Giovanni Boccaccio - biography, information, personal life. Giovanni Boccaccio: biography and best works

Who, along with his idols - Dante and Petrarch - had a significant influence on the development of all European culture.

Author of poems based on subjects ancient mythology, the psychological story “Fiammetta” (1343, published in 1472), pastorals, sonnets. The main work is “The Decameron” (1350-1353, published in 1470) - a book of short stories imbued with humanistic ideas, the spirit of freethinking and anti-clericalism, rejection of ascetic morality, cheerful humor, a multi-colored panorama of the morals of Italian society.

Biography

Illegitimate son of the Florentine merchant Boccaccino da Cellino and a French woman. His family came from Certaldo, which is why he called himself Boccaccio da Certaldo. Already in infancy, he showed a strong inclination towards poetry, but in his tenth year his father sent him to study with a merchant, who fussed with him for 6 whole years and was nevertheless forced to send him back to his father due to young Boccaccio’s ineradicable aversion to merchant occupation. However, Boccaccio had to languish over merchant books in Naples for another 8 years until his father finally lost patience and allowed him to study canon law. Only after the death of his father () Boccaccio was able to fully devote himself to his penchant for literature. During his stay at the court of the Neapolitan king Robert, he became friends with many scientists of that time, among his close friends, in particular, was the famous mathematician Paolo Dagomari, gained the favor of the young Queen Joanna and Lady Mary, his inspiration, later described by him under the name of Fiammetta .

The monument to Boccaccio, erected in Piazza Solferino in Certaldo, was unveiled on June 22. A crater on Mercury is named after Boccaccio.

Humanistic activities

Boccaccio was the first humanist and one of the most learned people Italy. He studied astronomy with Andalone del Nero and kept the Calabrian Greek Leontius Pilate, a great expert in Greek literature, in his house for three whole years, in order to read Homer with him. Like his friend Petrarch, he collected books and with his own hand copied many rare manuscripts, almost all of which were lost during a fire in the monastery of Santo Spirito (). He used his influence on his contemporaries to arouse in them a love of studying and getting to know the ancients. Through his efforts, a department was founded in Florence Greek language and his literature. He was one of the first to draw public attention to the pitiful state of science in monasteries, which were considered their guardians. In the monastery of Monte Cassino, the most famous and learned in all of Europe at that time, Boccaccio found the library neglected to such an extent that the books on the shelves were covered with layers of dust, some manuscripts had their leaves torn out, others were cut up and distorted, and, for example, wonderful the manuscripts of Homer and Plato were littered with inscriptions and theological polemics. There he learned, among other things, that the monks tear out sheets of parchment from manuscripts and, scraping old text, make psalters and amulets, making money from it.

Creation

Essays in vernacular

The early works of Boccaccio (Neapolitan period) include: the poems “Filostrato” (c.), “Theseide” (c. -41), the novel “Filocolo” (c. -38), based on the plots of medieval novels. More late works(Florentine period): “Fiesolan Nymphs” (), inspired by Ovid’s “Metamorphoses”, “Ameto”, and the story “Fiammetta” (). The pinnacle of Boccaccio’s creativity is “Decameron”.

Latin writings

Boccaccio is the author of a number of historical and mythological works in Latin. Among them is the encyclopedic work “Genealogy pagan gods"in 15 books (“De genealogia deorum gentilium”, first edition about , treatises “On mountains, forests, springs, lakes, rivers, swamps and seas” (“De montibus, silvis, fontibus, lacubus, fluminibus, stagnis seu paludibus et de nominibus maris", started about -); 9 books "On Misfortunes" famous people"("De casibus virorum et feminarum illustrium", first edition about). Book "O famous women"("De claris mulieribus", begun around ) includes 106 women's biographies - from Eve to Queen Joan of Naples.

Boccaccio on Dante

List of works

Neapolitan period:

• 1334, erotic poem "The House of Diana" (La caccia di Diana)
• OK. -38, novel “Filocolo” (Filocolo)
• OK. -40, poem “Philostrato” (Filostrato)
• OK. -41, poem “Theseides” (Teseida delle nozze di Emilia)

Florentine period:

• 1341-42, pastoral romance "Ameto" (Comedia delle ninfe fiorentine; Ninfale d'Ameto; Ameto)
• early 1340s, allegorical poem "Love's Vision" (Amorosa visione)
• -44, story “Fiametta” (Elegia di Madonna Fiammetta; Fiammetta)
• , poem “The Fiesolan Nymphs” (Ninfale fiesolano)
• 1350s: "Decameron" (Decameron)
• - , satirical poem against women "Corbaccio" (“Il corbaccio o labirinto d’amore”)
• OK. , book “The Life of Dante Alighieri” (“Small treatise in praise of Dante”, "Trattatello in laude di Dante"; exact title - “Origine vita e costumi di Dante Alighieri”, first edition - , third - before)
• A series of lectures on the “Divine Comedy” ( Argomenti in terza rima alla Divina Commedia), unfinished
• The treatise “On mountains, forests, springs, lakes, rivers, swamps and seas” (“De montibus, silvis, fontibus, lacubus, fluminibus, stagnis seu paludibus et de nominibus maris”, begun around -, Latin.
• "Genealogy of Pagan Gods" in 15 books ( De genealogia deorum gentilium, first edition about , lat. language
• "On the Misfortunes of Famous People" ( De casibus virorum et feminarum illustrium, first edition about , in 9 books, lat. language
• "About Famous Women" ( De claris mulieribus, started about ) includes 106 women's biographies
• Bucolic songs (Bucolicum carmen)
• Sonnets
• Letters

Editions

The first edition of it, the so-called. "Deo gratias", published without date or place, the second in Venice in 1471, both in folio and now extremely rare. ESBE called the best publications Boccaccio is as follows: Poggiali (Livorno, 1789-90, 4 vols.); "Ventisettana" (Florence, 1827); critical edition by Biagioli, with historical and literary commentary (Paris, 1823, 5 vols.); Ugo Foscolo (London, 1825, 3 vols., with historical introduction); Fanfani together with “Annotazioni dei Deputati” (3 vols., Florence, 1857); the pocket edition was published in the Biblioteka d’autori italiani (vol. 3 and 4, Leipzig). "Opere complete" by Boccaccio published (Florence, 17 vol. 1827).

A review of Boccaccio's publications is found in Passano's book “I novellieri italiani in prosa” (Turin, 1878).

Many of Boccaccio's books were illustrated by the French court miniaturist Robin Testard at the end of the 15th century.

