Showing posts with label Boccaccio. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Boccaccio. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 20, 2023

Paolo and Francesca

In the 2nd circle of Hell in Dante's Inferno, Dante and Virgil see two lovers, Paolo and Francesca, condemned for lust (see the illustration by Dante Gabriel Rossetti). Just as they allowed themselves to be swept away by their passions, they are buffeted by heavy winds. Francesca tells her story, while a silent Paolo weeps in the background.

She was seized with a powerful passion while reading the story of Galehaut (mentioned in yesterday's post). the theme of such a strong love "overpowered" the two. Unfortunately, she was married to Paolo's brother, who killed the two for their affair.

The two were historical figures: Francesca da Polenta, married to Giovanni Malatesta, and Giovanni's brother Paolo Malatesta (who was also married). The marriage was not one of love. Francesca's father was at odds with Giovanni's father, who was lord of Rimini. The marriage was designed to make peace between two noble and powerful families. Some time in the early 1280s, Giovanni found the two in Francesca's bedroom, and killed them.

In Dante's telling, Francesca blames the overwhelming power of Love for her actions and misfortune, accepting no blame on the part of the two lovers. Despite this, she becomes for Dante an example of the love poetry he himself wrote about earlier in his career. She tells her story without interruption, and becomes a symbol of a strong woman condemned by circumstance outside her control, because of the power of the story of Galehaut. Dante draws a parallel between the great love tale from literature and the real love tale before him.

So now we come to the point of what we started yesterday: why did Boccaccio subtitle his Decameron with Prencipe Galehaut? Boccaccio uses Galehaut—especially through the lens of his hero Dante's use of Galehaut as inspiration for Francesca's and Paolo's actions—as a symbol of his regard and compassion for women who have never been allowed the freedom of men to do as they wished. It is his acknowledgement that women should be given agency: as the women in the Decameron not only share equal social standing with the men in their ten-day community, but also in the stories told of women who manage by their wits or gain the outcomes they want.

If they were historical figures, was their affair so well-known that Dante would know the details? As it happens, remember that I told you here that he spent his final years in Ravenna? His host was Guido Novello, also known as Guido Il da Polenta, lord of Ravenna from 1316 to 1321, and the nephew of Francesca da Polenta!

Ravenna must be a little interesting, since Dante chose it for his retirement. Let's learn the delights of Ravenna next time.

Tuesday, September 19, 2023

The Titles of the Decameron

Giovanni Boccaccio played around with titles, and not only for his own works. Dante Alighieri's magnum opus was called by the author Commedia, "Comedy," but in later years it began being referred to as the "Divine Comedy" by Boccaccio, and the name stuck. Boccaccio had a good reason for tacking that adjective onto Dante's work, and not just because of the obvious reason.

When Boccaccio wrote his Decameron (c.1353), he apparently thought of it as a parallel or complement to Dante's work, because Boccaccio sometimes called his tale of ten young people telling ten stories per day for ten days  l'Umana commedia ("the Human comedy").

Besides that, Boccaccio also had a subtitle for the Decameron that is often overlooked, and the explanation for it has a couple of layers. His subtitle (seen above in an early Italian edition) was Prencipe Galeotto, or "Prince Galehaut." Who was that, and why was it important to Boccaccio? What message did it convey to his audience?

Galehaut was well-known to the medieval literary crowd as a prince from the Arthurian legends, specifically from the French Lancelot cycle. Galehaut was a half-giant who brings a massive army to challenge King Arthur's rule over Logres. Galehaut's forces are superior, but he is so enamored of the prowess of a Black Knight fighting for Arthur's side that he stops the battle solely for the opportunity to meet this knight and spend time with him. TheBlack Knight turns out to be a young Lancelot, and thus begins a deep friendship between the two, interpreted by some as a strong chivalric bond and by some as a homosexual bond.

