Poet and scholar, born in Tuscany or Paris. He abandoned a career in commerce, and at Naples (1328) turned to story-writing in verse and prose. He mingled in courtly society, and fell in love with the noble lady whom he made famous under the name of Fiammetta. Until 1350 he lived alternately in Florence and Naples, producing prose tales, pastorals, and poems. The Teseide was partly translated by Chaucer in the Knight's Tale. The Filostrato, dealing with the loves of Troilus and Cressida, was also in great part translated by Chaucer. After 1350 he became a diplomat entrusted with important public affairs, and a humanist devoted to the cause of the new learning. In 1353 he completed his great collection of tales, the Decameron, begun some 5 years before. A huge fresco of life in the late Middle Ages, Decameron represents all social classes in situations ranging from comic to dramatic, linked together by exuberant sensuality. During his last years he lived principally in retirement at Certaldo, and would have entered into holy orders, allegedly moved by repentance for the follies of his youth, had he not been dissuaded by Petrarch. Boccaccio is a seminal figure in the history and development of narrative fiction, and has provided inspiration to Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dryden, Keats, Longfellow, and Tennyson, among others.
Giovanni Boccaccio (June 16, 1313 – December 21, 1375) was an Italian author and poet, a friend and correspondent of Petrarch, 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 vernacular. Boccaccio's characters are notable for their era in that they are realistic, spirited and clever individuals who are grounded in reality (in contrast to the characters of his contemporaries, who were more concerned with the Medieval virtues of Chivalry, Piety and Humility).
Boccaccio grew up in Florence. It is believed Boccaccio was tutored by Giovanni Mazzuoli and received from him an early introduction to the works of Dante. Around 1327 Boccaccio moved to Naples when his father was appointed to head the Neapolitan branch of his bank. Boccaccio was apprenticed to the bank and spent six years there. Boccaccio had become a friend of fellow Florentine Niccolo Acciaiuoli and benefited from his influence as administrator and maybe lover of Catherine of Valois-Courtenay, widow of Philip I of Taranto.
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. In the 1330s Boccaccio also became a father: Two illegitimate children of his were born in this time, Mario and Giulio.
In Naples Boccaccio began what he considered his true vocation, poetry.
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. 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 also dates from this time. 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. Boccaccio also became a father again when another illegitimate child, Violante, was born in Ravenna.
In Florence the overthrow of Walter of Brienne brought about the government popolo minuto. From 1347 Boccaccio spent much time in Ravenna, seeking new patronage, and despite his claims it is not certain he was actually present in plague-ravaged Florence. 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. The work was largely complete by 1352 and it was Boccaccio's final effort in literature and one of his last works in Italian, the only other substantial work was the misogynistic Corbaccio (dated to either 1355 or 1365). Boccaccio revised and rewrote the Decameron in 1370-71.
From 1350 Boccaccio, though less of a scholar, became closely involved with Italian humanism and also with the Florentine government.
In October 1350 he was delegated to greet Francesco Petrarca as he entered Florence and also 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. 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 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 14th century ethos. In 1359 following a meeting with Pope Innocent VI and further meetings with Petrarch it is probable that Boccaccio took some kind of religious mantle.
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. On 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 he returned to work for the Florentine government in 1365, undertaking a mission to Pope Urban V. When the papacy returned to Rome in 1367 Boccaccio was again sent to Urban, offering congratulations.
Of his later works the moralistic biographies gathered as De casibus virorum illustrium (1355-74) and De mulieribus claris (1361-75) were most significant.
Bibliography
Alphabetical listing of selected works.
Amorosa visione (1342) Buccolicum carmen (1367-69) Caccia di Diana (1334-37) Comedia delle ninfe fiorentine (Amato, 1341-42) Corbaccio (around 1365, this date is disputed) De mulieribus claris (1361, revised up to 1375) Decameron (1349-52, revised 1370-71) Elegia di Madonna Fiammetta (1343-44) Esposizioni sopra la Comedia di Dante (1373-74) Filocolo (1336-39) Filostrato (1335 or 1340) Genealogia deorum gentilium libri (1360, revised up to 1374) Ninfale fiesolano (within 1344-46, this date is disputed) Rime (finished 1374) Teseida delle nozze di Emilia (before 1341) Trattatello in laude di Dante (1357, title revised to De origine vita studiis et moribus viri clarissimi Dantis Aligerii florentini poetae illustris et de operibus compositis ab eodem) Zibaldone Magliabechiano (within 1351-56)For an exhaustive listing there is Giovanni Boccaccio: an Annotated Bibliography (1992) by Joseph P.
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