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Literature

• Mann i in “Storia del Decamerone” (Florence, 1742).
• Baldelli (Florence, 1806).
• Diesdin, "Biographical Decameron" (London, 1817).
• Ciampi, “Manuscritto autografo di V.” (Florence, 1827).
• Bartoli, “I precursori del B.” (1878).
• Landau, "B-s Leben und Werke" (Stuttgart, 1877).
• Körting, “B-s Leben u. Werke" (Leipzig, 1880).
• Landau, “Die Quellen des Decameron” (2nd ed., 1884).
• A. N. Veselovsky, “Three letters of Giovanni Boccaccio to Mainardo de Cavalcanti” (St. Petersburg, 1876 - published for the 500th anniversary of B.): V. Lesevich, “Classics of the 14th century.” (“Otech. Notes” 1874, No. 12); A. A-voy “Italian Novella and Decameron” (“Bulletin of Europe”, 1880, No. 2-4).
• Veselovsky A. N. Boccaccio, his environment and peers: In 2 volumes. - St. Petersburg. : Type. Imp. Academy of Sciences, 1893-1894.
  • Volume one. - 1893. - 545 p.
  • Volume two. - 1894. - 679 p.
• Andreev M. L. Boccaccio, Giovanni // Renaissance Culture. Encyclopedia. Volume 1. M.: ROSSPEN, 2007. - pp. 206-209. - ISBN 5-8243-0823-3
• Symonds J. A. The Revival of Learning. Renaissance in Italy. Vol. II. N.Y., 1960.
• Shishmarev V. Essays on the history of Italian literature: Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio. - M., 2010.

See also

Notes

Links

	Giovanni Boccaccio in Wikiquote
	in Wikisource

• // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - St. Petersburg. , 1890-1907.

Excerpt characterizing Giovanni Boccaccio

“That’s what I’m saying,” said Alpatych. - Do they drink? – he asked briefly.
– Yakov Alpatych got all worked up: another barrel was brought.
- So listen. I’ll go to the police officer, and you tell the people, so that they give up this, and so that there are carts.
“I’m listening,” answered Dron.
Yakov Alpatych did not insist any more. He had ruled the people for a long time and knew that the main way to get people to obey was to not show them any doubt that they might disobey. Having obtained from Dron the obedient “I listen with,” Yakov Alpatych was satisfied with this, although he not only doubted, but was almost sure that the carts would not be delivered without the help of a military team.
And indeed, by evening the carts were not collected. In the village at the tavern there was again a meeting, and at the meeting it was necessary to drive the horses into the forest and not give out the carts. Without saying anything about this to the princess, Alpatych ordered his own luggage to be packed from those who had come from Bald Mountains and to prepare these horses for the princess’s carriages, and he himself went to the authorities.