Enter Guinevere. Galehaut realizes Lancelot's love for Guinevere, and steps back from Lancelot to avoid being "in the way." Later, when Guinevere is accused oof infidelity to Arthur and flees, Lancelot and she find refuge in Galehaut's castle. Galehaut dies at the age of 39 from his unrequited longing for the man he gave up. He is laid in a magnificent tomb that he had built to commemorate their friendship. Lancelot at his death is also laid in that tomb, side by side with Galehaut.*

Galehaut becomes a symbol of greatness, abandoning one's own desires for the sake of another's. How does this apply to the Decameron

For that, we need to turn to Dante again, and visit the second circle of Hell where we meet two lovers, Paolo and Francesca. Come back tomorrow, and we will start to put it all together.

*Malory changes this story, using the name Galahad.

Monday, September 18, 2023

Boccaccio's Decameron

Giovanni Boccaccio's best known work to modern readers is his Decameron, a Greek word that means "Ten Days." In it, seven young men and three young women go into the hills above Florence to spend ten days in a villa to escape the Black Death, currently ravaging the cities and countryside.

One theory of the Black Death was that it resulted from bad air rising from swamps and cesspools, and going up into the fresh air outside the city was one way to escape it. Of course, whether the disease were being transmitted by fleas jumping from mammal to mammal or being spread by contact with those who were ill, getting away from crowded populations into fresh air would be an obvious smart choice.

The ten young people decide to pass the time by each telling a tale each day, resulting over the ten days in a collection of 100 tales. Each of the ten takes a turn being the king or the queen for a day, and gets to choose the day's theme. The themes include comedy, tragedy, romance, etc., but go beyond those simple topics.

One day is for stories of virtue, one is romances that end happily, while one is for romances that end in tragedy. There are tales of luck, tales about women who play tricks on men, and tales where the main character is in trouble but saves himself or herself by quick thinking at the climax.

The whole is not just a sequence of tales. Boccaccio gives us a description of other ways that the ten occupy their time, including songs that they sing to entertain each other. These songs, the daily activities, and the tales themselves with some of their recurring concepts of mocking the clergy, nouveau riche vs. old noble families, and the similarity between men and women's lust and ambition, paint a picture of 14th century Italian life in prose that is a useful introduction to the feelings of the time and place.

Boccaccio likely made up none of the tales, but that does not mean there is no original material. The medieval approach was to take a known tale and develop it in new ways. Most of the tales in the Decameron can be found in other forms in earlier sources...and later, since his tales were read and used by others, such as Geoffrey Chaucer in the Canterbury Tales.

Despite the name Decameron, Boccaccio also referred to the work by two other names, which are interesting anecdotes in their own way. I'll share those tomorrow.

Sunday, September 17, 2023

Giovanni Boccaccio

Giovanni Boccaccio (1313 - 1375) was eight years old when Dante died, but he revered the man and wrote a biography about him. He even gave a series of lectures in Florence on Dante's works—a first for a non-Classical Era writer. He was more than just a fan of another, however, becoming a treasured poet in hid own right.

Like Dante, Bocaccio wrote in Tuscan vernacular rather than Latin, and he wrote in prose, telling stories that captured the imagination and inspired others, including Geoffrey Chaucer.

Boccaccio grew up in Florence. His father worked for the banking/trading company of the Bardi; Giovanni worked there for a brief time, deciding that it was not a profession to his liking. His father came head of a branch in Naples, taking the family there, and Giovanni persuaded his father to let him study law at what is now the University of Naples (where Thomas Aquinas had been 100 years earlier). Six years of studying canon law taught him that he liked that profession no more than he liked banking.

Two good things came from his time in Naples. One was his love for Fiametta. That was not her name; simply what he called her in his writings. If she existed, she was really Maria d'Aquino, illegitimate daughter of King Robert the Wise of Naples, whom he saw and with whom he fell in love. He wrote a novel about her, and mentions her in many other writings.

