LEGGERE IL DECAMERON di Francesco Bausi

CHAPTER 1: TIMES AND WAYS OF WRITING

1. GENESI E COMPOSIZIONE DEL DECAMERON
We can't be sure when the Decamaron was composed. This work is thought to have
been written between the end of 1348 (because the book begins with the description of
the plague that struck Florence between the summer and autumn of that year) and the
second half of the fifties (a letter from Buondelmonti to Acciaiuoli in July 1360 shows
that the work was already in circulation). It is very likely that some of the Decameron
novels were written before the idea of the book was conceived. However, it is not
possible to specify how many and which novels.
The ballads that close every day are singed by the women and the men of the brigata. In
the Proemio, however, Boccaccio says that that only women will sing them. Always in
the Proemio it is written that the novels will tell about happy and unhappy, lucky and
unlucky loves, set in antiquity and modern times. In fact, the book also collects novels
about the mockery, the motto and those setting in ancient times are few.
We might think that originally in the frame there was a female-only brigata and that the
work was composed of only 7 days (excluding those of the mockery and mottos VI-
VIII). We can also note that the motto pronounced by Filomena in VI 1 is almost
identical to that of Pampinea of I 10. A repetition that perhaps Boccaccio could not
avoid because the first days were circulating for a long time.
There are novels that have inconsistencies that can be explained by a process of revision
and rewriting that is not fully perfected.
ES 1: In the novel II 8, Giachetto is ashamed of the words of contempt used towards the
Earl of Anguersa. Those words had actually been spoken by Giacchetto's father. At the
end of the novel, Giachetto brings his wife and mother-in-law to Paris, but she was
dead.
ES 2: In the novel VIII 7, the schoolboy Rinieri describes himself as an aged man, while
in the Proemio the author presents him as a young man.

2. THE TRADITION AND THE FIRST CIRCULATION OF THE WORK

From Boccaccio we have a good number of autographs including that of the
Decameron: the manuscript Hamilton 90 of the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin (sign B) of
1370. This is a large-format volume. At the end of each of the first thirteen files there
are small drawings depicting the characters of the frame and or the novels. Some think
that the first diffusion of the work was quite circumscribed and also controlled by
Boccaccio because all the codes known today were copied in Florence in Naples.
CHAPTER 2: THE IMPORTANT STRUCTURES
1. DECAMERON ORGANICITY. THE NOVELS AND THE FRAME
The Decameron is not a simple collection of novels, but it is an organic book with a
strong structure. In the Decameron we find very symbolic numbers: the ten and the
hundred that indicate totality and perfection and are connected to the decalogue of
Moses and the hundred songs of Dante's Commedia. The Bible and the poem of Dante
are the primary models of Boccaccio, for the formal, literary and ideological aspect. The
Decameron wants to present itself as the story of the refoundation of the world after the
social and moral chaos caused by the plague and as a story of formation that through the
experience of made leads the ten novelists and the reader towards virtue. The novels are
arranged in a strict structure and are not independent parts. This is called frame: each
block of ten novels is called day and has an introduction and a conclusion; we find the
whole thing between the Proemio and the Conclusion in which the author speaks in the
first person. The book has a kind of concentric circle conformation with the addition of
a fourth level, that is, when the characters of a novella narrates a novella (Melchisdech
in I 3, Bergamino in I 7), or when the author himself tells a novella in the frame
(introduction of the day IV).
The protagonists of the setting are the ten young people of the brigata, who on a
summer Tuesday in 1348 meet in the church of Santa Maria Novella, when Florence is
invaded by the plague. The main recreational activity of the birgata is the narration of
stories during 5 days of the week (Fridays are reserved for prayer, Saturdays for rest and
fasting in preparation for Sunday). The brigata’s days are organized in a repetitive way:
- in the morning they do walks, dances and songs
- after lunch and the nap the ten young people are in the garden in the hottest
hours of the afternoon to tell the news
- at the end, before or after dinner, they sing ballads.
The presence in the ballads, lyric makes the Decameron a prosimeter. All the activities
of the brigata are described in the introductions and conclusions of the individual days.
The comments of young people when they talk about novels are very important because
they help us to steer towards a correct interpretation.
The Decameron is built on the dialectical principle of repetition and variation: to escape
the monotony and excessive rigidity are inserted small but new elements. For example,
introductions and conclusions have varying amplitude and nature.
- the introduction of the day I describes the plague and its frightening effects
- in the introduction of day IV there is the self-defense of Boccaccio
- in the introduction of day VI there is the disagreement between the servants
Licisca and Tindaro
 - in the conclusion of the day V there are the excesses of Dioneus who must sing
the final ballad
- in the conclusion of the 6th Day Boccaccio describes the trip and the bath of the
birgata in the Valle delle Donne.
The composition of the brigata is asymmetrical: 7 women and 3 men. The action is set
in two different country villas:
- in the first take place the first two days
- the remaining days take place in the second.
- The day VII young people move to the Valle delle Donne.
Even in the novels the author varies the extent and tone to escape boredom.

- Day I -> themed free because the brigata didn’t have chance to prepare on an
established theme
The following days focus on four topics of human existence (luck, ingenuity, love and
virtue).
- Day II -> luck
- Day III, VI, VII, VIII -> ingenuity
- Day IV, V -> love
- Day IX is again themed free for the need to refresh forces.
- Day X -> virtue
The real central theme of the work is love.
The introduction of Day IV divides the work into two parts of different size: an initial
block of 3 days and a second block with 7 days. This division of 3+7, we also find it in
the formation of the brigata. Another symbolism can be traced back to the mystical
meaning of the numbers seven and three:
- the seven virtues four cardinals or humans, three theological or divine
- the three parts of the soul: rational, irascible and object of sinful desire.

Dioneo gets the privilege of evading the theme set in each day, creating a third free-
themed day, formed of the ten novels told by him. The privilege of Dioneo is
counterbalanced by the obligation, that he established, to narrate last in every day. In
fact, Dioneo uses this privilege only sometimes:
- in novels II 10 and VIII 10 doesn’t deviate from the established theme
- in the novel II 10 recalls the erotic theme of the day
- in the novel IV 10 speaks of a love that had an unhappy end, even if not tragic
 - the novel VI 10 is not a novella of motto but also the protagonist of his novel has
the ability to escape from a difficult situation with the use of the word.
- in the novel X 10 presents a negative character close to a positive one but
remains true to the theme of magnanimity.
In this book we find a refined game of weights and counterweights.

2. A CONTORTED ASCENT PATH

The ten narrators have fictional names, while the characters of the novels have well-
defined identities. The setting of the frame is idealized and indeterminate while that of
the novels is predominantly realistic. The intention of the author is to clearly separate
the ideal world of the frame and the real world of the novels. The members of the
brigade take a twofold journey: one individual, of inner purification and one collective,
of rebuilding a community regulated according to morality and reason. The target is to
escape the plague. Not so much from the epidemic than rather by its moral and social
consequences, described in the beginning of the introduction of the First Day: the
crumbling of family ties and the rules of coexistence, selfishness. Young people are
trying to save human values that are endangered by pestilence. They create a micro-
society that wants to be an example for future society, the one that will arise from the
ashes of the destroyed world. As is often the case in high medieval literature, the text
has two levels, literal and allegorical:
- literal -> the plague is the real one that strikes Europe.
- allegory -> the plague of the Decameron is also a grandiose allegory of the
moral degradation of the sinful man.
For this reason, we can say that it is the true frame of the work, its engine. The youth of
the brigata do not try to escape the plague individually, but thanks to Pampinee they
create a community that is establishes rules for good living (a similar thing happens to
Dante when he follows his guide Virgil through a long journey of purification). The
Decameron is a kind of medieval bildungsroman where the protagonists are the ten
novelists.
It is difficult to deny the existence of an ascensional structure in the Decameron. Of
course, this isn’t the same ascensional structure of the Commedia, either because of the
different literary genre of the two texts and because Dante's poem was born as a unitary
work, while the Decameron is the result of the assembly of pieces.
In the novels we see ascensional mini-sequences:
- in day II and III (with the adventures carried out first by luck, and then by
human industry)
- in the fourth and fifth days (where loves lead to a tragic end and in the other case
to a happy marriage)
 - in day VI (with the motto to avoid a danger or a difficult situation)
- in the VII and VIII days (with the mocking novels)

3. IN SEARCH OF THE EDEN

The first villa where the brigata arrives is two miles from Florence. It's a beautiful place,
with a beautiful courtyard, gardens, wells and beautiful rooms.
The next stage begins in the introduction of the third day, when on Sunday morning the
brigata moves to a second villa to prevent the arrival of new people who could disturb
the balance of the group. This place looks like heaven on earth. This change of villa also
symbolizes the moral progress of the brigata. In the description of the second villa we
find the expression "bello ordine" -> this reflects the medieval idea of beauty
understood as integrity and proportion of the parts. The garden is arranged in a
geometric way, but beauty does not exclude the useful: in fact, there is a fountain that
serves to move two mills.
Among the trees that adorn the garden, there are also oranges and cedars that are
symbols of eternity. On the contrary, we do not find the pine that symbolizes the erotic.
The fountain is perfectly placed in the middle of the garden that symbolizes life that is
renewed and perpetuated. It is here that the novelists decide to carry out their activity,
as if the brigata had only now found its centre.
The last stage of this ascent is the Valle delle Donne, where the brigata moves at the end
of the VI day. This represents a harmonious scenery. The brigata will bathe in the small
lake as if to symbolize that they wants to purify themselves after the quarrel between the
servants Licisca and Tindaro.

4. HOW NOT TO READ THE DECAMERON

In the case of the Decameron, one of the most erroneous approaches is to separate the
"schema" from the "poetry", that means to separate the frame from the novels,
considering the first as a kind of external structure and pretending to interpret the novels
without the structure in which they are inserted. The frame is the interpretive key to the
work. It is wrong to believe that in the Decameron there are sections in which Bocaccio
had to satisfy the mentality of the culture of the time and other where he gives free
expression to his authentic thought. Boccaccio multiplies the organicity signals of the
book, establishing several connections close and at a distance. The Decameron is like
the Commedia: only by reading it in its entirety and attributing the same importance to
each part can we really understand it. It is wrong to isolate and privilege individual
novels or groups of novels.
The stories give an articulate and multifaceted look at the world, adopt varying points of
view and often present similar cases with different outcomes or different cases with
similar outcomes, describing every aspect of human life and soul.
Boccaccio give the reader some guidelines to read the work well but also to live well.
These indications come from the frame because it is inside that, that day after day we
are given coordinates useful to correctly interpret the novels.

CHAPTER 3: BETWEEN "DILETTO" AND "UTILE CONSIGLIO”.