X
After her father's funeral, Princess Marya locked herself in her room and did not let anyone in. A girl came to the door to say that Alpatych had come to ask for orders to leave. (This was even before Alpatych’s conversation with Dron.) Princess Marya rose from the sofa on which she was lying and said through the closed door that she would never go anywhere and asked to be left alone.
The windows of the room in which Princess Marya lay were facing west. She lay on the sofa facing the wall and, fingering the buttons on the leather pillow, saw only this pillow, and her vague thoughts were focused on one thing: she was thinking about the irreversibility of death and about that spiritual abomination of hers, which she had not known until now and which showed up during her father’s illness. She wanted, but did not dare to pray, did not dare to state of mind, in which she was, turn to God. She lay in this position for a long time.
The sun set on the other side of the house and slanting evening rays through the open windows illuminated the room and part of the morocco pillow that Princess Marya was looking at. Her train of thought suddenly stopped. She unconsciously stood up, straightened her hair, stood up and went to the window, involuntarily inhaling the coolness of a clear but windy evening.
“Yes, now it’s convenient for you to admire in the evening! He’s already gone, and no one will bother you,” she said to herself, and, sinking into a chair, she fell head first on the windowsill.
Someone called her in a gentle and quiet voice from the side of the garden and kissed her on the head. She looked back. It was M lle Bourienne, in a black dress and pleres. She quietly approached Princess Marya, kissed her with a sigh and immediately began to cry. Princess Marya looked back at her. All previous clashes with her, jealousy towards her, were remembered by Princess Marya; I also remembered how he had recently changed towards m lle Bourienne, could not see her, and, therefore, how unfair were the reproaches that Princess Marya made to her in her soul. “And should I, who wanted his death, condemn anyone? - she thought.
Princess Marya vividly imagined the position of m lle Bourienne, who had recently been distant from her society, but at the same time dependent on her and living in someone else’s house. And she felt sorry for her. She looked at her meekly questioningly and extended her hand. M lle Bourienne immediately began to cry, began to kiss her hand and talk about the grief that befell the princess, making herself a participant in this grief. She said that the only consolation in her grief was that the princess allowed her to share it with her. She said that all former misunderstandings should be destroyed before great grief, that she felt pure in front of everyone and that from there he could see her love and gratitude. The princess listened to her, not understanding her words, but occasionally looking at her and listening to the sounds of her voice.
“Your situation is doubly terrible, dear princess,” said M lle Bourienne, after a pause. – I understand that you could not and cannot think about yourself; but I am obliged to do this with my love for you... Was Alpatych with you? Did he talk to you about leaving? – she asked.
Princess Marya did not answer. She did not understand where and who was supposed to go. “Was it possible to do anything now, to think about anything? Doesn't it matter? She didn't answer.
“Do you know, chere Marie,” said m lle Bourienne, “do you know that we are in danger, that we are surrounded by the French; It's dangerous to travel now. If we go, we will almost certainly be captured, and God knows...
Princess Marya looked at her friend, not understanding what she was saying.
“Oh, if only someone knew how much I don’t care now,” she said. - Of course, I would never want to leave him... Alpatych told me something about leaving... Talk to him, I can’t do anything, I don’t want anything...
– I talked to him. He hopes that we will have time to leave tomorrow; but I think that now it would be better to stay here,” said m lle Bourienne. - Because, you see, chere Marie, falling into the hands of soldiers or rioting men on the road would be terrible. - M lle Bourienne took out from her reticule an announcement on a non-Russian extraordinary paper from the French General Rameau that residents should not leave their homes, that they would be given due protection by the French authorities, and handed it to the princess.
“I think it’s better to contact this general,” said m lle Bourienne, “and I’m sure that you will be given due respect.”
Princess Marya read the paper, and dry sobs shook her face.
-Who did you get this through? - she said.
“They probably found out that I’m French by name,” said m lle Bourienne, blushing.
Princess Marya, with a paper in her hand, stood up from the window and, with a pale face, left the room and went to the former office of Prince Andrei.
“Dunyasha, call Alpatych, Dronushka, someone to me,” said Princess Marya, “and tell Amalya Karlovna not to come to me,” she added, hearing the voice of m lle Bourienne. - Hurry up and go! Go quickly! - said Princess Marya, horrified by the thought that she could remain in the power of the French.
“So that Prince Andrei knows that she is in the power of the French! So that she, the daughter of Prince Nikolai Andreich Bolkonsky, asks Mr. General Rameau to provide her with protection and enjoy his benefits! “This thought terrified her, made her shudder, blush and feel attacks of anger and pride that she had not yet experienced. Everything that was difficult and, most importantly, offensive in her position, was vividly imagined to her. “They, the French, will settle in this house; Mr. General Rameau will occupy the office of Prince Andrei; It will be fun to sort through and read his letters and papers. M lle Bourienne lui fera les honneurs de Bogucharovo. [Mademoiselle Bourien will receive him with honors in Bogucharovo.] They will give me a room out of mercy; soldiers will destroy their father's fresh grave to remove crosses and stars from him; they will tell me about victories over the Russians, they will feign sympathy for my grief... - Princess Marya thought not with her own thoughts, but feeling obligated to think for herself with the thoughts of her father and brother. For her personally, it didn’t matter where she stayed and no matter what happened to her; but at the same time she felt like a representative of her late father and Prince Andrei. She involuntarily thought with their thoughts and felt them with their feelings. Whatever they would say, whatever they would do now, that is what she felt necessary to do. She went to Prince Andrei’s office and, trying to penetrate his thoughts, pondered her situation.
The demands of life, which she considered destroyed with the death of her father, suddenly arose with a new, still unknown force before Princess Marya and overwhelmed her. Excited, red-faced, she walked around the room, demanding first Alpatych, then Mikhail Ivanovich, then Tikhon, then Dron. Dunyasha, the nanny and all the girls could not say anything about the extent to which what M lle Bourienne announced was fair. Alpatych was not at home: he had gone to see his superiors. The summoned Mikhail Ivanovich, the architect, who came to Princess Marya with sleepy eyes, could not say anything to her. With exactly the same smile of agreement with which he had been accustomed for fifteen years to respond, without expressing his opinion, to the old prince’s appeals, he answered Princess Marya’s questions, so that nothing definite could be deduced from his answers. The summoned old valet Tikhon, with a sunken and haggard face, bearing the imprint of incurable grief, answered “I listen with” to all the questions of Princess Marya and could hardly restrain himself from sobbing, looking at her.
Finally, the elder Dron entered the room and, bowing low to the princess, stopped at the lintel.
Princess Marya walked around the room and stopped opposite him.
“Dronushka,” said Princess Marya, who saw in him an undoubted friend, the same Dronushka who, from his annual trip to the fair in Vyazma, brought her his special gingerbread every time and served her with a smile. “Dronushka, now, after our misfortune,” she began and fell silent, unable to speak further.
“We all walk under God,” he said with a sigh. They were silent.
- Dronushka, Alpatych has gone somewhere, I have no one to turn to. Is it true that they tell me that I can’t leave?
“Why don’t you go, your Excellency, you can go,” said Dron.
“They told me it was dangerous from the enemy.” Darling, I can’t do anything, I don’t understand anything, there’s no one with me. I definitely want to go at night or early tomorrow morning. – The drone was silent. He glanced at Princess Marya from under his brows.
“There are no horses,” he said, “I told Yakov Alpatych too.”
- Why not? - said the princess.
“It’s all from God’s punishment,” said Dron. “Which horses there were were dismantled for use by the troops, and which ones died, what year it is today.” It’s not like feeding the horses, but making sure we don’t die of hunger ourselves! And they sit like that for three days without eating. There is nothing, they are completely ruined.
Princess Marya listened carefully to what he told her.
- Are the men ruined? Do they have no bread? – she asked.
“They’re dying of starvation,” said Dron, “not like the carts...”
- Why didn’t you tell me, Dronushka? Can't you help? I will do everything I can... - It was strange for Princess Marya to think that now, at such a moment, when such grief filled her soul, there could be rich and poor people and that the rich could not help the poor. She vaguely knew and heard that there was master's bread and that it was given to the peasants. She also knew that neither her brother nor her father would refuse the needs of the peasants; she was only afraid of somehow making a mistake in her words about this distribution of bread to the peasants, which she wanted to dispose of. She was glad that she was presented with a pretext of care, one for which she was not ashamed to forget her grief. She began asking Dronushka for details about the needs of the men and about what was lordly in Bogucharovo.
– After all, we have the master’s bread, brother? – she asked.
“The Lord’s bread is all intact,” Dron said proudly, “our prince did not order it to be sold.”
“Give him to the peasants, give him everything they need: I give you permission in the name of my brother,” said Princess Marya.
The drone said nothing and took a deep breath.
- Give them this bread if it is enough for them. Give everything away. I command you in the name of my brother, and tell them: what is ours is also theirs. We will spare nothing for them. So tell me.
The drone looked intently at the princess while she spoke.
“Dismiss me, mother, for God’s sake, tell me to accept the keys,” he said. “I served for twenty-three years, I didn’t do anything bad; leave me alone, for God's sake.
Princess Marya did not understand what he wanted from her and why he asked to dismiss himself. She answered him that she never doubted his devotion and that she was ready to do everything for him and for the men.

An hour after this, Dunyasha came to the princess with the news that Dron had arrived and all the men, by order of the princess, gathered at the barn, wanting to talk with the mistress.
“Yes, I never called them,” said Princess Marya, “I only told Dronushka to give them bread.”
“Only for God’s sake, Princess Mother, order them away and don’t go to them.” It’s all just a lie,” Dunyasha said, “and Yakov Alpatych will come and we’ll go... and if you please...
- What kind of deception? – the princess asked in surprise
- Yes, I know, just listen to me, for God’s sake. Just ask the nanny. They say they do not agree to leave on your orders.
- You're saying something wrong. Yes, I never ordered to leave... - said Princess Marya. - Call Dronushka.
The arriving Dron confirmed Dunyasha’s words: the men came on the orders of the princess.
“Yes, I never called them,” said the princess. “You probably didn’t convey it to them correctly.” I just told you to give them the bread.
The drone sighed without answering.
“If you order, they will leave,” he said.
“No, no, I’ll go to them,” said Princess Marya
Despite the dissuading of Dunyasha and the nanny, Princess Marya went out onto the porch. Dron, Dunyasha, the nanny and Mikhail Ivanovich followed her. “They probably think that I am offering them bread so that they will remain in their places, and I will leave myself, abandoning them to the mercy of the French,” thought Princess Marya. - I will promise them a month in an apartment near Moscow; I’m sure Andre would have done even more in my place,” she thought, approaching the crowd standing in the pasture near the barn in the twilight.