The other good thing from his time in Naples was that he began writing. He produced works such as Il Filostrato, about star-crossed lovers during the Trojan War (which became a source for Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde and Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida), and Teseida, nominally about Theseus but dominated by the rivalry of two young knights over a woman (and the source of Chaucer's "The Knight's Tale" in The Canterbury Tales).

He also wrote the first Italian prose novel, Il Filocolo, the story (well-known in Europe) of Florio and Biancifiore, two lovers from different stations in life. Fiametta appears as the "queen" of a "noble brigade" who pose questions to each other about love.

Perhaps his best-known work is the Decameron ("Ten Days"), in which a group of young men and women flee who flee Florence during the Black Death to the hills outside, where they spend ten days telling stories. More on that tomorrow.

Saturday, September 16, 2023

Dante's Comedy

During his lifetime, Dante Alighieri was embroiled in Florentine politics, but along the way he found time—well, he was in exile and had leisure time he would not have had if he had remained a politician in Florence— to write a masterpiece of medieval poetry. He called it the Commedia, and it has three parts:  Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso.

The work is made of 100 canti, a one-canto introduction and three sections each with 33 cantos, representing (I assume) the 33 years of the life of Christ. It is written in a three-line scheme called terra rima, and runs ABA BCB CDC DED, with lines of 11 syllables each. Therefore, each three-line section in each canto is also 33 syllables.

Numbers remain important in the "geography" of the afterlife. Each of the three parts of the afterlife nine levels, plus one "climactic" level. Nine rings in Hell and then Lucifer at the very bottom, nine levels climbing Mount Purgatory with the Harden of Eden at the summit, nine areas of Heaven plus God at the top.

Written in Tuscan Italian, its popularity helped establish that dialect as standard Italian. The poem also offers us a view of the world and afterlife that is representative of its time. The story is framed as a pilgrimage by the narrator, Dante, who is given a tour of the three realms of the afterlife.

There are three tour guides in this pilgrimage. Taking him through Inferno, Hell, and part of Purgatorio, Purgatory, is Virgil. Not only was Virgil a respected Roman Piet whose works were admired by Dante, but also he was considered to be a "Christian prophet" of sorts because one of his writings was interpreted by St. Augustine and others as a predictor of Jesus Christ. He was considered a "virtuous pagan" by the Christian Middle Ages. From the Inferno we get the notion of the several layers of Hell going deeper as the sins get worse.

While in Purgatory, Virgil hands the narrator off the Beatrice, Dante's childhood friend and first and greatest love whom, as an adult, he had not seen in years. She represents divine revelation, and shows him the souls whose failings are not so great that they cannot eventually gain Heaven.

When he reaches Heaven, Paradiso, his guide is none other than St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who represents contemplative mysticism and devotion to the Virgin Mary.

He includes many real historical figures in the Commedia, especially those whom he considered his enemies while they were alive. In Purgatory he sees Mechthild of Magdeburg, Peter Damian, Manfred of SicilyFrederick II, Pope Boniface VIII, Michael Scot, Peire d'Alvernhe, and many others.

Dante merely called his great work Commedia, but an admirer and biographer (and a poet in his own right), Giovanni Boccaccio, added the adjective "Divine," which stuck. Boccaccio, along with Dante and Petrarch, forms the peak of medieval Italian literature, and we'll take a better look at him tomorrow.

Thursday, April 14, 2016

Saluzzo and England and Griselda

Saluzzo, a town and principality in northern Italy, had some interesting connections to England. It was a simple tribal city-state in Roman times, but during the time of the Carolingians it became the hereditary property of the Marquesses of Saluzzo, who extended their control over a wider region in the north. It was frequently in conflict with its powerful neighbor, the Duchy of Savoy, which eventually assumed much of Saluzzo's territory. The Savoys were so powerful that the kings of England and France treated them very well.