THE DECAMERON'S LIGHT DEPTH
1. FAITH, CHIRCH, RELIGION
The Decameron, as tradition, begins by talking about God, faith and religion. In fact, the
first three novels have as a subject the religious issues dealt with in a light and comic
way.
- In the novel 1, the notary Ser Cepparello is an infamous man and pretends to be
an honest man.
- The novella 2 stars two Parisian friends, the Christian Gianotto and the Jew
Abraam.
- In novella 3 there is Saladin, the sultan of Cairo who needs money and turns to
the rich and stingy Jewish Melchisedech. This novel tells the story of the three
rings representing the three monotheistic religions.
The first and second novella are based on the paradox that the sinner is considered a
saint. From the first two novels transpire the theme of ex malo bonum of God, that is,
that by dark ways he knows how to draw good from evil and bends to his
wills/drawings even those who act against him. The novella 2 and 3 speak of the dispute
around the truest of religions. Already from these first three novels we can see the
complexity of the work, which often proposes different points of view. Among the
themes there is God's benignity towards men and at the same time the unfathomability
of divine will. A theme that is also addressed is that of acceptance with resignation and
of believing that God has permitting evil because from this can come a good. It is clear
that the novel genre does not prevent the author from speaking about deep problems and
topics.
In novel 3, Filomena moves on to human arguments after the divine ones of the two
previous novels: here is introduced the theme of ingenuity that allows you to get out of
difficult situations.
It is clear that novella 3 hangs up on the religious and theological arguments of the first
two, with which it has in common the impossibility of knowing the truths of faith and
divine will from the humans. The Demaron speaks about the world and man from an
earthly and non-metaphysical-theological perspective. Boccaccio makes this choice
because he wants to analyse human action in daily life and the laws that govern it. The
novella wants to teach, but also to delight. His teachings are in mostly light and playful
forms.
High themes are generally absent in the Decameron, but if they appear they are
addressed from a practical and non-theoretical perspective. This is also the case for
great history, politics and high culture. Crusades and wars are just a backdrop for love
or adventure stories (e.g. I 5,II 8)
Another central theme of the book is Luck.

2. PERFECT LOVES AND IMPERFECT LOVES

Boccaccio distinguishes between the natural instinct to love and the love of mind, the
elective and voluntary one. So he distinguishes between right loves and wrong loves.
The day IV is dedicated to the wrong loves that cause illness, pain and death.
Boccaccio's vision is that love can be resisted, opposing temperance and free will.
The names are also very important: in the novel I 5 -> the Marquisana is from
Monferrato -> this is a clear allusion to the defense of one's chastity (ferrato: reinforced
with iron / mountain: female sexual organ). There is a connection with novela X 6, at
the opposite end of the book. Here is a man of value and he finds himself fighting with
lust when he sees his two beautiful daughters in the garden. It is the wise counselor who
opens his eyes and warns him. The councillor is called Guido of Monforte, where
Monforte corresponds to Monteferrato: the mountain and the impregnable fortress of
reason, to which even love can bend.
- In novel 4 and 5, the respective protagonists have finally managed to win over
the women they love but renounce, generously returning them to their husbands.
- In the novel 7 Lisa passionately loves Re Pietro of Aragon, she gets sick, but in
the end heals and settles for a platonic love.
- In the novel 8 Gisippo freely cedes the woman to his brotherly friend Tito, when
he discovers that he loves her more than he loves her. For this love is in danger
of dying.
Even in the days 4 and 5 it is clear that for Boccaccio tragic loves do not constitute a
model of perfect love.
in the novel V 9, there is a classic example of a novella that begins with a courteous
situation that however evolves in an atypical way because of the lives of the
protagonists. Giovanna rejects Federigo's love and remains faithful to her husband.
After the different adventures of the protagonists. love is realized only after the death of
John's husband and son, who eliminate all adulterous temptation.
In the Decameron, the incomprehensible naturalness of the desire for love is ratifies by
the apologo delle papere, but also by all the novels in which women go to look for a
lover to remedy the defaults of the husbands who neglect them. (es: II 10 -> the judge
Riccardo di Chinzica who married a young woman).
Novels that present the dissoluteness of monks and nuns (es: III 1, IX 2) or who make
fun of hermit life (III 10) have no theological implication. They just want to highlight
how the choice of asceticism is contrary to reason. For this reason, Boccaccio can’t
therefore be called an anti-clerical or an irreligious.
Among the ten novelists, Dioneo has a prominent role and symbolizes the earthly
carnality of man. In fact, every day does not end with the novella of Dioneo, but with
the ballad that reassembles the order of the world and passions. Dioneo at the end of the
day VI would like to sing ballads with double senses, but Queen Elissa prevents him
because the maliciousness of the novels can’t find a place in the life of the brigata.
Passions must be calmed by the arrival of the night.

3. INGENUITY AT WORK: THE MOTTO AND THE MOCKERY

The themes of the Decameron are intertwined in almost all novels. The theme of
ingenuity is found in the days III, VI, VII, VIII but it is a theme that cannot be separated
from that of luck as in day II and also from that of love. The motto and the mockery are
among the two most characteristic themes of the novella generally of the low forms of
medieval narrative. These two are in Boccaccio's work the two supreme manifestations
of ingenuity: the first is elegant and pungent while the second is aggressively violent
and cruel with the intention above all to punish vices and defects. Elissa the queen of
the day of the motto says that the motto has a dual function:
1. defending against a provocation or a threat
2. serves to avoid a loss a danger or harm.
ES 1: The amorous intemperance of the King of France is calmed by Marquis of
Monteferrato.
ES 2: the mean and stingy messer Erminio who asks what else could he make paint in
his house
Ex-3: A woman from Guascogna is offended in Cyprus by some men on her way to the
Holy Land
These three novels condense the salient features of the motto of spirit in the Decameron.
The motto is short and does not attack directly but that makes the interlocutor
understand his mistake through a witty boutade and not overtly offensive. The motto
and a ready response is for women a valid tool to talk in a world with a male dominance
and value their rights. It is only through the motto that one can speak in a non-direct
way and a lower can replicate to a superior having also the upper hand over him. The
motto, however, to achieve its purpose requires from the recipient an ingenuity not
inferior to that of the broadcaster.
For example the King of France, messer Erminio and the King of Cyprus realize their
misbehave and because they immediately understood the meaning of the joke. If this
were not the case, the joke would fall into the void as it happens in the day VI, where
the vain Cesca does not understand Uncle Fresco's motto. In the case of the above-
mentioned novels, the moral effectiveness of the motto is guaranteed by the fact that the
recipients are honest people or still endowed with some virtue. The motto is so
important in the economics of the book that we find it also in days that have different
subject. In other cases, the motto transmits feelings of revenge and offense and once
deciphered causes violent and tragic reactions.
ES: in IV 9, where Guglielo Rossiglione after killing the friend with whom his wife
betrayed him, rips his heart, makes him cook by the cook and makes him serve a woman
on the table.

The day VI is that one that has less extension, as it consists of very short novels. It is a
day entirely dedicated to toscani and fiorentini because the toscani and fiorentini has the
shrewdness of ready and sharp wit. On this day we see famous people like Giotto and
Guido Cavalcanti. The motto is not only a prerogative of men of culture or women of
noble origins. For Boccaccio, ingenuity as well as virtue can be a quality of humble
people (ES: the novella of Cisti formaio, VI 2, and the cook Chichibio VI 4).

On this day we find all kinds of mottos:

- the defensive one and that one that save from a danger (VI 7, Madonna Filippa)
- the one who intends to correct a defect (VI 8, the silly presumption of Cesca)
- the one that want to offend (VI 3, the Bishop of Florence Antonio d'Orso)
- the one that runs out in a show of superior acuity (VI 6, Michele Scalza bets to
prove that the Barons is the noblest family in Florence)
- the one that generates admiration for his ingenuity by pushing the recipient to
forgive the guilty part (VI 4)
ES: In novel VI 9, Guido Cavalcanti is surrounded by Brunelleschi and his companions.
These make fun of him by mocking his dedication to philosophical speculation and his
attempts to prove the non-existence of God. Guido responds with an enigmatic joke. In
this case the protagonist is teased with an impertinent question and with the motto
intends to replicate in a defensive way. In addition his answer also saves him from an
embarrassing situation. Guido insults young people by comparing them to deceased
because he says that the man who does not use reason and that therefore is not literate or
philosopher, died as a man and does not differ from animals.
Among the mocking novels are some that are known to be some of the most famous of
the Decameron:
- Calandrino (VIII 3 and 6)
- Widow and schoolboy (VIII 7)
- Maestro Simone da Villa (VIII 9)

The vulgar quarrel between the servants in the introduction of the VI day marks the
transition from the theme of love to that of ingenuity. The logic used is always the
same: to alternate topics and styles -> after two days in which love was describes in a
serious way, follow two days reserved for mockery and one free themed, in which love
still dominates but in a joyful dimension of erotic mockery.
The mockery punishes vices and defects such as: stupidity, jealousy, stinginess and
lust. In some respects, the mockery is similar to the motto in motivations and purposes
but it is different in the ways in which it is realized and in the effects it produces:
- The motto is an expression of verbal ingenuity while mocking a cunning
machination. However, cases of interference are not excluded when the motto
succeeds and seals an erotic mockery (VI 7) or when the ability to speak plays
an important role in the preparation of the mockery (VIII 9).
- The motto is almost always private and is played mostly between two people
while the mockery is private only if erotic while in other cases it can take on a
public and social dimension (VIII 6, The demonstration of the avarice and
dishonesty of the Calandrino involves some villagers)
- The motto to be effective must be properly understood by the recipient while in
the mockery the ingenuity is only on the side of the beffatore and the victim is
rarely aware of what happens and of the reason why it happens.
- Thanks to the motto the recipient becomes aware of his mistake and amends it,
while the mockery doesn’t provide this educational function.
In the Decameron we find novels of beffa and controbeffa (VIII 10) and also novels of
motto and contromotto (I 5, VI 3 and 9). The VIII 7, is one of the most famous for his
skilful architecture -> Elena subjects Rinieri to the beffa of the cold and he submits her
has the controbeffa of the heat). In this case we are faced with a therapeutic mockery in
which Rinieri heals from the amorous disease because he understands his mistake.

For a beffatore/moker and motteggiatore it is essential to choose his victim well in order
to avoid dangerous retaliation and in general it is prudent not to choose victims as men
of ingenuity.
ES: Brunelleschi with his friends provoke Cavalcanti on his home court, Madama
Iancofiore who tries to rob a Tuscan merchant Salabaetto (In fact the mistake of
Iancofiore lies in thinking she can deceive a Tuscan). The two day dedicated to mockery
finish with a popular proverb. Also the mockery find between Florentines and Tuscans
their ideal setting because Boccaccio intends to celebrate in the Decameron the
sagacious and cynical genius of his fellow/compatriot.