The outstanding Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375), like Dante, was born in Florence. Little is known about his childhood. Boccaccio was about fourteen years old when his father, a fairly famous Florentine merchant, apprenticed the young man to a major merchant in Naples, an important trading and cultural center Italy at that time. Only outwardly obeying the will of his father, Boccaccio free time devoted himself to the study of literature, primarily Italian. Four years later, having come to terms with the fact that his son would not become a merchant, his father ordered him to study canon law, however, the lucrative profession of a lawyer did not attract Boccaccio.

Thanks to his father's money and position, Boccaccio was able to enter the secular and artistic society that surrounded the Neapolitan king Robert of Anjou. It was at this time that he met Giotto, the brightest figure of the Italian Pre-Renaissance, and was so impressed by the personality of this artist, architect, sculptor, poet and wit that he later made him one of the heroes of the Decameron. At the court of King Robert, Boccaccio also met Maria d'Aquino, who, in accordance with the concepts of medieval troubadour poets, became his lady of the heart; Boccaccio later brought her into the Decameron under the name of Fiammetta.

During this period of creativity (1336-1340) Boccaccio created large number poems praising Fiammetta, two poems and the novel “Filocolo”.

In 1340, his father's affairs went very badly, and Giovanni Boccaccio was forced to return to Florence. Boccaccio did not want to continue his father’s work and eventually became a diplomat in the service of the Florentine Republic, earning great authority in this field. At the same time, he continued to study literary creativity, created a number of works imbued with humanistic ideas. Thus, in “Ameto, or the Comedy of the Florentine Nymphs,” Boccaccio, in the image of the main character, the shepherd and hunter Ameto, presents an allegory of a man, at first rude and uncouth, and then softened under the influence of love and virtue so much that the transformed Ameto can contemplate the divine essence. The pinnacle of Boccaccio’s creativity was the creation of the collection of short stories “The Decameron” (1350-1353). During these same years, Boccaccio wrote treatises “On the vicissitudes of the fate of famous people”, “The Origin of the Pagan Gods” and others.

In 1363, Giovanni Boccaccio moved from Florence to the small town of Certaldo, devoting himself entirely to literary pursuits, and above all to the work of Dante. Boccaccio created the biographical work “The Life of Dante” and a commentary on the “Divine Comedy”, and in last year life (1375) gave public lectures dedicated to the great work of Dante.

Giovanni Boccaccio- Italian poet and writer of the era early Renaissance, humanist.

Giovanni Boccaccio was born in 1313 g., in June or July in Florence in the family of a local merchant and a French woman. Giovanni himself called himself Boccaccio da Certaldo - after the name of the area where his family came from.

Somewhere in 1330 he moved to Naples, studied merchant wisdom (at the request of his father), but, not showing any ability for it, began to study canon law. But Boccaccio did not become a lawyer; his only passion was poetry, to which he had the opportunity to devote himself only much later, after the death of his father in 1348.

Living in Naples, Boccaccio becomes part of the entourage of King Robert of Anjou. It was during this period that he became a poet and humanist. His friends were scientists, educated people, and influential people. Giovanni read ancient authors avidly, and the environment itself greatly contributed to the expansion of his ideas about the world. It is with Naples that a rather large period of its creative biography. In honor of his muse, whom he called Fiametta in his poems, he wrote a large number of poems; in addition, the poems “The Hunt of Diana”, “Theseides”, “Philostrato” were created, as well as prose novel, which were of great importance for the formation of new Italian literature.

In 1340, his father, who by that time was completely bankrupt, demanded Boccaccio's return to Florence, although he, as before, was indifferent to commerce. Gradually the humanist began to participate in political and public life cities. In 1341, a friendship appeared in his life, which he carried throughout his life - with Francesco Petrarch. Thanks to this relationship, Boccaccio began to take himself and life more seriously. He enjoyed great influence among the townspeople; he was often given diplomatic assignments on behalf of the Florentine Republic. Boccaccio gave a lot of effort educational work, aroused interest in antiquity, in the sciences, and personally copied ancient manuscripts.

In 1350-1353 Boccaccio wrote the main work of his life, which glorified him for centuries - “The Decameron” - a hundred short stories that were ahead of their time, creating a vivid panorama of Italian life, imbued with freethinking, lively humor, and ideas of humanism. Its success was simply stunning, and in different countries, into whose languages ​​it was immediately translated.

In 1363, Giovanni left Florence and settled on a small estate in Certaldo, completely immersing himself in creativity. Until he was overcome by a serious illness, he gave public lectures on the “Divine Comedy”.

A big shock for Boccaccio was the news of the death of his friend Petrarch; he outlived his friend by a little less than a year and a half.

December 21, 1375 the heart of the great humanist, one of the most educated people in Italy of his time, stopped.

Also one of the founders of the Italian Renaissance (Cinquecento) is no less famous humanist than Petrarch, poet and novelist Giovanni Boccaccio (1313 - 1375). A contemporary of Petrarch, his friend and closest literary and spiritual associate, Boccaccio began his creative career as a poet, not without the influence of Dante and Petrarch. He lived for some time in Florence, as a fan of Dante, did a lot to spread Dante’s legacy, gave lectures on the work of the great poet, and spoke especially highly of the Divine Comedy.

Boccaccio's work was influenced by his origin: he was born in Paris, his father was an Italian merchant from Florence, and his mother was French. Boccaccio was taken to Italy as an infant and has not been to Paris since then. The duality of life did not allow Boccaccio, to some extent, to become the whole person that time required. But at the same time, it was precisely the duality of life that instilled in the future writer that knowledge of life, without which he would not have succeeded as a novelist, laying down new methods of artistic representation in literature. Because Boccaccio managed to note the most unknown, inconspicuous, small features of real life and express them in the work in their terrible ugly ugliness, which prevents a person from truly feeling the joy of life, which the writer depicted so vividly, so naturally, like no one before him in literature. Therefore, as a young man, he deliberately, contrary to the will of his father, avoided the fate of being a merchant and a boring, self-interested lawyer, and became a writer.