Griselda's daughter is carried away [source]
One of the first strategic marriages between English and Italian noble families, however, was with Saluzzo. Alice of Saluzzo (d.1292) married Richard Fitzalan, the 8th Earl of Arundel. The marriage had been arranged by Eleanor of Provence, Queen to Henry III. Alice's father, Thomas I of Saluzzo, was an exemplary ruler under whom Saluzzo flourished like never before. This probably had a lot to do with choosing to form an alliance with Saluzzo by marriage.

Not all Marquesses of Saluzzo came off so well in history—or literature.

In Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, The Clerk's Tale tells of Griselda, whose hand in marriage is sought by Marquess Walter of Saluzzo. He marries her on the condition that she will always obey him, no matter what. She agrees. When she gives birth to a daughter, Walter decides to test her obedience: he has a soldier remove her daughter. Although Griselda has every reason to believe her daughter is being killed (actually, the girl is sent to be raised by Walter's sister), she remains obedient and kind to her husband.

Four years later, she gives birth to a son. Walter chooses a further test: he tells her son has to go as well, that he has permission from the pope to divorce her, and that she is to return to her father taking nothing but the smock she wears under her fine dress. She returns home, showing no signs of distress.

Years later, Walter summons Griselda to him. He tells her he is marrying again, a young wife this time, and wants Griselda to help prepare the house for a new young bride. Unbeknownst to Griselda, the new young bride is actually her now-grown daughter. Griselda patiently asks Walter to be kind to his new bride, who might not be able to endure his tests the way a woman raised in poverty could. Walter, much moved by her patience and faithfulness, confesses that they are still married, that her children are alive, and promises never to test her again. They live happily ever after.

Chaucer did not invent this story. He probably got it from Boccaccio's Decameron, and the folktale of patient Griselda was around for a long time. Why the "villain" is a Marquess of Saluzzo is the mystery. But then, not all Marquesses were as beloved as Thomas I.  In Boccaccio's lifetime, Saluzzo experienced some civil strife. Manfred V of Saluzzo was forced to give up a claim to the throne in 1334 after being caught in a sex scandal with his own mother, then usurped the throne in 1341, but was forced to give it up a year later. 

Thursday, April 17, 2014

Public Reading

When April, with her showers sweet,
The drought of March has pierced to the roots...
A poster for sale of Chaucer reading
On this day in 1397, Geoffrey Chaucer gave a public reading of his Tales of Canterbury at the court of Richard II. We don't know exactly what he read—it isn't likely that they sat through the hours it would take to read everything, even though the Canterbury Tales are far from complete. The wager the pilgrims make is that each one would tell two tales going to Canterbury and two on the return journey; their host would pick the best one and treat them all to a feast. Given this plan, and the number of pilgrims (which changes along the way), we would expect at least 120 tales.* We only have about 30, with no evidence that there are "lost manuscripts" anywhere containing more work. (Chaucer was a busy public servant, and probably didn't have much time for writing.)

King Richard was a great supporter of poetry, and public readings were not uncommon. In a world without television, radio, movie theaters, or even plays, public entertainment came from song, dance, or the written word. Readings at court of new poetry were a popular affair.

Monasteries favored public reading as well. The Rule of St. Benedict mandated readings during meals, both to discourage idle chatter and to educate monks. Hearing a text read was supposed to be as educational as reading it yourself: the listener was "reading" with his ears and experiencing the same words, and therefore "knew" what was read as well as the person whose eyes were actually on the page. At universities like Oxford and Cambridge, students attended lectures that could last for hours, but they were not supposed to take notes. Listening and thinking was supposed to be sufficient for learning. When books became inexpensive to print and "everyone" could have a copy of the text to study and read, I think this "active listening" skill gradually lost importance.

*I think Chaucer wanted to "beat" Boccaccio's Decameron, with its ten people each telling a new tale each day for ten days.

Friday, January 17, 2014

Scholar of the Supernatural

[I am on a brief vacation, so here is a post from the past. This post first appeared 23 August 2012.]