4. COURTEOUS VIRTUES, BOURGEOIS VIRTUES, CHRISTIAN VIRTUES

The purpose of the Decameron as well as delight is to teach, teach how to escape vices,
and follow virtues. Boccaccio himself says it in the Proemio and Panfilo repeats it at the
end of day IX.
According to some, Boccaccio is a nostalgic celebrator of the virtues of the courteous
world that would oppose the degeneration of modern merchant society.
For others in the Decameron he criticizes the traditional courteous values and they sing
epic of merchants and the nascent bourgeoisie.
Others insist on the celebration of Aristotelian virtues or Christian virtues.

The nostalgic remembrance of the courtly knightly world is one of the most important
components of the book: many novelists exalt virtues such as generosity, love as a free
choice between kind souls, solidarity, contempt for riches and loyalty.
The plague represents in the life and works of Boccaccio what exile represents in
Dante's life and work: a turning point at all levels, after which nothing was the same
than before, and pushed him to reconsider the principles that initially inspired his
literary activity and his existence. The invention of the brigata and the frame in the
Decameron is the expression of this need for personal and collective renewal, an anxiety
to make a tabula rasa and refound the world.
In the book there are also negative judgments about contemporary Florence that is
defined as full of deceptions. We refer to the moral corruption produced by the spread
of wealth and trades. Pride, envy and stinginess are specific vices of the merchant
society of that Fiorentina in particular.
ES: The knight Ruggeri moves to Spain because he realizes that in his city his value
would have no way of emerging and to be appreciated, because the virtue is not in his
city.
In addition, the choice of the 10 novelists to leave, even if temporarily, Florence to try
to build the foundation of an honest coexistence, evokes the anti-urban controversy that
was widespread in the Middle Ages -> Boccaccio's at least partial adherence to the
traditional antithesis city/campaign, that considered the first one as the place of vices
and corruption, while seeing in the second the guarantee of a more authentic life in
contact with nature and with God. The political order established by young people is
also significant: every day they elect a king or a queen.
It is not very correct to speak of an “aristotelian” Boccaccio. In fact, the subject of the
book is the man’s life in all its aspects, and it is therefore inevitable that for a literary of
that era the guiding text was the Etica of Aristotle.
It is probably not coincidental, that the days dedicated to vices and virtues are at the
extreme of the book, as if to frame it within precise coordinates of an ethical nature.
Already in the first day we talk about some vicious behaviour. The vices examined are:
- meanness and stinginess (I 3, 7 and 8)
- intemperances/excesses (I 5)
- The evil hypocrisy (I 6)
- cowardice (I 9)

On Day X, the theme of vices and virtues is presented in a systematic way. Here there is
a contrast between the friendship between good people based on virtue and that one that
seeks only profit and interest. On this day are frequent quotes of Aristotle and Thomas:
the introduction to the initial novella where Neifile recalls the Aristotelian definition of
magnanimity in order to warn the reader of the complexity of the tenth day, whose
novels are dedicated to the exemplifications of virtues such as liberalism , magnificence
and magnanimity. The main object of the tenth day is in fact the magnanimity of
Aristotle of Thomas -> that virtue that makes all others greater, bringing them to
perfection. Consequently, the deeds of the protagonists of this day are not virtuous
deeds but deeds of exceptional and extraordinary virtue. From the 4 novel, liberalism
and magnanimity characterize the characters and their deeds, but the object of this virtue
passes from intangibles to life and loved people.

As already said, in fact, one would fall into error by talking too much about an
Aristotelian Boccaccio: Boccaccio is Christian, his ethical aristotelism is that
Christianized by Thomas. This is confirmed by the last novel in which magnanimity
coincides with patience and humility. Humility is not an Aristotelian virtue but it is a
virtue that in the late Middle Ages acquires a particular importance transforming itself
as an eighth and supreme of the 7 main virtues of the medieval Christian tradition
(humility is what allows to break down pride and to open a human soul to divine grace).
Aristotle would never present Griselda as a supreme example of virtue and
magnanimity: in fact the Decameron does not close with the example of a great king or
a great wise man, but with that of a simple and patient humble woman -> a kind of laic
Saint that can be a little bit connected to the figures of Job, of Mary and Christ.

In general the ethical ideal of the Decameron and the control of passions, the measure
that must regulate both the desire for gain and the sexual appetite. The measure inspires
the conduct of the 10 novelists and it’s celebrated in the novels of the day V and X. The
disproportionate has been pointed since the Proemio as a cause of suffering and death
and many novels of the day IV exemplify the tragic consequences of the passional
excesses not ruled by reason.

For Boccaccio, these virtues have left the present world leaving it to vices. The fact that
the art of the motto, that was very present in Florence and in Italy of the ancient temple
and that is now extinguished, is for Boccaccio a clue of the decline of customs because
the ready response is a manifestation of intelligence and urbanity. The author of the
Decameron looks has an ideal past. In the novels no one among the most virtuous
characters belongs to the contemporary age.

The 10 young people manage to find a moral and intellectual balance. At the end they
make the courageous decision to return to Florence where they can be an example and
guide their fellow citizens in building a better society (if the plague does not kill them).
The plague sooner or later will end, and a new world can be born. In fact, the
Decameron ends with a tenuous note of optimism.
CHAPTER 4: A MORAL BOOK (BUT NOT TOO MUCH)
1. THE DECAMERON AS REMEDIUM AMORIS
The novel II 8: Gualtieri, when the King of France leaves for the crusade, is appointed
vicar general of the Kingdom. One day the king's daughter-in-law fell in love with him
and offered him as a lover. Being refused by him, she false accuses him to rape her.
As often happens in the Decameron also in this story we start from a typical courteous
situation: he has a beautiful body and a kind soul, and she is beautiful and young. Both
are noble and could date without arousing suspicion. Boccaccio put in the narrative ome
unmistakable signals:
- the two are in a room alone like Paolo and Francesca
- she speaks to him with a trembling voice
- the speech she gives speaks of his youth of his husband's remoteness and from
the stimuli of the flesh.
This is a theme seen and revised in poetry and novels in the Middle Ages: Tristano and
Isotta, Lancelot and Gineva, Paolo and Francesca. One of the aspects in which the
praised realism of Boccaccio's book is precisely this: the paths that fork, the sliding
doors, that is, the identical or similar circumstances that lead to completely or partly
different outcomes, following a different decision of the protagonists. In this case the
Count avoid love passion of the woman by refusing to give in his flattery, thus arousing
the anger of the woman and the intentions of revenge.
In the Decameron there are those who say no.
The most similar situation to novel II 8 is the novel IV 9, where the knights Guglielmo
Rossiglione and Guglielmo Guadastagno are great friends. One fine day Guadastagno
falls in love with Rossiglione's wife. The woman accords to the passion but when the
husband discovers the betrayal, he kills his friend, rips his heart and makes him cook for
his wife. Here is the woman who does not say no, exposing herself to the risk to which
the loves of this kind meet in the medieval tradition: murder and suicide. The
Rossiglione’s wife is called by her disloyal female by her husband, while Boccaccio
calls the Count a very loyal Knight. The Decameron does not just describe life's feelings
and human relationships, but judges and it often asks the reader to do so. The novel IV
9, it seems a romantic story, but Boccaccio does not admire and envy the two
unfortunate lovers.
The perfect love for Boccaccio is not that of Ghismonda and is not that of the daughter-
in-law of the King of France. The Decameron distances itself from the cornerstones of
courtly love and the book that for more than a century had announced them more
effectively -> De amore of Andrea Cappelletto. Boccaccio deviates from the idea of the
inevitability of love, understood as a higher force has the resilience of man and woman.
Boccaccio disapproves the “Chiodo scaccia Chiodo” as a remedy for disappointment
and love suffering. This is a technique used in novel II 7, where Princess Alatiel isn’t
being able to marry the king of Garbo. Dante's relatives are also blamed for their
decision to procure a wife after Beatrice's death.
Andreuola and Zinevra can be considered anti-Alatiel: the first when she lost her
husband closes in the convent while the second, forced to flee from her husband who
wanted to have her killed, dresses as a man so as not to become the object of the desire
of others. Alatiel, on the other hand, remains muted in front of the men who desire it,
and communicates only with the body to avoid worse trouble. Unlike Zinevra, he learns
the language and earns the esteem and respect of the Egyptian soldier.
In triad II 7-9, we find in short all the Decameron: vice and virtue, lustful love and pure
love, lies and sincerity, loyalty and disloyalty.
In the novel X 9: Torello leaves for the crusade and Adalieta swears allegiance to him.
Torello, however, sets a deadline beyond which, if he does not return, the woman will
be free to join another man. The heroine of the novella is the faithful, wise and virtuoso
Adalieta. Boccaccio calls it "valente."
The novella X 10, is a novella about marriage and is the most problematic and
enigmatic book. Marquis Saluzzo marries Griselda and, in order to verify her
submission, subjects her to inhumane trials, leading her to believe that he ordered the
killing of his children and that he intends to repudiate her to marry a woman of better
lineage. The story ends with a happy ending. But Dioneo points out in the Proemio to
the novella that that of the Marquis is not an example to imitate, because the happy
ending achieved is only thanks to the humility and virtue of Griselda, while the
behaviour of the Marquis is immoral and cruel.
Petrarca, when in the first months of 1373 translated and reworked in Latin the novella
X 10, eliminated the ambiguity, highlighting the theological allegory: for him, Griselda
symbolizes the man who is subjected by God to very hard trials to become aware of his
fragility and strengthen his faith. This is not an arbitrary reading because Boccaccio
himself gives Griselda, traits of Job, Mary and Jesus.
In addition, the idea of verifying the constancy of his wife, we already find her in the
novel X 9, where Torello shows up incognito at the new wedding of Adalieta to spy on
his conduct and evaluate whether it was appropriate to reveal to her or not.
The proof to which Adalieta is subjected is very different from the inhumane ones of
Griselda who from the Christian point of view are not permissible. Boccaccio, as
demonstrated through Dioneo's comments, does not seem to authorize a fully allegorical
reading of the novel. Griselda may be Mary, but Gualtieri is definitely not Joseph -> In
fact Joseph does not repudiate Mary when he discovers that she is pregnant, and that
isn’t’ his child. Instead, Gualtieri distrusting Griselda subjected her to terrible anxieties,
as Herod did. The Marquis follows, according to his name, the precepts of Andrea
Cappellano, who admits that a noblewoman can love a plebeian, but recommends the
woman to test him.
Griselda's submission to her husband is that of the subject to the feudal lord. In
marriage, however, feelings such as those of Torello and Adalieta are necessary:
affection, fidelity, mutual respect. This is perfect love. The novella of the perfect
marriage love is X 9, and the novella of perfect friendship is X 8. The novella X 10
shows Boccaccio's polemic against De amore, showing what abuse and excess led to
that conception of love.
The Decameron does not see well the unions of a man and a woman of two too different
social classes, and almost always condemns them to an unhappy outcome. Boccaccio
also detaches himself when Cappelletto claims that true love is an exclusive prerogative
of the noble classes. The moving story of Simona and Pasquino in the novel IV 7 speaks
of a tragic love story between two Florentines of the sub-proletariat and the novella
wants to be an exemplum of the fact that anyone can love. Their love is described with
the same lexicon and the same mechanisms used for the love of a higher rank.
The Decameron can be called a love manual but very different from that of Ovid and
Cappelletto: many of the particular characters of love described by the two of them, are
denied and dismantled by Boccaccio. Boccaccio teaches the measure of sexual appetites
and argues that marriage is the crowning achievement of rational love. The book is a
remedium amoris, useful to learn to curb the destructive instincts for a love passion.
The opening diptych, consisting of Proemio and the introduction to Day I, provides the
reader with the appropriate interpretive coordinates. Boccaccio brings back the
composition of the Decameron has a “moto di gratitudine”, that is his desire to
reciprocate the help received when in past years he was suffering terribly for a
boundless love and days that he could come out alive only thanks to the comforts and
reasoning of friends. With his reasoning Boccaccio intends to present himself as a
compassionate message adviser to those he loves and especially the women they love.
The importance of good advice and good counsellor is an important theme of the
Decameron that emerges in more novels: IV 6, V 6, X 6, where we find men and
women who with their advice distract the protagonists from irrational and morally
wrong behaviours. The book aims to teach to measure passions in a perspective of
balance and honesty, without mortifying natural needs and propensity to pleasure. He
simply wants to curb those excesses that lead to pain and death.
The 10 young men escape together from the real plague of 1348 and that metaphorical
plague that the passionate excess. Not by chance the remedies that medieval ancient
doctors suggested against the plague coincided in large part with those recommended to
those suffering from love disease (mad love was considered a real psychogenic
pathology). Among the remedies was to live in the countryside or attend green places,
walking, do enjoyable activities and abstain from sexual intercourse. These are
prescriptions scrupulously followed even by the 10 young people of the brigata. The
medicine seems to be the Decameron not only for its content in which the teaching
offered lightly through the novels but also for its form -> the structure is closed and
harmonious the work wants to be already in itself an antidote against the anarchy of the
soul and the world: the dispersion of passions finds its shelter that is its rationalization
and common sense in the frame that surrounds the novels. The Decameron is presented
to the reader in the award as the result of a painful personal experience that the author
offers to readers for consolation and exemplum. In this sense, a direct thread ties the
Proemio to the novel VIII 7, in which Rinieri after experiencing on his skin the risks of
irrational love (he had fallen in love with the capricious Elena that leads him to a step
from death) learns to keep away from it but not to completely avoid love but to live it in
a more balanced way.

