Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/862

844 is written, like the Divina Commedia, in terza rima, and the initial letters of all the triplets throughout the work compose three poems of considerable length, in the first of which the whole is dedicated to Boccaccio s lady-love, this time under her real name of Maria. In addition to this, the initial letters of the first, third, fifth, seventh, and ninth lines of the dedicatory poem form the name of Maria ; so that here ve have the acrostic in the second degree. No wonder that thus entrammelled the poet s thought bsgins to flag and his language to halt. The third important work written by Boccaccio during his stay at Florence, or soon after his return to Naples, is called L amoroso, Fiammetta; and although written in prose, it contains more real poetry than the elaborate production just referred to. It purports to be Fiammetta s com plaint after her lover, following the call of filial duty, had deserted her. Bitterly she deplores her fate, and upbraids her lover with coldness and want of devotion. Jealous fears add to her torture, not altogether unfounded, if we believe the commentators assertion that the heroine of Ameto is in reality the beautiful Lucia, a Florentine lady loved by Boccaccio. Sadly Fiammetta recalls the moments of former bliss, the first meeting, the stolen embrace. Her narrative is indeed our chief source of information for the incidents of this strange love-story. It has been thought unlikely, and indeed impossible, that Boccaccio should thus have become the mouthpiece of a real lady s real passion for himself ; but there seems nothing incongruous in the supposition that after a happy reunion the poet should have heard with satisfaction, and surrounded with the halo of ideal art, the story of his lady s sufferings. Moreover, the language is too full of individual intensity to make the conjecture of an entirely fictitious love affair intrinsically probable. L amorosa Fiammetta is a monody of passion sustained even to the verge of dulness, but strikingly real, and therefore artistically valuable. By the intercession of an influential friend, Boccaccio at last obtained (in 1344) his father s permission to return to Naples, where in the meantime Giovanna, grand-daughter of King Robert, had succeeded to the crown. Being young and beautiful, fond of poetry and of the praise of poets, she received Boccaccio with all the distinction due to his literary fame. For many years she remained his faithful friend, and the poet returned her favour with grateful devotion. Even when the charge of having instigated, or at least connived at, the murder of her husband was but too clearly proved against her, Boccaccio was amongst the few who stood by her, and undertook the hopeless task of clearing her name from the dreadful stain. It was by her desire, no less than by that of Fiammetta, that he composed (between 1344 and 1350) most of the stories of his Decameron, which afterwards were collected and placed in the mouths of the Florentine ladies and gentlemen. During this time he abo composed the Filostrato, a narrative poem, the chief interest of which, for the English reader, lies in its connection with Chaucer. With a boldness pardonable only in men of genius, the great English poet has adopted the main features of the plot, and has literally translated parts of Boccaccio s work, without so much as mentioning the name of his Italian source. In 1350 Boccaccio returned to Florence, owing to the death of his father, who had made him guardian to his younger brother Jacopo. He was received with great distinction, and entered the service of the Republic, being at various times sent on important missions to the margrave of Brandenburg, and to the courts of several popes, both in Avignon and Rome. Boccaccio boasts of the friendly terms on which he had been with the great potentates of Europe, the emperor and pope amongst the number. But he was never a politician in the sense that Dante and Petrarch were. As a man of the world he enjoyed the society of the great, but his interest in the internal com motions of the Florentine state seems to have been very slight. Besides, he never liked Florence, and the expressions used by him regarding his fellow-citizens betray anything but patriotic prejudice. In a Latin eclogue he applies to them the term &quot; Batrachos &quot; (frog), by which, he adds paren thetically Ego intdliyo Florentinorum morem ; loquacii?- simi enim siimus, vcrmn in rebus Icllicis nihil valemus. The only important result of Boccaccio s diplomatic career was his intimacy with Petrarch. The first acquaintance of these two great men dates from the year 1350, when Boccaccio, then just returned to Florence, did all in his power to make the great poet s short stay in that city agreeable. When in the following year the Florentines were anxious to draw men of great reputation to their newly- founded university, it was again Boccaccio who insisted on the claims of Petrarch to the most distinguished posi tion. He himself accepted the mission of inviting his friend to Florence, and of announcing to Petrarch at the same time that the forfeited estates of his family had been restored to him. In this manner an intimate friend ship grew up between them to be parted only by death. Common interests and common literary pursuits were the natural basis of their friendship, and both occupy prominent positions in the early history of that great intellectual revival commonly called Renaissance. During the 14th century the study of ancient literature was at a low ebb in Italy. The interest of the lay world was engrossed by political struggles, and the treasures of classical history and poetry were at the mercy of monks, too lazy or too ignorant to use, or even to preserve them. Boccaccio himself told that, on asking to see the library of the celebrated monastery of Monte Casino, he was shown into a dusty room without a door to it. Many of the valuable manuscripts were mutilated ; and his guide told him that the monks were in the habit of tearing leaves from the codices to turn them into psalters for children, or amulets for women at the price of four or five soldi a piece. Boccaccio did all in his power to remove by word and example this barbarous indifference. He bought or copied with his own hand numerous valuable manuscripts, and an old writer remarks that if Boccaccio had been a professional copyist, the amount of his work might astonish us. His zealous endeavours for the revival of the all but forgotten Greek language in western Europe are well known. The most celebrated Italian scholars about the beginning of the 15th century were unable to read the Greek characters. Boc caccio deplored the ignorance of his age. He took lessons from Leone Pilato, a learned adventurer of the period, who had lived a long time in Thessaly and, although born m Calabria, pretended to be a Greek. By Boccaccio s advice Leone Pilato was appointed professor of Greek language and literature in the university of Florence, a position which he held for several years, not without great and last ing benefit for the revival of classical learning. Boccaccio was justly proud of having been intimately connected with the foundation of the first chair of Greek iu Italy. But he did not forget, in his admiration of classic literature, the great poets of his own country. He never tires in his praise of the sublime Dante, whose works he copied with his own hand. He conjures his friend Petrarch to study the great Florentine, and to defend himself against 