In the life of Boccaccio, like Dante, Petrarch had his own Muse. She did not leave such a mark in literature as Beatrice and Laura, but she became the image of Fiametta, the heroine that permeates almost every work of Giovanni Boccaccio in almost all the works of the short story writer. Under this name hides the real life Maria d'Aquino, according to some information the illegitimate daughter of the King of Naples, Robert of Anjou.

Just as Petrarch played with the name of Laura (Laura - laurel), it was no coincidence that Boccaccio gave his heroine the name Fiametta: literally a light. A living flame that kindles true earthly natural love. This is how the writer’s muse differs from Dante’s Beatrice - for him she is a divine spirit, a pure soul; from Laura - a real woman, but Petrarch’s love is still not so much earthly, but rather sublime, ideal. In addition, unlike his brothers in the pen, Boccaccio lived with Maria for some time, gaining recognition from her for his writing talent. He did not stop speaking about her naturally and enthusiastically even after parting with her. That is why the theme of love in the writer’s work becomes central to his artistic views.

Boccaccio's early works in their own way prepared him for the novel "The Decameron", which became the result of the writer's creative development, an expression of his own artistic style and vision. Whereas in the stories “Filocolo” (the first story), the poems “Philostrato”, “Theseid”, “Ameto”, “Love Vision”, “Fiesolan Nymphs”, “Fiametta” there are a lot of influences from ancient literature(their lyrical works of Virgil, Ovid, constant artistic references to ancient myths), in the works one can find motifs of Dante, refractions of French literature, and most importantly - in almost all of Boccaccio’s works he presents texts in an organic interweaving of prose with poetry. In this way, new genre developments in literature are created.

Behind the external plot of fiction, the features of real people appear, the hidden nature of man becomes visible, which is typical only for this era. Thus, in the pastoral of Ameto, feelings break through the bucolic nature modern man, already concealing his experiences inside himself. Her hero, a savage shepherd, ceases to be such under the influence of the sophistication of the nymphs around him. He is no longer afraid to show his passion. He realizes that it is criminal and unnatural to remain silent about his feelings. Boccaccio expresses the manifestation of human nature especially vigorously in the poem “The Fiesolan Nymphs.” The writer's cheerfulness, irony, and satire found their way out in the depiction of the love of two young people, Afriko and Menzola. Here you can see the real feelings of a person:

Cupid tells me to sing. The time has come.

He spent the summer in his heart, as in his home.

Magnificence has bound my heart,

The shine was blinding; I didn't find a shield

When the soul was penetrated by rays

Shining eyes. She owns me

What, night and day of tears and sighs

Weaving, tormenting, is the fault of my torment.

Cupid guides and motivates me

In the work that I dared to begin!

Cupid strengthens me for feats,

Both gift and power - his stamp is on everything!

Cupid guides and enlightens me,

Instilling in me a duty to tell about him!

Cupid picked me up to recreate

An old love story!

The goddess Diana is deliberately introduced into the poem, asserting medieval asceticism, demanding to despise men, as befits the Amazons. The poet creates a kind of satire on it, calling on people not to be shy, not to be ashamed of their natural feelings, and most importantly, not to enslave human nature with false reasoning about the primacy of spirit over matter. For the first time, Boccaccio appears as a champion of the natural principle in man. Such an image was a new word in literature and had a developing beginning.

In the story “Fiametta,” Boccaccio made his first bid to depict human psychology, thereby approaching the realism of the image. Taking as a basis the plot of the discord between lovers and placing the heroine’s experiences in the foreground, Boccaccio achieved a deep analysis of the human soul, which is conveyed through the appropriate storytelling technique - the heroine’s monologue speech. What was also new was that for the first time in European literature, at the center of the narrative, the active heroine was a woman, who had previously been only the subject of lofty praises and amorous sighs. True, Boccaccio did not quite succeed in conveying the life traits of an earthly woman. Fiametta carries with it some of the artificiality inherent in the traditions of medieval literature. Nevertheless, her image was the first experience of the writer’s close attention to the inner side of human nature.

The path to the Decameron was paved by Boccaccio through his stormy political activities in his native Florence in the mid-14th century. Many of the writer’s thoughts and experiences of those years formed the basis of The Decameron. In Florence, Boccaccio led one of the craft workshops in the struggle for better life. The performances of Florentine artisans were perhaps the first in Europe to lead to open clashes with the ruling authorities. These were the troubled years of 1343-1345 with the slogans “Down with taxes!” and “Death to the fat townspeople!”, then the unrest of artisans swept almost all of Italy, this is the so-called movement of the Ciompi - unskilled workers. So in 1371 performances took place in the Tuscan cities of Perugia and Siena. In Florence in 1378, after the death of Boccaccio, a real Ciompi uprising broke out. And although the writer did not live to see this date, the movement of artisans was reinforced by the recent striking deeds of Boccaccio.

Italian life in all its angles, nuances and subtleties of manifestation of human nature was widely, deeply, objectively included in the artistic panorama of the novel “The Decameron”, written by Boccaccio according to approximate data in the years 1352-1354.

The writer knew medieval literature well, genre features, ancient literature, in to a greater extent its Greek pages, studied the origins of folk literature, its folklore origins, from which he drew many techniques and means of reflecting reality. Boccaccio paid attention to what was at the epicenter of folk wisdom, was the basis of a living spoken language, everything that caused healthy popular laughter and contempt and ridicule of the same strength. And like Dante, who solved enormous problems of improving man, Boccaccio chose the only correct genre at that time - the short story. It is this genre that would reach the mind and heart of every person, and not just a dignitary, important rank, which was of less concern to the writer, although Boccaccio had such a person in mind in the first place. Boccaccio needed democracy and accessibility. Therefore, the novella became a kind of amazing means - a public mouthpiece that allowed Boccaccio to talk about the most hidden corners of human nature in general.

Novella (from Italian, news) is a narrative prose genre, less often poetic, representing a small form of epic. The term “short story” is often used as a synonym for the Russian term “story,” but the short story has its own specific features. The short story should be considered as a specific and, in particular, concrete historical type of small form of narration. The small form of storytelling has existed since the dawn of the development of literature. In its proper sense, it emerges precisely during the Renaissance. The novella first appeared in Italian literature of the 14th and 15th centuries. The plots of the novella were borrowed from previous literature and folklore. But the Renaissance short story is fundamentally different from the short story of the previous time.