2. THE DIFFICULT ART OF THE WORD

The real protagonist of the Decameron is the word: the word consoles, amuses, teaches,
defends from danger and drives death away. The 10 novelists entrust their hopes of
survival to life precisely in the word. They want to rebuild the foundations of civil life
and be able to combat the moral corruption caused by the plague through the wise use of
the word. For example, in the novella of the Knight and the woman, the motto of the
lady deftly echoes and overturns the gallant phrase of man. With this sentence the
woman silenced the man and put an end to the suffering that the narrator is inflicting on
her. For Boccaccio the word is like any other human faculty: it is not always good but it
can also be bad. It can be used well or can be used badly.
In the Decameron, a character doesn't just get good because he can speak well. It must
also be said that the rhetoric in the Decameron is not always good and fair. In fact, you
can see how no one could define good the extraordinary rhetoric of Ser Ciappelletto.
Another example is that of Alatiel who with the word manages to hide the real life
conducted in previous years by pretending to be a chaste and devoted woman.
What can be considered a masterpiece of amorous rhetoric is the long and passionate
speech that was the daughter-in-law of the King of France turns to the Count to
convince him to give in to his/her? flattery (even that of Ghismona). These women are
cunning and clever at masking the true and the false by confusing one and the other.
They also use these arguments to affirm that love is stronger than free will or to justify
adultery.

In the novel III 7, one of the largest of the Decameron, the protagonist is the Florentine
Tedaldo tahta loves the beautiful monna Ermellina. The woman is married and after
being frightened by a friar with the threat of hell, she decides to end the extramarital
relationship. Tedaldo is desperate and leaves the city to move to Cyprus. 7 years later he
returns to the city pretending to be a friar. He manages to convince the woman that what
is happening in his life is a punishment inflicted by God for the cruelty shown towards
the lover. Again, the fact that in his speech there are still real parts does not detract from
the fact that the aims of this speech are fallacious and evil. Le novella di Tedaldo's as
that of the daughter-in-law of the King of France are considered suasoria -> a speech
that wants to recommend action. As often happens in the Decameron the advice is to
abandon to love.

In the novel III 5, Zima convinces the woman by resorting to an elegant oratory, also
using terms of literature and medieval love poetry.

In the novel IV I, Ghismonda pronounces a defensoria with whom she wants to justify
her actions. Again, too, we are faced with a discourse that does not intend to persuade
virtue but vice and thus deceive the listeners.
Another example that has both the traits of susoria and defensoria is the speech that
Madonna Filippa gives in front of the Podestà of Prato (VI 7). Thanks to the distortion
of the Gospel and the norms of law, she manages to escape the death penalty provided
in his city for adulterers, even managing to change the laws.
In previous examples we have seen some cases in which they try to justify morally
condemnable choices.
Is quite different the case of other women such as the Marquis of Monteferrato. She will
use a stinging motto to fend off the mad lust of the king of France. Her words are
efficient, respectful and functional.

In the Decameron, however, we also find cases where people do not speak because they
do not want to or because they do not know how to do it. Two examples are:
- Alatiel (II 7) -> the princess chooses not to speak by choice but also out of
necessity because she is in a place where she does not know the language.
(unlike Geneva, however, it does not even force herself to learn it)
 - Masetto da Lamporecchio (III 1) -> pretends to be mute to be able to lie more
easily with the nuns of a convent.
In both cases the decision not to use the word is accompanied by a mechanical sexuality
that equate them to animals. In these cases, silence is a valid tool of seduction.
After the human rhetoric the book closes with the highest rhetoric -> the biblical one: in
fact the last and most virtuous woman of the Decameron cites the sacred writing to
reaffirm the reasons for her patience and her humility.

3. COMPLEXITY AND AMBIGUITY OF THE DECAMERON

It isn’t wrong to define the Decameron as a moral treaty in the form of novels because
the book wants to teach us to flee evil and to follow good. This teaching is given to us
not in a dogmatic way because, however, we are talking about a collection of novels and
a literary genre whose purpose is also that of entertainment. Also the pleasure is useful
because it facilitates the transmission and learning of the teachings.
So some novels are in fact presented as exempla that must warn against certain vicious
behaviours. In fact, these novels are preceded by an introduction of a doctrinal nature
that defines the vice in question and invites us to avoid it. Some examples are the novels
II 7 and IV 3. (The second novel is a love story of jealousy and death that stars three
sisters and their three lovers).
Panfilo, for example, insists on the vanity and danger of the goods of fortune and of the
body and the fact that man does everything to obtain them but the only things that he
reaches are pain, unhappiness and death.

Anger is one of the strongest theme of the Decameron and dominates especially in the
IV day, that of unhappy loves.
ES 1: At the end of the novel IV 3, it is said that it was Restagnone's mad love that
causes the anger of his lover Ninetta.
ES 2: In the novel IV 1, the anger of jealousy is the one that pushes Tancredi to kill
Guiscardo to punish his daughter Ghismonda.
The theme of anger was already very present in Dante and Petrarca.

As mentioned, the Decameron is a moral book, but we must not forget that it’s a
collection of novels.
With the novel X 10, the ascensional path of the Decameron ends triumphantly. with a
ring construction: on one hand there is the most negative and vicious character: ser
Ciappelletto and ont the other hand the positive and virtuous one, Griselda. This is the
last novel that is told by the 10 young people before returning to Florence and it is
precisely this novel that delivers to the brigata and the reader himself the final message
of the author of the work.
The Christian stoicism of Griselda who accepts and endures without rebelling the
injustices inflicted on her by Gualtieri teaches us that facing the evils that we don’t
understand, the only solution is patient humility.
Ex malo bonum: This is the main teaching that is perceived by the novels of Ser
Ciappelletto, Giannotto and Abraham and the one with which the 10 novelists have
returned to the city still plague-ridden.
The last novel in the book is slightly ambiguous because it is narrated by Dioneo and
because Dioneo himself questions its actual exemplariness. In the end, however, he
affirms that Griselda being a non-human creature but divine cannot be taken as a model.
The fact of denying that people can imitate Griselda skills means transgressing the
exemplary purpose of the tenth day but also questioning the actual exemplariness of the
magnanimous protagonists of these novels. The final obscene line closes the noble
novella with a comic note that contrasts with its high moral message as well as the
overall context of the final day.

Another ambiguity is detected in Boccaccio's attitude towards women. The Decameron

in fact sounds like an tribute to the woman:
- The book is dedicated to women to comfort those they love and those who suffer
for love.
- There is also talk of the awareness and disapproval of the social inferiority of
women compared to men who have less chance of loving freely and therefore in
some way try to alleviate melancholy.
- The female component of the brigata is much greater
- Pampinea is the one who exercises the leadership role for her superior wisdom
- The introduction to the IV day is an act of author's devotion to women
Boccaccio wanted to conclude the work dedicated to women with two female figures
with extraordinary virtues through which they were able to overcome the natural limits
of the female sex that are repeatedly emphasized in the book. The worst character in the
Decameron is a man while the best and most virtuos characters are two women.
Yet there are some clearly misogynistic episodes that run through the book and seem to
fit into the final part. We are talking about the three novels in which women pay a
terrible and cruel price for their malice, falsehood and surliness.
- in novel VIII 7, the schoolboy takes harshly revenge on Elena. Fiammetta
introduces the next novella blaming the excessive violence of the punishment.
 - in novel IX 7, Talano's wife, having mocked her husband's good advice, is
attacked by a wolf. What the woman suffers is interpreted as a right punishment
- in novel IX 9, when Giosefo asks King Solomon about the best way to behave
with his wife, he responds to beat her up. Like this he manages to block the bad
character of the woman.
The novella IX 7 is preceded by a broad preamble. Emilia insists on the need for women
to be subjected to men and their wills. Besides, she says that they deserve to be
punished they do otherwise. This is the only novella of the Decameron of biblical
setting and the reason is obvious: Boccaccio wanted to attribute the misogynistic advice
on which the novella is based to the one who tradition believed was the wisest wise man
in history -> King Solomon.

