petrarch.
Boccaccio returned to Florence in early 1341, avoiding the
plague in that city of 1340, but also missing the visit of Petrarch to Naples in 1341. He had left Naples due to tensions between the Angevin king and Florence. His father had returned to Florence in 1338, where he'd gone bankrupt. The death of his mother occurred shortly afterward. Although dissatisfied with his return to Florence, Boccaccio continued to work, producing
Comedia delle ninfe fiorentine (also known as
Ameto) a mix of prose and poems, in 1341, completing the fifty
canto allegorical poem
Amorosa visione in 1342, and
Fiammetta in 1343 The pastoral piece
Ninfale fiesolano probably dates from this time also. In 1343 Boccaccio's father re-married, to Bice del Bostichi. His children by his first marriage had all died (except Boccaccio) and he was gladdened by the birth of a son, Iacopo, in 1344.
In Florence, the overthrow of
Walter of Brienne brought about the government of
popolo minuto. It diminished the influence of the nobility and the wealthier merchant classes and assisted in the relative decline of Florence. The city was hurt further, in 1348, by the
Black Death, later represented in the
Decameron, which killed some three-quarters of the city's population.
From 1347 Boccaccio spent much time in Ravenna, seeking new patronage, and despite his claims, it isn't certain whether he was present in plague-ravaged Florence. His stepmother died during the epidemic and his father, as Minister of Supply in the city was closely associated with the government efforts. His father died in 1349 and as head of the family Boccaccio was forced into a more active role.
Boccaccio began work on the
Decameron around 1349. It is probable that the structures of many of the tales date from earlier in his career, but the choice of a hundred tales and the frame-story
lieta brigata of three men and seven women dates from this time. The work was largely complete by 1352. It was Boccaccio's final effort in literature and one of his last works in
Italian, the only other substantial work was
Corbaccio (dated to either 1355 or 1365). Boccaccio revised and rewrote the
Decameron in 1370-1371. This manuscript has survived to the present day.
From 1350 Boccaccio, although less of a scholar, became closely involved with Italian humanism and also with the Florentine government. His first official mission was to
Romagna in late 1350. He revisited that city-state twice and also was sent to
Brandenburg,
Milan, and
Avignon. He also pushed for the study of Greek, housing Barlaam of Calabria, and encouraging his tentative translations of works by
Homer,
Euripides, and
Aristotle.
In October 1350 he was delegated to greet Francesco Petrarca as he entered Florence and also to have the great man as a guest at his home during his stay. The meeting between the two was extremely fruitful and they were friends from then on, Boccaccio calling Petrarch his teacher and
magister. Petrarch at that time encouraged Boccaccio to study classical Greek and Latin literature. They met again in
Padua in 1351, Boccaccio on an official mission to invite Petrarch to take a chair at the university in Florence. Although unsuccessful, the discussions between the two were instrumental in Boccaccio writing the
Genealogia deorum gentilium; the first edition was completed in 1360 and this would remain one of the key reference works on classical mythology for over 400 years. The discussions also formalized Boccaccio's poetic ideas. Certain sources also see a conversion of Boccaccio by Petrarch from the open humanist of the
Decameron to a more ascetic style, closer to the dominant fourteenth century ethos. For example, he followed Petrarch (and Dante) in the unsuccessful championing of an archaic and deeply allusive form of Latin poetry. In 1359 following a meeting with
Pope Innocent VI and further meetings with Petrarch it's probable that Boccaccio took some kind of religious mantle. There is a persistent, but unsupported, tale that he repudiated his earlier works, including the
Decameron, in 1362, as profane.
In 1360 Boccaccio began work on
De mulieribus claris, a book offering biographies of one hundred and six famous women, that he completed in 1374. Two centuries later, approximately in
1541, this work was translated into the
German language by
Heinrich Steinhöwel and printed by
Johannes Zainer, in
Ulm,
Germany. The secondary title caption, a subtitle, of the German translation reads
Hie nach volget der kurcz sin von etlichen frowen / von denen johannes boccacius in latin beschriben hat, vnd doctor hainricus stainhöwel getütschet.
Following the failed coup of 1361, a number of Boccaccio's close friends and other acquaintances were executed or exiled in the subsequent purge. Although not directly linked to the conspiracy, it was in this year that Boccaccio left Florence to reside in Certaldo, and became less involved in government affairs. He didn't undertake further missions for Florence until 1365, and traveled to Naples and then on to Padua and
Venice, where he met up with Petrarch in grand style at
Palazzo Molina, Petrarch's residence as well as the place of
Petrarch's library. He later then returned to
Certaldo. He met Petrarch only once again, in Padua in 1368. Upon hearing of the death of Petrarch (July 19, 1374), Boccaccio wrote a commemorative poem, including it in his collection of lyric poems, the
Rime.
As mentioned above, he returned to work for the Florentine government in 1365, undertaking a mission to
Pope Urban V. When the papacy returned to Rome from
Avignon in 1367, Boccaccio was again sent to Urban, offering congratulations. He also undertook diplomatic missions to Venice and Naples.
Of his later works the moralistic biographies gathered as
De casibus virorum illustrium (1355-74) and
De mulieribus claris (1361-1375) were most significant. Other works include a dictionary of geographical allusions in classical literature,
De montibus, silvis, fontibus, lacubus, fluminibus, stagnis seu paludibus, et de nominibus maris liber (a title desperate for the coining of the word "geography"). He gave a series of lectures on Dante at the Santo Stefano church in 1373 and these resulted in his final major work, the detailed
Esposizioni sopra la Commedia di Dante. Boccaccio and Petrarch, also were two of the most educated people in early Renaissance in the field of
archaeology.
Boccaccio's change in writing style in the 1350s wasn't due just to meeting with Petrarch. It was mostly due to poor health and a premature weakening of his physical strength. It also was due to disappointments in love. Some such disappointment could explain why Boccaccio, having previously written always in praise of women and love, came suddenly to write in a bitter Corbaccio style. Furthermore, there are signs that he may have taken up religion. Petrarch describes how Pietro Petrone (a
Carthusian monk) on Boccaccio's death bed sent another Carthusian (Gioacchino Ciani) to urge him to renounce his worldly studies. Petrarch then dissuaded Boccaccio from burning his own works and selling off his personal library, letters, books, and manuscripts. Petrarch even offered to purchase Boccaccio's library, so that it would become part of
Petrarch's library.
His final years were troubled by illnesses, some relating to obesity and what often is described as
dropsy, severe edema that would be described today as
congestive heart failure. He died at the age of sixty-three in Certaldo on 21 December, 1375, where he's buried.
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