During the Renaissance, the process of formation of personality, individual human consciousness and behavior took place. Under feudalism, a person acted as a part of a certain community of people - an estate. A knightly or monastic order, a guild, a peasant community. Man had no personal will, no individual worldview. And only in the new era does the process of releasing the personal element in each individual begin. It is this complex historical process that causes the birth of a new literary genre- short stories.

In the short story, for the first time, a multifaceted artistic exploration of people's personal, private lives is carried out. Early literature depicted people in their immediate social activities, in their “official” appearance. Even if it was about love, family relationships, friendship, spiritual quests or the struggle for the existence of an individual, the hero of the work acted primarily as a representative of a certain community of people, perceived and assessed everything around him, himself - his behavior, consciousness from the point of view of interests and ideals this community. Hence, personal relationships did not receive complete and independent reflection. Although in previous literature there was a sphere of literature where the private life of a person was depicted, it was depicted in a comic, satirical form (farce, satires, fabliaux), and the person appeared in his base, pitiful, unworthy features. Such literature did not create objectivism in the depiction of man. And only the short story finally brought literature closer to an objective depiction of an individual person with his – personal – problems, experiences, and whole life.

The novel objectively, multilaterally, large-scale and closely reflects human nature. Hence, the short story usually displays the private actions and experiences of people, their personal, sometimes intimate details. But that doesn't mean it. That the novella is devoid of social urgency, social and historical content. On the contrary, in the conditions of the collapse of the feudal system, the liberation and formation of the individual acquired an acute social meaning. This in itself was a rebellion against the old world. This determined the severity of the conflicts reflected in the short story, although it was often about everyday everyday situations.

The new content also determined the novel's innovative artistic form. If earlier literature was dominated by clearly defined genre canons - ode and satire, heroic and farce, tragic and comic, then the short story is characterized by a prose neutral style. Recreating the versatility and multicolor of the elements of private life. At the same time, the novella is characterized by sharp, intense action and a dramatic plot, because in it the individual faces the laws and norms of the old world. The action of the novella takes place in ordinary, everyday life, but the plot gravitates toward the unusual and sharply disrupts the measured flow of everyday life.

The artistic originality of the short story is rooted in the contradictory combination of a picture of prosaic, everyday life and acute, extraordinary, sometimes even fantastic events and situations, as if exploding from within the habitual, orderly movement of life.

Boccaccio in “The Decameron” starts from the huge heritage of created literature (ancient, folk, medieval, borrowed from other literatures, such as oriental, for example, etc.). But putting forward as its goal the glorification of the “healthy sensual principle” in a person, it comes largely not from literary sources familiar to the medieval reader - for example, the collection “Novellino”, which consisted of 100 small everyday stories, anecdotes about man and human life, but from the work of Dante primarily from his “Divine Comedy”.

How Dante Boccaccio creates a complete canvas of human nature as it is. And sketching out a multi-colored palette of human diversity, the writer thought about what urgently needs to free a person from. Therefore, internal composition has much in common with the construction of Dante’s “Divine Comedy”: 100 short stories, the first introductory one, identifying everything unworthy that is in a person according to the principle of gradually exposing the inner nature of an individual as one of the types of humanity - like entering the abyss of Dante’s hell, statement cheerfulness, life affirmation of a person as in the purgatory of the “Divine Comedy” and, finally, Boccaccio’s vision of such a state structure that would allow a person to reveal only best sides of its nature is the construction of an ideal society in the novel according to the principle of the life structure of the heroes as in Dante’s Paradise.

At the same time, Boccaccio uses his distinctive artistic technique - he follows the mathematical principle of “inverse proportionality” in his narration: presenting the reader with a gallery of his impartial heroes, the writer thereby demands from each of us an understanding of what kind of person one really needs to be at this moment life is a fleeting, impetuous moment, but the only one desired and necessary for a person, for we have no other life.

Hence the hundred short stories in the novel: the number 100 as humanity’s calling to harmony, to order, to unity with its own nature. Therefore, what is new in Boccaccio’s novella is that he not only creates a completely new genre, but that he turns it into a psychological excursion into the labyrinths of human nature. This is the main difference between Boccaccio’s novella and all previous and modern literature.

At the same time, the writer himself calls his work differently and uses the technique of detachment, so as not to impose his point of view on the reader for the emergence of other - non-author's conclusions, which leads to the generation not of edification, but of a manifestation of moralism, naturally generated by the reader himself: “... I intend to inform to the aid and entertainment of those who love... a hundred short stories, or, as we call them, fables, parables and stories, told over the course of ten days in the company of seven ladies and young men during the destructive time of the last plague... In these short stories there will be funny and sad cases of love and other extraordinary incidents that happened in both modern and ancient times. By reading them, ladies will at the same time receive pleasure from the amusing adventures they contain and useful advice, since they will learn what they should avoid and what they should strive for. I think that both will do without diminishing the boredom; if, God willing, this is exactly what happens, may they thank Cupid, who, having freed me from his bonds, gave me the opportunity to serve their pleasure.”

Academician A.N. Veselovsky’s description is correct: “Boccaccio captured a living, psychologically true trait - passion for life at the threshold of death.”

It is no coincidence that Boccaccio begins his narrative with a description of the plague - a real event in life European countries- since 1348. But the plague in the novel is both a historical event, and an artistic background as a plot, and a philosophical generalization about the results of human behavior and actions. Boccaccio’s description of the plague is comparable to Homer’s “Iliad”, it began when “Phoebus the silver-bowed, angered by the king, brought an evil plague upon the army... the nations perished...”. But the author of “The Decameron” makes everything more prosaic and even more terrible:

“So, I will say that 1348 years have passed since the beneficial incarnation of the Son of God, when Florence. The most beautiful of all Italian cities, was struck by a deadly plague, which, either under the influence of heavenly bodies, or due to our sins sent by the righteous wrath of God on mortals, several years before opened in the regions of the east and, having deprived them of countless numbers of inhabitants, constantly moving places on place, has reached, growing deplorably, to the west...”

In an effort to protect themselves from the plague in its literal and figurative sense, the heroes of the novel, according to the author’s plan, having met by chance in the temple of Santa Maria Novella, leave their cities, engulfed in plague, to country estates - to the bosom of nature, where there is healthy air, in which they will not only preserve their health, but will have a wonderful (useful) time:

“Of these, we will call the first and eldest Pampinea, the second Fiammetta, the third Philomena, the fourth Emilia, then Lauretta the fifth, the sixth Neifila, the last, not without reason, Eliza. All of them gathered in one part of the church, not with intention, but by accident...”

