BOCCACCIO. -(1313-1375.)

Boccaccio may be regarded as the first classical prose writer of Italy, and to him belongs also the distinction of fully revealing to the Tuscan people by his commentaries the genius of Dante.

I do not know upon what ground Dandolo, the author of the " sthetic Guide to Florence," makes his statement as to Paris having been the birthplace of Boccaccio, for the generally accepted belief is that he was born, as asserted in the Osservatore Fiorentino, at Certaldo in 1313. His father was a merchant, and it was against his wishes that his son embarked upon a literary career. Very well read in the ancient authors, he gave his preference to the vulgar tongue, and the first Italian author whom he read, and whose works he soon got to know by heart, was Dante. Front him he derived his highest and best inspirations, including the substance of the eloquent speech which he delivered under the Duomo on the day that he vented his malediction on Florence for having closed her gates upon the most illustrious of her sons. The speech is still extant, and well deserves the reputation which it gained at the time.

He happened to be at Naples at the tithe when King Robert was receiving Petrarch with so much pomp. He made the poet's acquaintance, and learnt to admire and respect him, retaining until the day of his death a filial regard for him. Boccaccio, in his early days, was a thorough gallant, and having fallen in love with the daughter of the King of Naples, he gave utterance to his passion in one of his greatest works, "La Fiammetta," on the title-page of which he inscribed her name. He made but a brief stay at Florence, whither he was summoned by his father during the reign of the mad Duke of Athens, returning at once to Naples, where he enjoyed the favor of two queens, or of two daughters of queens, whose literary tastes were very highly developed. The death of his father brought him back to Tuscany, and he made Florence his permanent residence. It was there that he received Petrarch on his way to the jubilee at Rome after a separation of twenty years, and he set himself to recover for the exiled poet his rights of citizenship and his paternal inherit ance, which had been confiscated when his father, like Dante, was driven into exile. Boccaccio succeeded in obtaining from the Signoria a decree restoring this property to Petrarch.

There are two distinct individualities in Boccaccio, and yet Frenchmen and many other foreigners persist in estimating his character by the first part of his life only, associating his name with all that is sensuous and light. This may hold true of him while he was at the Court of Naples, and while he was composing amorous poetry in honor of his royal patroness; but after the year 1360 he devoted himself to more serious study, and followed in the wake of Accursi, the great jurisconsult, seeking, the companionship of the learned Greek philosophers from Byzantium who flocked to Florence, and even assuming the priestly garb. This conversion was mainly the work of Petrarch and of a Carthusian monk, and he might possibly have renounced writing altogether if it had not been for a remarkable letter in which Petrarch dissuaded him from giving up the composition of poetry, and urged him to use his pen to instill admiration for the beautiful, useful, and good.

It is certain, at all events, that he led a contemplative life during the last few years of his existence, devoting his whole thoughts to God, to the salvation of his own soul, and to his books. The death of Petrarch in 1374 affected him so deeply that he declared that he should not long survive him ; and, as a matter of fact, he died the following year. The will of this once brilliant courtier was a model of humbleness. He bequeathed to Bruna the daughter of his friend Ciango de Montemagno " a wooden bedstead, a feather-bed, a pair of good sheets, a small table upon which he was wont to take his meals, two table-cloths, two towels, and his monk's robe lined with purple." He bequeathed two holy images to the church of San Giacomo at Certaldo, where he died, and all his manuscripts to Martino da Signa, on condition that he allowed any one to take a copy of them. This comprised the whole fortune of the whilom favorite of the Court of Naples.

His tomb is not at Santa Croce, where one would expect to find it, between those of Dante and Machiavelli, but at Certaldo, where he had spent the last two years of his life. It has suffered many vicissitudes, too, having first been moved to make room for the organ, while in 1783, owing to a mistaken interpretation of the Grand Duke Leopold's decree as to burials inside of churches, the bones of the illustrious writer were removed from the coffin and deposited elsewhere. Filippo Villani has left a description of him which tallies very closely with the bust at Certaldo, and which, as we have every reason to believe, is correct. According to this description, the lips were half-parted with a smile ; he was stout, and had a fresh complexion. The nose was rather flat, and though he had no pretensions to manly beauty, there was an air of good-humor upon his pleasant face. It is the likeness, in short, of the poet of the Decameron " rather than of the philosopher of later years which the artist has left to us.

But a better insight into the character of a mail is to be gained from the private correspondence in which he gives free expression to his thoughts; and when Francis, the son-in-law of Petrarch, announced to Boccaccio the latter's death, he wrote him a letter in Latin which shows how accessible his heart was to pity and veneration, and how deeply he was affected by his friend's death.

