Boccaccio

BIOGRAPHY

Giovanni Boccaccio was an Italian writer, poet and Renaissance humanist. Some scholars define him as one of the greatest European prose writer of his time

Boccaccio, together with Dante Alighieri and Francesco Petrarca, is part of the "Three Crowns" of the Italian literature. The details of Boccaccio's birth are uncertain. Indeed he was born in Certaldo, the city where his family was from, or in Florence. He was born out of wedlock, but his father, named Boccaccino decided to keep him, wich was not very common at that time

his father worked in a bank for the Bardi family. This was the family of Beatrice's husband, the woman Dante had fallen in love with. For this reason, he heard about Dante Alighieri and starder to get passionate about literature. In 1326 his father was appointed head of a bank and they moved to Naples. Boccaccino wanted his son to became a merchant but Boccaccio didn't want. So he convinced his father to study law.

There he met Cino Da Pistoia, who was his teacher. This one was also the last poet of the Stil Novo and greatly influenced Boccaccio with his literature, teaching him latin and some greek.

His father introduced him to the Neapolitan nobilty and the French court of Robert the Wise, the king of Naples. In that time he fell in love with Fiammetta, also an illegitimate daughter. She will appear in many of his works, including the Decameron, wich is the most famous.

Boccaccio returned to Florence in early 1341. At that time, the city was hurt further in 1348 by the Black Death, wich killed a lot of tha population. Even Though he had 5 children, he became a priest. It is thought that he did this to hava more time to study literature but we are not sure

3 artistic phases

1. the first phase is characterized by prose and poems: written in Naples and Florence, it were experiments at various levels in vulgar, based on episode from his life.
2. the second phase is when he wrote the Decameron around 1349.
3. in the last phase, Boccaccio wrote mainly in latin. He can be defined as a humanist, who on his return to Florence was influenced by Petrarca. The two also exchanged letters concerning Dante Alighieri.

DECAMERON

As already mantioned above, the Decameron is the most famous work of Boccaccio ever! The term Decameron means " of ten days" and is a collection of short stories. The book tells about a group of young people(7 girls and 3 boys) who, during the epidemic plague of 1348, decided to defend themselves, going to the hills near Florence.

3 NARRATIVE LEVELS

1. Superframe(super----> "that is above"): is the direct intervention of the author
2. frame: is the story of the 10 young people
3. Novels: the stories they tell

There are 3 models that Boccaccio was ispired by. The first one is the "Novellino", a collection of anonymous short stories from which he took inspiration for the frame. The second is the "Fabliaux", a set of novels from the french area. They are different from the usual because they have very strong arguments, of a sexual nature(the Decameron in also famous for this). The last one is "mille e una notte". The story tells about a slave who in order to save her life, must tell some stories to her ruler. The Decameron inspired from this text because in the same way, the 10 young people, thanks to the literature, save their lives.

Women and the issue of rule and exception

As previously mentioned, in the decameron, the girls are 7 while the males are 3. This is because the whole decameron is dedicated to women to try to remedy the sin of destiny. Sin according to Boccaccio is that women have a strong intellect and a capacity for love but are considered inferior to men. Moreover, the narrative ability at that time was predominantly male, in fact women could not be authors. Author derives from the Latin "auctor" which means to take one's own destiny in hand, therefore Boccaccio, by letting women tell stories, wants to make them stronger

another fundamental argument is the rule and the exception. Boccaccio in the decameron created a real society, where every day a king / queen is elected who decides the theme of the stories. Since the whole work focuses on humanity, Boccaccio wants to emphasize the imperfection that exists in all of us. The exceptions that we find are: Dioneo can write whatever he wants, in the 1st and 9th day the theme is free and that in the introduction to the 4th day there is an extra short story (the short stories are therefore 101 instead of 100)

The most important themes of the Decameron are intelligence and industry. Since the whole work is detached from religion, Boccaccio means intelligens free from God, while industry is the use of intelligence in business and commerce.