The age of ladies and young maidens is not more than 28 years of age and not less than 18 years of age. They were then joined by three young men no younger than 25 years of age. These are Pamphilo, Filostrato and Dioneo. From the point of view of researchers, the names of the heroes, both beautiful ladies and young men, carry certain biographical information of Boccaccio himself. Thus, under the name Fiammetta hides the collective image of his beloved, and under the names of the young men is the writer himself in different times his life periods.

The writer, “taking” his heroes away from the plague city, uses extrapolation to create a completely new world with them. And this world is not a ghostly idea, an imaginary ideal world as a utopia, but a completely achievable world in the image of a constitutional monarchy, of which the writer himself was a supporter. At the same time, Boccaccio takes into account all aspects and nuances of creating such a society and government structure.

The first thing the writer does is deliberately localize this space: “It lay on a small hillock, somewhat distant from the roads on all sides, full of various bushes and green plants, pleasing to the eye.” Locality is necessary for the emerging world, since the real activity existing around will give the world nothing but the plague and its consequences, firstly; and secondly, the new world should arise only from its pure “cells”. The second thing that Boccaccio creates is an equally beautiful space of their existence, in which everything is taken into account down to the smallest details of ordinary life: “At the top stood a palazzo with a beautiful, extensive courtyard inside, with open galleries, halls and chambers, beautiful both individually and in general, decorated with wonderful paintings; All around there are clearings and lovely gardens, wells of fresh water and cellars full of expensive wines, which is more suitable for connoisseurs than for moderate and modest ladies. Much to their satisfaction, the company found the weight swept away upon their arrival; in the chambers there were prepared beds, everything was covered with flowers that could be obtained according to the time of year, and with reeds.”

It is necessary to pay attention to the words “beautiful”, “wonderful”, “charming”, “fresh”, “dear”, which convey the subtleties of a truly organized ideal world. Such a beautiful natural world must correspond to the state organization of human life, which is what the author creates in the first pages of the novel. The heroine of the novel Pampinea, rightfully the eldest among all, pronounces the following words:

“... let us live cheerfully; it is not for any other reason that we ran away from sorrows. But since weight that knows no measure does not last long, I, who began the conversations that led to the formation of such a nice society, wish that our fun would last, and therefore I think it necessary for us all to agree that there should be someone in charge among us, whom we would honor and obey as the greatest and the weight of whose thoughts would be directed towards ensuring that we live cheerfully. But in order that everyone may experience both the burden of care and the pleasure of honor, and in choosing between both, no one, without experiencing both, will feel envy, I believe that each of us, in turn, should be assigned a day and a burden and honor: let the first one be elected by all of us, the subsequent ones appointed..."

These words present a clearly visible image of a constitutional monarchy. The writer's own political views are revealed here. The essence of the political views of the author of the “Decameron” is that despite the active and violent protests of artisans almost throughout Italy, and especially in Florence and other southern city-states, and the fact that the writer himself headed one of the Florentine workshops, Boccaccio did not particularly believe due to illiterate ordinary people. Therefore, while advocating republican order, he leaned towards a monarchy, albeit a constitutional one.

At the same time, Boccaccio not only names the model of state power, but creates all the corresponding structures of this government. The first thing we pay attention to is that the heroes go on a forced trip to the countryside with their servants, who help them in maintaining this lifestyle:

“... they happily answered that they were ready, and, without delaying matters, before going their separate ways, they agreed on what they were to arrange for the trip. Having ordered to properly prepare everything necessary and having sent in advance to notify where they were going to go, the next morning, that is, on Wednesday, at dawn, the ladies with several servants and three young men with three servants, leaving the city, set off on their way ... "

Boccaccio, thinking about perfect shape government for the people, provided for the social division of society, albeit not into rich and poor, but into masters and their servants. Servants in the novel enjoy the same privileges as their masters: they are not disadvantaged or diminished in any way, they eat and drink the same “foods” and “wines”, they are also free, they go about their business in their own time. Their only duty is to zealously and carefully look after their masters, which they do with great pleasure:

“... having entered the hall of the lower floor, they (gentlemen - M.D. emphasized by us) saw tables covered with snow-white tablecloths, the charms glittered like silver and were strewn with thorn flowers. After the water had been supplied by order of the queen to wash their hands, everyone went to the places assigned by Parmeno. Finely prepared dishes and exquisite wines appeared, and, without wasting time or words, three servants began to serve at the table; and so everything was well and in order, everyone came to great mood and dined amid pleasant jokes and fun. When they cleared the table, the queen ordered instruments to be brought... they began to play a lovely dance, and the queen, having sent the servants away to dinner, formed a circle with other ladies and two young men and began to quietly walk in a circular dance...” Is it possible after this to note any humiliating or slavish attitude of masters towards their servants? The gentlemen themselves live according to the only main law: “to everyone in general who values ​​​​our favor, we present our desire and demand that, wherever he goes, wherever he returns from, no matter what he hears or sees, he refrains from telling us any news from outside, except cheerful ones.” All news, every story should carry a charge of cheerfulness, optimism in life, and also be, first of all, useful. And this is the unwritten law of the wonderful society of the Decameron.

Having thus “arranged” an ideal society, Boccaccio, as an author, begins to create corresponding human types based on this model of government. Hence the philosophical idea to “force” his heroes to talk about the various qualities of human nature. This is how the genre form of the novel is determined: “Decameron” means a ten-day diary. Over the course of ten days, short stories are told on various topics - a kind of diary is kept according to the structure of the novel. The modern understanding of a diary is keeping records of any human incidents, with their analysis, which means this is to a certain extent a reflection of the psychological characteristics of an individual. This is the difference between Boccaccio's short stories and medieval narrative genres. Even the shortest stories contain elements of psychologism. Boccaccio is not categorical in his ideological stance, does not impose his own judgments, but leaves acute, complex, and sometimes funny problems to be resolved by the reader himself. This does not mean that the author distances himself from the created situation. Already what the writer fixes our gaze on is his active participation in the statement have a wonderful life, a clean life, a healthy person - above all in morally. In this regard, Boccaccio repeats Dante in a new way. And the only difference is that the Renaissance writer does not create the image of the terrible Lucifer, but brings him out from within - from the soul of every person contemporary with him, which in essence turns out to be much more terrible. That is, in Boccaccio’s short stories, a person exposes himself, his real inner self, as if looking into a living “talking” mirror.

