Page:The Oxford book of Italian verse.djvu/545

NOTES  (page 156). Born probably at Pisa of a famous family. Was an adherent of the Visconti and Scaligeri. Travelled in France and Germany. Composed a Dittamondo in terza rima which was influenced by Dante.

 (page 159). Born in Paris; his family came from Certaldo in Valdelsa, the beautiful little city which travellers from Florence to Siena pass a short time after leaving Empoli. Came as a boy to Florence, and went to Naples, probably to study commerce. Villani tells us that the sight of Virgil's tomb at Posilipo awakened his passion for letters. He fell in love with a lady whom he called Fiammetta, and returned to Florence about 1340. In 1350 he met Petrarca, and visited him at Padua in 1351. He held various appointments at Florence and went on several embassies. A mad monk almost scared him into leaving his profane literary studies, but Petrarch dissuaded him from this error. In 1373 he began to read and comment on the Divina Commedia in San Stefano di Badia; the course was broken off by the failure of his health. Shortly afterwards he retired to Certaldo, where he died and was buried. His chief works are:—the Decameron, the Fiammetta, the Filocolo, the Filostrato (in verse), love idylls based on old legends; the Teseide, in twelve books, narrates the story of Palamon and Arcite which Chaucer used in the Canterbury Tales; the Ameto, prose and verse, a pastoral; the Ninfale Fiesolano, another; the Amorosa Visione, an allegory in rhyme, the Corbaccio, invective against a widow who disliked him; the Vita di Dante, the commentary on the Divina Commedia; and in Latin the De casibus virorum illustrium, De claris mulieribus, the Bucolicon (17 eclogues), and the De genealogiis deorum gentilium in 15 books.

92. Io mi son giovinetta... Decameron, Giorno IX.

 (page 161). Born at Florence, of an 545