" My first impulse," he says, "was to come and weep with you over our mutual loss, and say a last farewell to our mutual father, but for the tell years that I have been lecturing in public upon Dante's Commedia' I have been afflicted with an infirmity which, though not dangerous, to a great extent paralyzes my movements. When I received your letter I wept all the night long, not out of sorrow for this worthy man (for the virtues with which he was endowed are a sure guarantee that he has entered into eternal happiness with his God), but because his death leaves me like a ship at sea without a pilot. Amid the agitation of my soul I thought of your anguish and of that of the worthy Tullia, your wife and my sister. Asa Florentine I envy Arqua, which, hitherto obscure, will now become famous in the world's history. The traveller, as he sails along the Adriatic on his way from the distant East, will look towards the Euganean hills, and will say to his companions, `It is at the foot of those hills that rests Petrarch !' Oh, unhappy country, which will not hold the ashes of so illustrious a son! Thou hast not deserved this good fortune, for during his lifetime thou didst nothing to attach him to thee. Perhaps thou wouldst have done so had he been a worker of treason, and sullied with crime, or devoured by ambition and envy." A constant study of these favored epochs of literature may possibly make one feel all the more distaste for the foolish politics of the hour, and cause one to undervalue one's own epoch ; but certain it is that the mind dwells fondly upon the names of such men as Dante, Boccaccio, Michael Angelo, and Donatello, who were as lofty in character as in genius, and the nobility of whose disposition pulsates through their writings.

Boccaccio was the first writer of romance, properly so called; the "story" and the poem in octavo in the vulgar tongue being his creation. To him we owe "Ameto," "Filostrato," "L'Amorosa vizione," and Ninfale fiesolano," poetic compositions of his youth, which have often been copied since, and which have served as types of a school. Of these the " Fiammetta," written in 1344, is regarded as his greatest work, while his "Life of Dante " was the first biography of the poet of the "Divina Commedia." He also wrote " The Genealogy of the Gods," "Illustrious Women," and "Illustrious Unfortunates," as well as a treatise upon mountains, forests, and rivers. If we consider the period at which this was written, we see how much he was ahead of his age as regards mythology, geography, literature, and philology. He was far advanced in years and near his end when he began the commentaries on Dante and the "Diving Commedia," and was accorded the privilege of occupying the pulpit of Santa Maria del Fiore, the people of Florence flocking to the church in crowds to hear the eloquent revelation of the beauties of a work which, notwithstanding the commentaries of Dante's own son, still remained obscure for the multitude.

It was upon one of these memorable occasions that he so fiercely stigmatized the crimes of the preceding generations of Florentines, making the vaulted roof of the Duomo ring with his indignant tirade. Oh Florence ! what madness impelled you to drive out the most glorious of your children, one the like of whom no other city could ever hope to possess. What greater victories, and triumphs, and supremacy can you boast of? Your riches are uncertain, your beauty fragile and fleeting, your elegancies idle and frivolous; it is only those people, who judge more of appearance than reality, who can regard them as being glorious. Do you set great store by your merchants and your goldsmiths, by the ancient lineage and the celebrity of your great families? Unnatural mother that you are, open your eyes and behold your misdeeds, and may remorse and repentance lay hold on you! Your Dante, your son, died in exile, and it was you who sent him into banishment. His remains rest in foreign ground, and you will never see him before the last day. He treated you with filial respect, for he might have deprived you of his works, as you did not treat him with due honor. Yet, in return for his inspired writings, you deprived him of his right of citizenship. He was banished forever, and yet he remained a Florentine, preferring his native place to all the cities of Italy. Ask that his bones may be surrendered to you; pay this last mark of respect to his mighty shade, and even if you do not feel any remorse, take this step in order that the burden of reproach may be less heavy upon you. Ask that his ashes may be restored to you; and though I am certain that you will be refused, you will at least have shown that you are not altogether a stranger to feelings of pity. But it is perhaps a vain hope which I hold out to you, for the dead can neither feel nor understand. Dante will not emerge from his last resting-place at Ravenna, from that necropolis in which so many illustrious dead are buried; and Ravenna, which knows the value set on her hospitality, knows, also, the value of the treasure which she possesses. The whole universe keeps watch over the remains of the greatest and most perfect genius ever born, and you, Florence, are left face to face with your ingratitude, while it is this foreign city which in future ages will reap the glory which ought to have been yours."

The most popular of Boccaccio's works, the masterpiece which is the heritage of every great writer, which becomes, so to speak, the peg to which his celebrity is affixed, is the "Decameron." As regards imagination and style, it stands alone. It gives a complete and lifelike picture of manners and customs at Florence in the fourteenth century. It is an epitome of Florentine habits, each class of society being depicted with a master hand in its pursuits, its passions, its good qualities, its defects. It is a mirror in which each class finds its own image reflected, and though the work is of a licentious tendency, which makes it unsuitable for the young, this is only an accessory feature. The "Decameron " is a frame for the display of contemporary pictures, and one of the tales from it, the episode of Griselda, was selected by Petrarch to translate into Latin.