4. A DISQUIETING/DISTURBING SUBTITLE
The Decameron wanting to represent every aspect of the world and life, presents kind
women alongside perverse and wicked women, as well as describes love righteous and
wrong loves. All this still leads us back to the fundamental and inescapable duplicity of
the Decameron.
It would be a mistake to separate a sincere Decameron (the philosophic one in which
woman are exalts and free love) and a conventional and medieval Decameron (the
moralistic, philosophical and misogynistic one).
Moreover, it teaches us that we must not confuse the human inclination to love with the
willingness to give in to every uncontrolled appetite of passion.
A masterpiece of intentional ambiguity is the title of the work:" comincia il libro
chiamato Decameron cognominato prencipe Galeotto ". The allusion is to Galehaut, the
knight of the round table who favoured the love between Lancelot and Geneva the bride
of King Arthur. Galeaut, is also indicated by Francesca as responsible for her
relationship with Paolo and therefore by their eternal damnation. Of course, Boccaccio
does not mean to the reader that his book will teach her the secrets of adulterous love
and that it will facilitate the satisfaction of his erotic appetites because this is denied by
the content.
The 10 young people of the brigata always keep literature separate from real life. The
brigata take thes stories as a simple opportunity of pleasure sometimes mischievous but
still harmless. For the brigata it is not enough a book to corrupt them. Neither should
honest readers be contaminated by unholy things, as he also says in the conclusion of
the Decameron. At the end of the 10 days also Panfilo is pleased that the brigata has
always lived in decorum and honesty.
The title, however, gives a lot to think about. Some think that title and subtitle refer to
the two traditions and the two cultures on which the Decameron is based:
- The Christian one (Decameron as the new Exameron)
- the romance-courteous on (Prince Galeotto)
Therefore, the first and last names would also indicate the two purpose of the work or
that of teaching and delighting. They would also indicate the two types of love
illustrated in the book: the sacred and the profane, the honest and the dishonest.

For some, the two terms also indicate the intentionally two-faced nature of the work,
which can invite the descend but also to push for lust.

Still others think that the subtitle references the love matter that prevails in the book. It
is thought that an allusion is celebrated to the role of persuader of love, whose purpose,
however, unlike what the Galeotto does, would be to lead to perfect love -> that one that
is containing the eros and virtue.

Nothing, however, suggests that Boccaccio wants to encourage us to read it in an ironic

and antiphrastic way, despite the subtitle jar so much with the solemn title of the work.
For a reader of the era, Prince Galeotto necessarily recalls the history of Paolo and
Francesca and therefore a precise type of loves. It also recalls at the same time a
literature aimed at mere delight and characterized mainly by an erotic matter.
It seems as if the surname of this work suggests to the reader who’s looking for tales of
love, especially to women who are suffering from melancholy, to read these stories with
which they can identify and console themselves.
Surely Boccaccio with the frame and with the comments of the narrators tries to put a
series of precautionary barriers between the reader and the erotic novels.
Men and things in the Decameron never have a single dimension and can be observed
from multiple points of view. This does not mean, however, that for Boccaccio every
point of view is equally permissible correct but still implies that reality and the
Decameron itself cannot and should not always be framed within fixed and predictable
schema/strategy.
CHAPTER 5: CENTRALITY AND UNIQUENESS OF THE
DECAMERON IN THE WORK OF BOCCACCIO
1. FROM YOUTH WORKS TO DECAMERON
The Decameron lies between youth production and the works of late maturity and old
age. Autobiography is less present in the Decameron and also less direct: the Proemio
refers only generically to Boccaccio's previous amorous experiences without providing
any chronological and geographical information, and without telling any name of any
woman in particular. It is therefore evident the author's intent to present himself and his
story as a universally valid exemplum.
The gap between the juvenile works the Decameron depends on the difference of the
literary genre. With the Decameron, Boccaccio writes for the first time a book of novels
while his previous writings were either in poetry or were completely different prose
genres.
On the other hand, it is not appropriate to mark a too clear rift between the Decameron
and the previous works because the masterpiece is united by adhering to a model of
literature that uses the vulgar, the prevailing adoption of the theme of love and the
choice to address it to a female audience. The Decameron advocates a regulated and
resigned love capable of not going beyond the sign of reason and avoid the violence of
uncontrolled sexual appetits.

2. THE CORBACCIO, THAT IS THE OTHER FACE OF THE DECAMERON

The production of Boccaccio following the Decameron is characterized by a weakening
of the creative vein, the almost exclusive use of Latin and the prevalence of erudite,
moral and philosophical interests.
The Corbaccio is a misogynistic operetta in vulgar prose in which Boccaccio is in love
with a widow but is not corresponded. He imagines that the woman's dead husband
appears to him in a dream to warn him against the evil feminine nature and against the
mortal risks of this mad love especially for his old age and for his dedication to studies.
Already in the Decameron we could see misogynistic features but never as much in the
Corbaccio in which the woman is painted as diabolical and animalistic. We can say that
the novella of the widow and the schoolboy (VIII 7) reveal in advance in many ways the
Corbaccio but does not share the grotesque images and style.
The Corbaccio, moreover, disapproves love of old and lettered men. The Decameron
and the Corbaccio are complementary books: the second continue the first. We can
consider it in some ways his “palinodia”, but also the necessary completion that
develops instances and moods already partly present in the book of novels.

3. IMPORTANT MEN AND WOMEN BETWEEN EXEMPLUM AND

NOVELLA
De casibus virorum illustrium and De mulieribus claris are two works from the late
1950s and early 1960s that connected in part with the Decameron. These two are
historical-moral treatises in Latin which, although they have considerable differences,
are a diptych (The first on the misfortunes of illustrious men and the second on famous
women). These two works also have similarities with the Decameron. In both cases the
stories are concluded or interrupted with ethical considerations and painful exclamations
of the author as often happens in the Decameron where similar comments are entrusted
to the young narrators (in the Proemio and conclusions of the novels). Both want to join
delight and utility.
In a sense, these two treaties can be seen as the continuations of the Decameron.
- the De casibus is a parade of negative characters who for their pride and their
vices knew infelices exitus.
- the De mulieribus, on the other hand, recovers the characteristic of youth works
and the Decameron by valuing women who have always been penalized.
In the De mulieribus there is also the return of narrative situations and precise details
that refer to the Decameron. Two chapters of the treaty reload the plots of many novels
and the overlapping is almost perfect in the case of the story:

 the young Mundo has disguised himself as the Anubi God who lie with Paulina
for long time. Once discovered, he is sentenced to exile ->
 This story is also found in a Venetian setting because Boccaccio had taken it as a
model to write the novella of Frias Alberto who pretends to be the archangel
Gabriel in order to seduce Madonna Lisetta (IV 2).

 The story of Ortensia and when the Roman matrons were forced to pay an
exorbitant tribute to meet the costs of the state. Ortensia opposed this injustice
with great courage and spoke with great eloquence in front of the triumviri thus
obtaining the cancellation of much of the tax

Boccaccio will speak of Madonna FIlippa who defends himself in court with his
witty talk can get the death penalty abolished for women caught in adultery.
The two Latin treatises, however, differ in various aspects from the book of novels:
- unlike the Decameron they focus mainly on antiquity (mythological, biblical and
pagan) welcoming only a limited number of modern and contemporary
characters.
- adopt an ascetic perspective that coincides virtue with abstinence and chastity
- insist on the congenital weakness and inferiority of women
- holg long and harsh misogynistic speeches
4. THE LAST BOCCACCIO AND THE DECAMERON
Il Trattatelo in laude di Dante is a written test in vulgar composed in three writings
between 1351 and 1372.
The Esposizioni about Dante's Commedia where written in 1373.
Also this written tests have conceptual differences with respect to the masterpiece.

 Il Trattatelo in laude di Dante shares from its first draft the skeptical and
misogynistic positions of the Corbaccio. It talks about the controversy against
the vices and customs of women and states that love was a serious impediment
to studies -> In fact he thinks that literatus should abstain from carnal passion
and from marriage.
 Esposizioni have a moralistic intent and have a preacher and catechismal
intonation.
Boccaccio, writing to his friend, begs him to keep the Decameron away from the
women of his family, fearing that the novels might lead them to dishonest behaviour.
The Decameron, however, is dedicated to women, and in its Conclusion it is stated that
those who are honest will never incite to evil from immoral novels -> obviously
Boccaccio has changed his mind and believes that readers may not be able to read the
work in a critical and mediated way.
The Boccaccio of the last few years is another Boccaccio:
- For biographical reasons (political responsabilities)
 - And for a deep intellectual and spiritual evolution
In addition, a different and higher idea of culture and literature takes shape in recent
writings. In the letter that Boccaccio writes to Cavalcanti, he justifies himself by
remembering that he composed the Decameron when he was young.
Around 1370, Boccaccio copies the Decameron: it is precisely this copy (it has the
outward appearance of a scientific-university treatise) seems to reveal the intent to
remove from the book the female audience to which it is dedicated. He seems to want to
release his humble nature and original function.
Boccaccio's mature production reveals the discomfort and the intimate discord of the
author who is still tied to some of the principles on which the Decameron is founded,
despite the fact that he believes in a new conception of culture. For example:
- Rejects at a juvenile stage now concluded his writings in vulgar, but continues to
practice the mother tongue, both in prose and rhyming
- Condemn love passion
- He denies the Decameron, but he keeps copying it and correcting it, trying to
give it the form of a study volume.
- Continues to address to women, but with an erudite and moralistic work in Latin
(the De mulieribus)
Boccaccio's last work is the Genealogie deorum gentilium, which confirms the
detachment from the assumptions on which the Decameron was based. This is a
mythological repertoire composed in two writingd between 1365 and 1375.
The Decameron confirms its uniqueness in the human and creative life of Boccaccio.
Just the final novella of the Decameron (the protagonist is the humble Griselda who has
the traits of Job, Mary and Christ while she endures with resignation the harsh trials to
which her husband submits her) so different from all the others, stands as a link between
the Decameron and the later writings:
- The only one that fits the idea of allegorical fabula theorized in Genealogies
- The only one who staged a female figure who respected the rigor of the moral
though of Boccaccio
- The only one that thrilled Petrarca, so much so that he decided to engage in a
Latin makeover where he intended to enhance the theological meaning and
Christian exemplariness of the story of the character of Griselda
CHAPTER 6: USE, RE-USE, PARODY. THE ROLE OF THE MODELS
AND OF THE SOURCES
1. THE ENNOBLEMENT OF A HUMBLE GENRE
Towards the end of the Proemio the author writes: "intendo di raccontare 100 novelle, o
favole o parabole o storia che dire le vogliamo". Some believe that here Boccaccio
wants to adopt for his texts the most recent term -> novella distinguishing it from the
three successive terms that indicate the three forms of storytelling theorized by Cicero
in De Inventione:
- the fabula not true neither likely/realistic
- the argument not true but likely
- the historia entirely true because narration is of events actually happened
Others, on the other hand, believe that novels is the general term in which the following
three terms are included, which would therefore draw as many subgenres. In the
Decameron, novels are fantasy tales (favole) presented as if they were true (istorie)
stories that provide moral teachings (parabole).
It must be said, however, that the term "novel" almost always occurs in the work.
However, when we try to apply the Decameron similar categories don’t add up because
in the work even favole - that is, the novels not true or likely, such as that of Madonna
Dianora and messer Torello - have exemplary value, of histories properly called are not
found (except the description of the plague). In addition, most of the novels could be
called parabole or exempla.