ser ciappelletto is a criminal but redeems himself with a false confession. He is a notary who likes to break the law. One day he is sent to France to collect debts and is hosted by two brothers, who are also criminals. There he fell ill and is about to die and for this reason the two brothers are worried that the police will catch them. Ser ciappelletto heard the discussion and decides to help them by calling a priest to be confessed.

during confession he pretends to be a saint and the priest believes him. In this way, after his death, he will be remembered as a saint and thus managed to save the two brothers.

the main elements of the novel are mainly two. The first is criticism of the church. It is a recurring element in the Decameron which is very accentuated here. Ser ciappelletto managed to deceive the priest, making the church very naive. The second element is alternative morality. Ser ciappelletto is a negative character but as a last action he decides to help the two brothers by staying on the good side for once

Chichibio

The main character is Chichibio, a cook who works for a noble man. One day a crane is brought to him to cook it. When it was ready, a girl he was in love with walked by and asked for a piece. Chichibio initially didn't want to but then she told him that she wouldn't give her any satisfaction if he didn't give him a thigh. So he gave her a thigh and the noble got very angry. Chichibio to defend himself said that the cranes had only one leg and so the owner said that the next morning he would have to prove it to him. The next morning they went to a place full of cranes and they were standing on one leg. The nobleman screamed so loud as to frighten them, so they pulled down the other leg and ran away. Chichibio knew he was wrong but to defend himself he said: "if you screamed the other night too, the leg looked like it did now".

In this novel we speak of "motto di spirito", which is a demonstration of intelligence. It is the ability to get out of a bad situation with a joke. The joke is the last one quoted and according to Boccaccio the "motto di spirito" comes out without us noticing it. In the following centuries Freud also wrote"the wit and its relationship with inconscio".

Novella delle papere

This is the novel added to the 4 day, therefore the exception. It begins with some criticism that have been made against Boccaccio.

1. He devotes himself too much to women
2. He is too old to devote himself to women
3. He should think about work
4. He tells of falsehoods

to defend himself against these accusations, he tells the story of this man who after his wife died, he went to the mountains with his son to lead a lonely life to devote himself only to God. But every week he goes to the city to get food and when gets old, his son proposes to help him. When they went to town, they met some women and the son asked what they are. The father replies that they are just ducks and that he must ignore them, but the son is now fixed by them

Boccaccio wants to tell us that love is a natural force and that it is impossible to resist attraction.

Andreuccio from Perugia

Andreuccio from Perugia is part of the 2nd day, the themes of which are adventures that end with a happy ending. The main character is Andreuccio who is a very inept merchant who went to Naples to buy horses. His inability is evident in the fact that to negotiate he shows all his money so that people can take advantage of him. In the novel 3 adventures are narred.

while andreuccio was in naples, an elderly lady, who was a friend of the family, recognizes him and begins to speak. In the meantime, a prostitute realizes Andreuccio's naivety and invites him to her house. There she pretends to be his sister and takes the opportunity to rob him. Leaving the house, Andreuccio falls into the sewers and gets all his clothes dirty (first adventure). After that he meets two thieves who propose to rob a cardinal's tomb that was full of jewels. But first they go to a well to clean Andreuccio but when some policemen arrive the thieves escaped and leave him alone there (second adventure). as soon as he leaves, Andreuccio meets the thieves again and they go to the tomb. They open it and Andreuccio goes inside to get all the jewels. Meanwhile, other people arrive, including a priest, who also want to steal the money. Andreuccio who had remained inside the tomb scares them by grabbing the priest's leg and so they run away. By doing so, the protagonist is left alone and you manage to take all the jewels (3 adventure)

the themes of the novel are the following. We always find criticism of the church. this is because the priest who wanted to steal the jewels together with other people said that there was no need to be afraid to enter the tomb and that he would do it himself. Shortly after he was frightened by Andreuccio. The church therefore appears to be naive. then there is luck and Andreuccio's use of intelligence. a change of character can be seen throughout the novel. In the beginning his characteristic was naivety (he lets himself be fooled several times) but in the end he deceives everyone and returns home full of jewels