LEGGERE IL DECAMERON di Francesco Bausi

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.
 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