In fact, if we look at the literature a little bit previous, we realize that the distinction
between favole, parabole e istorie is not rigid at all: in fact, the three terms often tend to
overlap and get confused. The novella, on the other hand, is used either as a synonym
for each of them, or as an all-encompassing term that sums up characteristics of the
other three genres.
Originally, novella had the meaning of "recent news" or "news of a new fact". In
Tuscany, already in the second half of the II century began to assume the value of
storytelling (first oral then also written) and indicate a short literary form of narrative
nature.
Boccaccio adopts this term in its modern meaning since the 1930s. He defines novels or
novels some of the issues of love discussed in the fourth book of the Filocolo. Two of
these novels were recalled on the last day of the Decameron.
Already in the Novellino appear novels. Here we find some delightful stories that are
quite similar to those of certain days of the Decameron both in terms of topics (love,
mockery and motto) and for the contemporary setting. Some traits that are considered
peculiar to Boccaccio's book can already be found in this other book:
- the Novellino is aimed at uniting the useful and the delight
- revisits the genre of moralistic and religious exemplum in a secularized and laic
key
- alternates highly exemplary stories of illustrious men with comic stories with
humble characters
- its main themes are virtue, love and ingenuity
- speaks of the realism of everyday life
- presents short novels and wider storytelling with wide thematic and stylistic
variety
Some of these characteristics, such as realism, the insistence on the truth of the facts
told, about the usefulness that can be drawn from it, the importance of the delight in
order to make the moral message more persuasive, were also exemplary literature. They
were also typical of the exemplum with which the Decameron, as already the Novellino
has obvious relations.
In the Decameron the exemplary is almost always present generally in preambles and
can be:
- strong -> I 1, where Panfilo speaks ofGgod's benignity in accepting the prayers
of the faithful even if entrusted to unworthy intermediaries
- weak -> V 6, where Pampinea aims to show how great the forces of love are
There are cases where you make a pariodistic use of some exempla. In addition, there
are decameronian novels that are based on exemplary narratives attested in the sillogi of
wider diffusion in the Middle Ages:
- The novels of Abraam Judeo (I 2)
- of Nastagio degli Onesti (V 8)
- of Tito and Gisippo (X 8)
The operation executed by Boccaccio is the cultural and literary ennoblement of a genre
considered humble and low. It is likely that when in the introduction to Day IV he
reports that he was reprimanded by some because a man of his age and fame should not
have wasted time with such nonsense, Boccaccio is alluding to imaginary criticism
because the novella could not of a good fame in the intellectual world.
The ennoblement of the novel has been conducted in the Decameron in various ways:
- curating the stylistic and rhetorical part of the stories
- increasing the effect of reality thanks to the historical and geographical setting
- thanks to the accuracy of the details and in more depth psychological excavation
of the characters
- writing longer and more complex texts, sometimes approaching the dimensions
of historical or romance narratives
- organizing the novels in a real book with a solid structure
- strengthening the authorship that means the presence of Boccaccio author and
man in order to reaffirm the literary property of the book.

2. THE DECAMERON BETWEEN DANTE AND PETRARCA

The first and most significant step done by Boccaccio to introduce the novella of the
domain of literature is that to insert it in a formbook built with the best care. The model
is of course that of Commedia -> 100 novels as 100 songs. In the early 1950s, should be
date back to the proemial sonnet of the Canzoniere, which Boccaccio probably looks at
when he writes the Decameron Proemio.
Dante and Petrarca are Boccaccio's two guiding light. The first one is very present in the
Decameron since the subtitle that ambiguously places the work under the sign of the V
song of the Inferno.
The novel/frame bipartition is inspired by that of poetry/prose in Vita Nova where in a
similar way to the prose parts constitute the narrative part that serves to structure the
pre-existing and autonomous texts. Some novels are a tribute to the characters of the
Commedia (VI 9, with Guido Cavalcanti). In the finale of a comic novel like that of
Andreuccio from Perugia there are literal quotes from songs III, V and VI of the
Inferno.
Although it is thought that the Decameron was born before Petrarca's profound
influence on Boccaccio since the 1950s, Petrarca is no stranger to the Decameron. In
this case we must pay attention to the moral perspective that the two works have in
common. In the Proemio of the Decameron, there also seem to be hints of the Epistola
di Petrarca ai posteri. The plague of 1348 clearly marks both Boccaccio and Petrarca,
pushing both to critically reconsider their lives and literary activities.

3. IN THE LABYRINTH OF SOURCES

The Decameron uses a huge amount and types of sources and models: Greek and Latin
classicism, the Byzantine and late ancient novel, Oriental novelism, medieval literature,
Provencal poetry and stylnovistic all forms of medieval fiction long and short. In
addition, he also refers to the great contemporary Tuscan authors such as Cavalcanti,
Dante, Petrarca and Cino.
At the macrotextual level, the most important aspect is the presence of a frame, that is,
an important story that connects novels and thus transforms them into a book. In this
case it is necessary to refer to the novelistic texts in particular to the Arab and eastern
ones who first adopted the expedient of the frame in order to collect and tie together a
series of stories. These works are characterized by three types of frames:
- The teaching or dialogic framework (cornice didattica o dialogica) in which
stories are valid as exempla useful to illustrate and confirm the teaching that the
teacher imparts student
- the itinerant framework (cornice itinerante) in which stories serve to relieve the
fatigue and boredom of a trip or at least spend time happily
- the retardant framework (la cornice ritardante) in which novelties aim to induce
a judge or sovereign to postpone the execution of a death sentence
The Decameron frame summarizes the characters of all three types:
- is didattica teaching because it makes the brigata learn useful rules of behaviour
and life through novels
- is itinerant because the novels allow young people to serenely spend their long
days of idleness
- is retardant because it is the novelists with their therapeutic value that dissuade
from the 10 young people the danger of the epidemic
Boccaccio himself had used a frame of the first type in the Commedia delle ninfe
fiorentine where the novels told by the seven nymphs want to teach Ameto about the
nature of true love. On the level of individual novels, we could schematize in this way
the different types in which we come across when we investigate the sources of the
Decameron:
 - novels for which it is possible to identify a precise antecedent faithfully
followed by Boccaccio although he expanded with more historical and
psychological environmental details -> so it happens for example in the novels I
3 and 9 (Novellino), I 5 (Mille e una notte). It should be noted that even in these
cases the guide source is always enriched with secondary elements retrieved
from other texts. For example, in the novel IV 9, Boccaccio on the one hand
introduces in the case of the Cabestanh some functional changes to make it
appear as an exemplum of the tragic consequences to which leads the courtly
ideology of love while on the other it integrates it with a particular caught from a
tale of the Novellino: the husband punishes the infidelity of his wife by killing
his lover, making her eat the heart he specially cooked and asking her if she likes
it.
- novels packaged on the basis of funds and multiple ideas originally reworked
and combined -> a case of particular interest is that of the novel IV 5, sort of
updated version of the myth of Laodamia and Protesilao, built by assembling
two distinct episodes obtained from different sources: in the first part there is the
appearance in the dream of the beloved killed while in the second the creation of
a substitute of the beloved.
- novels that recover a story handed down from a wide range of texts ->the
epilogue of the ducks is an ancient history of which we’ve many testimonies:
however only in one of them women are called ducks (an exemplum of Odone
di Sheriton, 13th Century) while in the others are called demons.
- Novels for which can be traced somepartial antecedents. -> in the novel V 9, the
episode of the little son of monna Giovanna who asks his mother the Falcon of
Frederigo, convinced that the falcon can heal him if he receives it. This comes
from the anonymous fabliau Guillaume au faucon.
- novels that derive from previous works by Boccaccio himself as in the case of
the novels X 4 and X 5, which arise from the reworking of two of the matters of
love included in the fourth book of the Filocolo.
- novels for which cannot be traced precise antecedents but which draw on
narrative themes spread in antiquity in the Middle Ages or in the folkloric
repertoire -> an interesting example and in the novel II 8, in which we find two
topic situations: the reason of the rejected woman who falsely accuses the man
of trying to rape me (traceable in the story of Putifarre's wife narrated of the
Genesis) and the subject of the doctor who discovers the secret love disease of a
young man when he realizes that the heartbeat of his pulse accelerates at the
sight of the beloved (attested in Valerio Massimo and in medieval treatises of
medicine)
- novella presumably attributable to the oral tradition or to the anecdote city ->
For example mocking novels such as VII 1, of which Boccaccio offers two
alternative endings attributing he to the popular voice.
Philosophical, non-literary, historical and medical sources also occupy an important
place. Boccaccio has strong interests in philosophy, the ancient and the medieval one.
Especially in the first and last day we find traces of his knowledge of nicomachea ethics
and the related glosses of Tommaso.
It is necessary to avoid making the Decameron an arduous treatise that can be
understood just by readers and scholar, that are able to graspe everywhere the subtle
philosophical implications of the novels. It is also a mistake to consider it a pure and
simple work of entertainment.

Among the possible non-literary sources we can find a painting: the great fresco of the
Trionfo della morte visible on the walls of the old Capo Santo Vecchio of Pisa dated to
1335-1342, perhaps attributable to Buffalmacco, one of the protagonists of many novels
mocking in the Decameron. -> The fresco presents at the centre the death that threatens
with its scythe a happy brigata of young people playing and conversing in the garden.
Beneath her we find a pile-up of corpses while on the opposite side is illustrated a
deserted and rocky mountain where four heremits live. Below we find a set of ladies and
gentlemen returning from the hunt. They come across three uncovered coffins and a
hermit unrolls in front of them a “cartiglio” to urge them not to be found unprepared
by death. The fresco is a reminder of the necessity and urgency of repentance -> a
momento mori that to dissipation of the beautiful courtly life opposes the hermit and
ascetic choice as the only alternative to gain salvation .

The one suggested by the Decameron is a very different choice where the 10 young
people facing the death that is ravaging Florence do not even consider the possibility of
retiring to a monastery, but opt without hesitation for the carefree life in magnificent
villas and gardens. This is a different choice but not the opposite because the young
people of the Decameron do not serve the path of uncontrolled hedonism or even that of
superficial disengagement and finding the right middle between asceticism and resolve
that the brigata escapes the death of the soul and the body.