In Dante's Inferno, the eighth circle is reserved for sorcerers, astrologers, and false prophets. There the narrator sees Michael Scot. You might think, if someone were so well-known after his death, that we would know more about him. Well, we know a little, but we have some cool stories.

Michael Scot, depicted here tearing up the Scriptures.*
Michael Scot was no doubt born in Scotland, although other locations (like Salerno and Toldeo) have tried to claim him. Dates of 1175-c.1232 seem to work for what little we know of his life. We know that Pope Honorius wrote to Stephen Langton on 16 January 1223, urging him to grant Scot a religious position, and that Honorius himself nominated Scot for Archbishop of Cashel. If Scot was educated sufficiently to be offered these positions, he would not have lived until 1290, which is the date Sir Walter Scott offers for his death. (Scott was confusing Scot with a Sir Michael Scot who lived later.)

Scot turned down the position in Cashel; it looks like he did hold benefices in Italy, however, spending time in Bologna and Palermo before going to Toledo in Spain. It was probably in Spain that he learned Arabic, which helped get him invited to the court of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. Besides translating texts for Frederick, he was a court astrologer, saying of the work:
Every astrologer is worthy of praise and honor, since by such a doctrine as astrology he probably knows many secrets of God, and things which few know.
This was not likely to endear him to the Roman Catholic Church.

Although he was known in his lifetime as a brilliant Aristotelian scholar, and Fibonacci's Liber Abaci was dedicated to him, his books on alchemy and astrology and the occult sciences earned him a reputation for magic. A Bronze Age circle of stones in northwest England called "Long Meg and Her Daughters" was supposedly a coven of witches turned to stone by Scot. Other stories have him hosting feasts served by invisible spirits. Boccaccio refers to him in the Decameron as a magician. It is also told (long after the fact) that he predicted he would die from a small stone falling on his head from a great height. He always wore an iron cap to prevent it, but he removed the cap when entering a church one day (more not to stand out than for reverence of God, we are told), and a small stone of the size he predicted fell on his head. He picked up the stone, recognized that his prophecy was coming true, put his affairs in order, and died of the head wound shortly after! His reputation (helped by the dearth of facts) has made him a prime subject for fiction right up to the present day.

*From a fresco painted between 1366 and 1388 by Andrea Bonaiuti in the Cappellone degli Spagnoli of Santa Maria Novella in Florence. St. Dominic preaches to the crowd.

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Chaucer Performs

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote 
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote 

DailyMedieval doesn't usually talk about topics that everyone knows about (King Arthur, Geoffrey Chaucer, jousting and castles, etc.), because it tries to pull back the curtain on all the other interesting people and places and tidbits of knowledge that do not get any exposure in textbooks or modern popular culture. (Not that I don't have a strong feelings about Chaucer, as the book link in the upper-right corner of this website tells you.)

From the Ellesmere manuscript
Today, however, we mention Geoffrey Chaucer, because today is thought to be the day of the year when his pilgrims set out on their journey in The Canterbury Tales. Also, 17 April 1397 is considered to be the day that he first gave a public reading of his most famous work at the court of Richard II.

Spring was the time when folk "longed to go on pilgrimages" because they had been cooped up indoors all winter and the roads were finally becoming navigable.

Canterbury was a common goal for pilgrimages because it held the shrine of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1162-1170, who was killed during the reign of Henry II by four knights who were acting either on behalf of  the King or were removing the king's rival on their own in order to curry favor. He was universally loved by the population of England, and was declared a martyr by Pope Alexander III in 1173.

While we're on the subject, let's make something clear about The Canterbury Tales: it is not a complete work. In the collection, the proposal for the pilgrims is that they would each tell two tales heading to Canterbury and two tales coming back, after which their Host would judge the best tale. Chaucer's intent was possibly to top Boccaccio's Decameron with its ten tales each day for ten days. We have barely over 30 tales (and some of them fragmentary), a far cry from the 120 we could expect if he completed the work.