4. THE WORLD UPSIDE DOWN: THE OBJECTS AND WAYS OF PARODY

Parody is one of the primary tools that Boccaccio uses in the Decameron to create
delight and is also one of the ways in which it most often reworks its sources. In this
way the reader who understands its mechanisms and who recognizes the objects on
which it exercises is stimulated to reflect on hidden aspects of literary texts and reality
itself. In order to achieve its aims, the parody must target situations of characters and
texts well known to readers: this explains why the parody targets of the Decameron are
chosen in the majority within the courtly tradition and the Christian religion.
If we look at the novel IV 10, the anaesthetic potion prepared by the doctor that Ruggeri
accidentally drinks in the woman's house is the comic substitute of the filter that makes
you fall in love.
In the novella of Friar Albert IV 4, among the parodied texts there is the heart rending
Lai de Yonec of Maria of France of the end of the 12th century -> where the lady is
locked in a tower by her jealous husband and receives the amorous visits of a beautiful
Knight who turns into a large bird to enter through the window and then acquire the
human form again.
We can also find another function of the parody procedure in the Decameron: that of
easing tension, ensuring the variety of tones that is fundamental in a novel book to
understand its delighting purpose.
Es: between two tragic novels such as IV 6 and IV 8, Boccaccio inserts the story of
Simona and Pasquino that leaves some parodic traces: there is an implicit clue that of
the subproletary setting of the story and the explicit ones of the miserable urban garden
in which the epilogue is consumed. You can also refer to the sage basket that causes the
death of the two lovers.

ES: the most transparent courteous parody, however, is recorded in the novel VII 7,
where Beatrice has an adulterous relationship with Ludwig who in order to court her,
under a false name becomes part of the servants of her husband. To mock her husband,
Beatrice makes him believe that Anichino gave her a night appointment under the pine
of the house garden and begged him to go instead with women's clothes. Anichino sees
Egano dressed as Beatrice, pretends to mistake him for her and beats him. The scene
takes up well-known episodes of the events of Lancelot and Geneva in a parody way
(King Arthur who rises on the pine to spy the meetings of the two).
Boccaccio also uses a lot of religious parody:
- talk about the sacrament of confession
- of the cult of relics and the literature of pilgrimages in the Holy Land (Frate
Cipolla VI 10)
- Penances (III 4)
- the hagiography and the pie legends of the saints (I 1)
- Predictions and stories of journeys and stays in the afterlife or of dead that return
among the living and tell of the otherworldly world (the abbot of the novel III 8)

In some cases, religious parody touches on blasphemy as when in novel III 4, the
expression “mettere in paradiso” that is understood in a misunderstanding way. In the
novel IV 2, where we find a parody of the enunciation with Frate Albert who disguised
as Arcangelo Gabriele enters in the room of Lisetta.
In the Decameron the religious parody is a way to mock the most crude naive and
superstitious forms of popular credulity and also to condemn the clergymen who use it
to satisfy their vices. Even the traits of biblical parody should not be read in a
sacrilegious or even less laic key.
For example, in novel II 7, the story of Alatiel, the story is similar to the genre of the
Greek novel in which usually two lovers face a series of adventures that separate them
and that endanger their fidelity and chastity, until everything is overcome by celebrating
the wedding. This is also the case of this novella, but only in the official version told at
the end by Alatiel to the father, when in reality the truth is quite different. Here we find
the courteous topos of the young woman kidnapped by violent men but saved by some
knights who come suddenly and the hagiographic topos of the virgin who miraculously
escapes from seducers who threaten her virginity.
In the novel VII 10, we talk about two friends who fall in love with the same woman.
The one who had conquered her dies. This story takes back the fundamental plot of the
Teseida. This is an analogy that the brigata grasps so much that immediately after the
conclusion of that same day in Dioneo and Fiammetta had the idea of singing "D'Arcita
and Palemone" that is precisely the story of the two protagonists of that poem.
In the novel VI 10, the deceptive discourse of friar Cipolla takes advantage in a comical
way not only of travel literature overseas and pilgrimages in the Holy Land but also
legendary theme of Alessandro Magno’s travels to the East.
the novel VI 7, presents us with a parody of the procedural practice of medieval city hall
and legal disputes by presenting us with the story of Madonna Filippa. This woman to
defend her paradoxical right to have a lover because she has always fulfilled her marital
duties, she cites a right and the Gospel itself.

CHAPTER 7: ADRONED TALK: THE RESOURCES OF LANGUAGE

AND STYLE
1. DECAMERON’S MONOLINGUALISM AND MULTI-STIALISM
The centrality and uniqueness of the Decameron in Boccaccio's production also emerge
from the language and style. Those who have read Boccaccio's previous prose works
and then read the book of novels feel a considerable detachment. Boccaccio passes from
a flowery prose rich in Latinisms with a high level of grand linguistics and syntax. It has
a generally fluid and flat prose characterized by a language closer to modern use.
In the lexicon there is a skilful balance between two contrasting thrusts:

 openness to orality in comic novels, dialogues and in the presence of characters

from more humble social backgrounds
 the adoption of a Latin-style cultured and aulic register that predominates in the
novels of higher setting and with greater commitment to morality
In the Decameron also in the linguistically and stylistically more refined sections we
find sudden lowerings of tone (in the frame we find the quarrel between the servants
that erupts in the introduction of the 6th day; in the last novel the sacrilegious and
vulgar comments of Dioneo). On the other hand, in the novels of erotic mockery such as
those of Zima (III 5) and Tedaldo (III 7) open lyrical rifts and moments of high oratory.
Boccaccio proceeds in a double direction: when subject matter pushes him down, he
avoids explicit vulgarity while when a high-ranking character tackles complex topics he
keeps away from the polished and artificial language of youthful works.
If fabliaux, and sometimes even comic-realistic poetry, did not hesitate to call organs
and sexual acts by name, the Decameron avoids explicit words aware that the greatest
fun comes from allusive jargon, on double meaning and on misunderstanding.
Boccaccio then begins a linguistic inventiveness by coining a real erotic lexicon that
will have a lot of luck in the following centuries. Quoting some examples -> for the
sexual act uses expressions such as "rimettere il diavoloin inferno", "lavorare la terra".
Instead, to define the female organ uses words such as "Ninferno", "mortaio". For the
male organ uses words like "usignolo" and "pestello".
The euphemistic metaphor, if it is ingenious, on the one hand makes more laugh of a
swear word, on the other it allows the Decameron not to derogate from that need for
honesty and decorum that is very important for the youth of the brigata and for the
author. This is precisely where the meaning and message of the book resides.
Boccaccio does not resort to linguistic camouflage by introducing, only sometimes
some dialectal elements -> in the novel VI 4, the Venetian cook pronounces in his
dialect only a few words of a song, and in the novel II 9 there are parts in Genoese. In
Neapolitan novels or in those in which the Neapolitan characters act (II 6, IV 1, IV 10,
V 6)) they speak Tuscan. It’s obvious the contrast between the toscanity of the language
and the extraordinary topographic and toponymistic precision of the setting in which
Boccaccio makes consists with great wisdom all the Neapolitanness of history. In some
mocking novels the language contributes to the comedy: you can refer to the novella of
Calandrino where he and his friends sometimes have recourse to the Florentine
plebeian.
There is a long list of terms marked by the suffixes -azzo, -ozzo, -azza (parolozzo)
present in the novels. We also find the trivializing deformations of difficult terms
(pericolatore for "procuratore").
The linguistic inventiveness is very amusing Boccaccio, and this is also emerging in
some comic novels where it is used to make fun of the most stupid and uncultivated
characters. In the novel VI 10, Friar Cipolla speaks to the certaldesi coining non-
existent terms and expressions that evoke fantastic places, legendary figures and
mysterious texts.
The socio-linguistic difference is in the Decameron more curated than linguistic. There
are, for example, cases where some uncultivated women give high-eloquence speeches.

2. THE FORMS (AND LIMITS) OF THE RETHORIC

As is evident, even from the Conclusion of the work, rhetoric is a neutral instrument,
which can be used good or badly. In particular, the opening and final novels of the 6th
day, reserved the motto, are interesting.
- the novel VI 1, explains how you should not tell a novella, showing the most common
mistakes that the clumsy speaker makes
- the novel 6 10, seems to want to propose a kind of ironic projection of the literate and
Boccaccio himself, through the figure of the preacher Friar Cipolla.

The book presents a wide variety of forms of eloquence, each of which has peculiar
characters (the rhetoric of the lover, the rhetoric of the crooks and the sellers of smoke).
The Decameron offers a complex encyclopaedia of styles. In this work we go from the
extreme brevitas of the mottos of spirit to the maximum amplification of the discourses
with which the noble and educated characters defend the reasons of love or virtue. The
work goes from the humble or "elegiac" style to the sublime or "tragic" style, adopted
for the highest subjects, as in many novels of the IV, V and X day.
The continuous alternation of styles that Boccaccio uses in novels is also manifested in
the frame. Most of the frame is written with a high register, but then goes from the
illustrious and tragic style of the description of the plague to the low one of the quarrel
between the servants in the introduction to the 6th day.
Within each novella is respected the Oratian precept of unity and stylistic coherence:
- IV 5, represents two translations and two different genres, the elegiac-Ovid in
the first part (with the dream apparition of the late Lorenzo to Lisabetta) and the
tragic one in the second (where the woman consumes herself with pain next to
the vase where she hid the head of the beloved).
On a stylistic level, however, it presents, from start to finish, a homogeneous elegiac
tint. The differences occur between certain novels and comments that precede or follow
them -> the most obvious case is that of the novel II 7, which after a high-sounding
doctrinal preamble unexpectedly goes along a median romance register and goes
towards a happy ending sealed by a popular proverb.
Boccaccio learned from Cicero and Quintiliano that speaking well means first adjusting
the way of expressing oneself to the subject, but also on the basis of circumstance and
audience.
It is impossible to realize all the stylistic varieties that alternate in the book, which are
also the primary ingredient for the realism with which the Decameron wants to
represent life and man in all their aspects.
Even on the rhetorical level, Boccaccio prefers to stay on a mezzanine style more
appropriate to a book of novels and stories set in an urban and bourgeois context. The
occurrences of the serious and sublime style are very limited: on the day of unhappy
loves (IV) various novels adopt a pathetic-elegiac or even comic register.
Similarly, if the comedian never expires in the coarse, on the other hand the tragic does
not contemplate the explicit performance of the horror: in the novel IV 9, the detail of
the severed head of the guard is omitted from the source. When Lisetta can't give a
woman a burial to Lorenzo takes his head and keeps it in a vase ->this gesture of love
arouses compassion and not horror.
The Decameron sometimes pushes itself to the boundaries of the speakable but never
crosses it, as the rules of the novelistic genre and the constant search by the 10 young
people for measure and rational self-control impose. In fact, Filostrato's proposal to
dedicate the IV day to the loves that had unhappy end is not well received, and after the
novella of Tancredi and Ghismonda that had hit the companions of the brigata,
Pampinea decides to refresh the spirits with a lighter novella like that of Friar Alberto.
In the same way, Fiammetta after the novel 8, believing that the companies had been a
little impressed by the story decides to tell the novella of the two friends who sleep with
each other's wife. This novel also serves to exemplify how revenge should not be
excessive but always moderate and proportionate to the damage suffered.
The power of rhetoric and a weapon to be handled with care because it is an instrument
of truth and error, an instrument of education but in the wrong hands can be an insidious
technique of manipulating consciences.

3. STYLE EXERCISES
For some novels of the Decameron we can speak of a rhetorical genesis: when
Boccaccio builds a story around a word, a name, a proverb a poetic text or on a figure or
a rhetorical artifice. We can distinguish three main phenomenon:
1. novels in which Boccaccio develops in a literal and narrative sense a
metaphorical expression.
ES: In novella III 1, Masetto da Lamporecchio pretends to be deaf-mute to be hired as a
farmer at a nun's convent. At the base we find the widespread locution “lavorare l’orto”
in the sense of practicing the sexual act with a woman on which the protagonist plays
from the beginning.
2. Etiological novels that seem to be written to explain in an imaginative and
fictitious way the origin of a proverb or popular poem.
ES: the story of Elizabetta da Messina (IV 5), which holds in a basil vase the head of the
beloved Lorenzo. According to Boccaccio, it is the origin of a song spread in southern
Italy.
 3. novels built on rhetorical mechanisms that seem to guide the conception of
interweaving. It's almost like an experiment or a style exercise.
ES: the great novel VIII 7, in its distribution we have a series of rhetorical figures of
parallelism and antithesis (cold/hot , summer/winter). In the opening scene Elena stands
in her warm room and looks down Rinieri that is dying of cold. This scene is
disassembled piece by piece by Boccaccio and reproposed such and which but upside
down. The schoolboy watches Elena burn in the sun at the top of a tower (he had tricked
her).

The novel III 5, presents some poetic expressions where Zima establishes an imaginary
dialogue that allows her to be told that she also loves him and to combine a secret
appointment. Man conquers the woman and combines a meeting with her without this
saying a single word.

The novel III 3, where a married woman secretly loves a man but dares not
communicate with him in any way but she uses a priest who uses as a messenger.
Unlike the novel number 5 the woman conquers the man and gives him a date in his
house without ever two talking or writing.

Both protagonists have a diabolical rhetorical and strategic skill.

4. THE DESTINY OF THE NAME

The sense of certain names is immediate evidence. A woman named Elena, as the
widow of the novel VIII 7 and like the beautiful Greek can only be the bearer of
misfortunes for herself and for those who fall in love with her.
The priest protagonist of the novel VIII 2, exercises his ministry in Varlungo with an
allusion to his sexual gifts.
Even characters bearing historical and literary names generally do what is expected of
them: for example, Gualtieri of the novel X 10, he adopts the behaviours suggested in
the chaplain's love.
A special type of speaking name also belong to name symbolic as those of the 10 young
people of the frame.
We also find:
- nicknames (in addition to Zima, we mention the servant of Friar Cipolla)
- anti-phrastic names
 - the anagrammed names (Alatiel - "the happy" perhaps with antiphrastic and
ironic value)
- The opposing names of anagram (Alatiel/adalieta, women at the opposite ends of
the way of living love)
Messer Ansaldo, when Dianora offers her pleasures on her husband's orders, he’s
morally strong enough to send her back without hesitation from him.
Guido of Montforte, and the wise adviser of King Charles who representing the voice of
conscience and reason and a guide and a fortified and impregnable mountain with carnal
appetites.
It is arbitrary to imagine that Frari Cipolla is called so not only to pay homage to the
author's homeland (Certaldo is still known for the cultivation of onions so much as to
bear one in the coat of arms) but also to allude to the lying nature of the protagonist and
his on the speech, symbolized by the layered conformation of the bulb of this vegetable.

CHAPTER 8: FORTUNE AND MODERNITY IN THE DECAMERON

1. A BOOK WITHOUT HEIRS: THE DECAMERON BETWEEN THE MIDDLE
AGES AND THE RENAISSANCE
The Decameron is one of the founding texts of modern fiction and the entire Western
culture. The first great reader of the work was Francesco Petrarca. Petrarca states that
when he received the Decameron, he did not pay much attention, being a book in vulgar
and prose, and he merely scrolled through it quickly. On the other hand, rewriting in
Latin some novels and placing them in the intellectual and spiritual testament that are
the Seniles, he reserved for the author and his masterpiece a very high honour.
Similarly, the Latinization of the Griselda opened the doors of extraordinary European
success to the Decameron.
Petrarca's operation denies the Decameron the book status, radicalizing the polarization
between comic and amorous novels, eliminating the frame altogether by replacing it
with a dedicated epistolary.
The after-Boccaccio moves in a very different direction from that of the Decameron
model:
- Weakening of the structure-book, which can manifest itself in various forms:
proliferation of single novels sometimes preceded by an epistle that can sting
from mini-frame; unframed collections or any sort order
- Latin translations, both in prose and sometimes in verse, of individual novels of
Boccaccio, often by humanists such as Antonio Loschi and Leonardo Bruni.
- Diversification of individual novels of the Decameron, mostly in the meter of
the octave and in the style of singing. They are often anonymous, preferring
novels of love, adventure and mockery, with the usual exception of the novel X
10.
- Accent and exasperation of the registers: Boccaccio on the one hand avoids
excesses, but on the other hand some of his successors prefer a cruel and
plebeian comedy, an explicit eroticism and the ostentation of the bloody.
- Specialization of authors and works, who sometimes practice exclusively comic
and erotic novella or moral and tragic novella.
- Tendency to reduce, in the second half of the sixteenth century, the broad
stylistic and thematic spectrum of Boccaccio's novella.
- Wide use of the Decameron as a repertoire of narrative situations, usable and
combined in novels, comedies, tragedies etc., and a model of language and style.
In Florence, towards the end of the 14th century Pecorone di Ser Giovani Fiorentino,
the form of the book organized by novels knows a total eclipse. It dominates above all
in the 15th century, the small novel that chooses mockery as its preferred theme. At the
same time, the novella tends on the one hand to digress on the pleasant saying, a kind of
popular or erudite reduction of Boccaccio's motto. On the other hand, it tends to
approach to the history, the chronicle and the anecdotal of the city.
What is generally lost, after Boccaccio is not only the strict arrangement of the book of
novels, but also the perfect balance established in the Decameron between frame and
stories, that is, the novels and the contour parts. In fact, in the sillogi of the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries:
- we have a overflow of the frame (as in Paradiso degli Alberti by Giovanni
Gherardi da Prato in 1425)
- to the overflowing presence of rhymes (as in Sermini)
- to the conspicuous insertion of texts of the most diverse nature (epistles, novels
in verse, theatrical plays)
However, this is not only a formal fact: the suppression of the structure of the
Decameron implies the loss of the deep dense work and the loss of its ethical-civil
dimension.
Few collections appear more rigidly structured, distributing novels in the day or in parts
and organizing them within a frame sometimes even very elaborate, seeming more
faithful to the Decameron. (Novellino by Masuccio Salernitano, Cantebury Tales by
Geoffrey Chaucer).
The Decameron does not open an era, but closes it, it is a point of arrival. We can
consider it a kind of summate of late-medieval culture and its many narrative forms and
traditions.
The genre, despite the great success of the Decameron, will lose the centrality and
literary nobility that Boccaccio had conferred on him, around the 15th and 16th
centuries. Only later will he regain prestige. The Decameron will provide lifeblood in
the Renaissance and other literary genres, from chivalrous poem to dialogue and
especially to theatre, both tragic and comic. Modern Italian comedy was born in fact
when Ludovico Ariosto experimented in Suppositi (1509) that genius mixture of Latin
comedy and Boccaccio novella.

2. THE DECAMERON IN CONTEMPORARY CULTURE: THREE

EXAMPLES
Few works from the past show the cultural vitality comparable to that of the Decameron
today. The great Colombian writer Garcìa Marquéz has obtained numerous ideas from
the Decameron: for example, the short story or novel Nessuno scrive al colonello (1961)
is a kind of Latin American reimagining of the novella of Federigo of Alberghi (V 9)
where instead of the falcon, there is a fighting rooster.
In Italy, the most interesting operation is that carried out by Aldo Busi, author of a
remake of the Decameron in modern Italian. Busi's is not a simple translation but it is a
real updating of the work, its adaptation to contemporary culture. Busi doesn't just
rewrite the text in today's Italian but eliminates the frame, the preambles to the novels
and five to every novella of a title that would like to be winking: for example Una
risposta da Dio for the novella of Melchisedech and Le corna di Cristo for that of a
Masetto da Lamporecchio.
In the pathetic tragic novels there is a tendency to free and systematic banalization.
There is also a mania for modernizing everything that leads to the weakening of his
comic charge.
There are numerous films inspired by the Decameron that were released in Italy
especially in the 70s of the last century, almost always using novels only as a pretext to
give life to smutty stories. Pasolini sees Boccaccio's masterpiece as the expression of a
popular world and a primitive sensibility not yet contaminated by the hypocrisy of
modern society. Pasolini gives the film a solid and elegant structure: it chooses 9 novels
distributing them in two parts -> he frames each of the two groups of novels in a frame
story:
1. the first that has as protagonist ser Ciappelletto
2. The second that has as a protagonist a Giotto’s student played by Pasolini himself
Pasolini also opts for unity of place, meaning all the stories are set in Naples and/or
recited in Neapolitan dialect. Pasolini puts at the centre of the work a city and a culture
that had decisive importance in the life and art of Giovanni Boccaccio.

3. WHY READ THE DECAMERON TODAY

The Decameron is a difficult book for its language and style, for the size and cultural
distance that separates it from us. Those who decide to read it from top to bottom would
first discover a very different Middle Ages from the vulgato one:

 would discover a moral but not moralistic Middle Ages that spurs on virtue and
faith by not giving too much weight to the small transgressions of private and
daily life.
 would discover a Middle Ages not obscure but indeed colourful, joyful and
passionate.
 He'd discover a Middle Ages that can laugh with everything he believes in. The
laugh serves as an instrument of liberation and truth.
Those who decide to read the book would discover a work that faces many decisive
questions still alive and open today.
- The Decameron teaches individual freedom and responsibility because none of
our choices are obligatory
- the work teaches that the beautiful and appropriately used word is the best
weapon to defend against the powerful and bullies
- teaches you to look at things from various points of view and to perceive the
complexity of the real
- teaches not to confuse virtual life with real life
- teaches that equality between the different is the prerequisite of any associated
life
The frame and the structure differently from what many believe also confirm in this
aspect maybe the most vital and modern parts of the book: the one that describes the
plague, which encourages to read the Decameron as the great metaphor of a tragic but
also liberating day after (post-war post-atomic death of ideologies) in which a group of
brave young people try to seek and recreate within themselves, in the sign of reason and
nature, the foundations of a new world.