That is why the artistic structure of the novel is holistic, compact and at the same time multi-stage. After all, the reader is presented with not one short story, but a whole chain. There are a kind of one-act short stories, built on a question-answer structure, but there are also multi-act ones, where we encounter real vicissitudes of fate. And such novellas come from the traditions of Greek novels. Sometimes the reader sees in front of him a colorful enchanting fairy tale, which is in the spirit oriental stories, otherwise you are faced with a whole novel unfolding within one short story. A similar artistic structure of the novel “The Decameron” is in the spirit of the emerging Renaissance literary tradition.

So, for example, the short stories of the first day open with a short story about a certain Sir Ciappelletto, who during his life was a super-deceiver, but while dying, he managed to confess by cunning, and after his death he was canonized. The first day includes short stories with a short plot that essentially has only one incident. Such short stories are close to medieval epic literature.

This short story says that the hero was a notary “and it would be the greatest shame for him if any of his acts turned out to be not false... He bore false witness with great pleasure, asked and unsolicited; at that time in France they strongly believed in the oath, but he did not care about a false oath... It was his pleasure and concern to sow discord, enmity and scandals between friends, relatives and anyone else, and the more troubles came from him, the more it’s nicer to him.”

Place of death:

Certaldo

Giovanni Boccaccio (Boccaccio, Italian Giovanni Boccaccio; June or July, Certaldo or Florence - December 21, Certaldo) - famous Italian writer and poet, representative of the literature of the early Renaissance.

Author of poems based on ancient mythology, the psychological story “Fiammetta” (published in), pastorals, and sonnets. The main work is “The Decameron” (-, published in) - a book of short stories imbued with humanistic ideas, the spirit of freethinking and anti-clericalism, rejection of ascetic morality, cheerful humor, a multi-colored panorama of the morals of Italian society. The poem “Corbaccio” (-, published in), the book “The Life of Dante Alighieri” (c., published in).

Biography

Illegitimate son of a Florentine merchant and a French woman. His family came from Certaldo, which is why he called himself Boccaccio da Certaldo. Already in infancy, he showed a strong inclination towards poetry, but in his tenth year his father apprenticed him to a merchant, who fussed with him for 6 whole years and was nevertheless forced to send him back to his father due to young Boccaccio’s ineradicable aversion to merchant occupation. However, Boccaccio had to languish over merchant books in Naples for another 8 years until his father finally lost patience and allowed him to study canon law. Only after the death of his father () Boccaccio was able to fully devote himself to his penchant for literature. During his stay at the court of the Neapolitan King Robert, he became friends with many scientists of that time and gained the favor of the young Queen Joanna and the young Princess Mary, his inspiration, whom he later described under the name of Fiammetta.

The monument to Boccaccio, erected in Piazza Solferino in Certaldo, was unveiled on June 22. A crater on Mercury is named after Boccaccio.

Humanistic activities

Boccaccio was the first humanist and one of the most learned men in Italy. He studied astronomy with Andalone del Nero and kept the Calabrian Leontius Pigatus, a great expert in Greek literature, in his house for three whole years, so that he could read Homer with him. Like his friend Petrarch, he collected books and with his own hand copied many rare manuscripts, almost all of which were lost during a fire in the monastery of Santo Spirito (). He used his influence on his contemporaries to arouse in them a love of studying and getting to know the ancients. Through his efforts, the department of Greek language and its literature was founded in Florence. He was one of the first to draw public attention to the pitiful state of science in monasteries, which were considered their guardians. In the monastery of Monte Casino, the most famous and learned in all of Europe at that time, Boccaccio found the library neglected to such an extent that the books on the shelves were covered with layers of dust, some manuscripts had their leaves torn out, others were cut up and distorted, and, for example, wonderful the manuscripts of Homer and Plato were littered with inscriptions and theological polemics. There he learned, among other things, that the brothers were making whistles for children and talismans for women from these manuscripts.

Creation

Essays in vernacular

The early works of Boccaccio (Neapolitan period) include: the poems “Filostrato” (c.), “Theseide” (c. -41), the novel “Filocolo” (c. -38), based on the plots of medieval novels. Later works (Florentine period): “The Fiesolan Nymphs” (), inspired by Ovid’s “Metamorphoses”, and the story “Fiametta” (). The pinnacle of Boccaccio’s creativity is “Decameron”.

Latin writings

Boccaccio is the author of a number of historical and mythological works in Latin. Among them is the encyclopedic work “Genealogy of the Pagan Gods” in 15 books (“De genealogia deorum gentilium”, first edition about , treatises “On mountains, forests, springs, lakes, rivers, swamps and seas” (“De montibus, silvis, fontibus , lacubus, fluminibus, stagnis seu paludibus et de nominibus maris", started about -); 9 books “On the misfortunes of famous people” (“De casibus virorum et feminarum illustrium”, first edition about). De claris mulieribus", begun around ) includes 106 women's biographies - from Eve to Queen Joan of Naples.

Boccaccio on Dante

Dante Boccaccio dedicated two works in Italian - "Small treatise in praise of Dante" ("Trattatello in laude di Dante"; exact title - "Origine vita e costumi di Dante Alighieri", first edition - , third - before) and an unfinished series of lectures about the "Divine Comedy".

The first work contains a biography of the great poet, although more like a novel and an apology than a history; the second contains a commentary on the “Divine Comedy”, brought only to the beginning of the 17th song of hell. In Italian he wrote “Theseide” (“La Teseide”, first ed., Ferrara), the first attempt at a romantic epic in octaves; “Love Vision” (“Amorosa visione”); "Filocolo" ("Filocolo"), a novel in which the plot is borrowed from the ancient French romance of Floire and Blancheflor; “Fiammetta” (“L’amorosa Fiammetta”, Padua), a touching story of the mental suffering of the abandoned Fiammetta; “Ameto” (Venice,) - a pastoral novel in prose and verse; "Filostrato" ("Il Filostrato", ed.), a poem in octaves depicting the love story of Troilus and Cressida; “Il corbaccio o labirinto d’amore” (Florence, ) - a caustic pamphlet on women.

Decameron

Boccaccio’s main work, which immortalized his name, was his famous and notorious “Decameron” (10-day stories) - a collection of 100 stories told by a society of 7 ladies and 3 men who, during the plague, moved to the village and there whiled away the time with these stories. The Decameron was written partly in Naples, partly in Florence, and Boccaccio drew its content either from the ancient French “Fabliaux” or from the “Cento novelle antiche” (Bologna, nelle case di Gerolamo Benedetti, 1525), as well as from contemporary poet events. The stories are presented in elegant, easy language, with an amazing richness of words and expressions, and breathe life's truth and diversity. Boccaccio used a whole range of schemes and techniques. They depict people of all conditions, of all ages and character, the most varied adventures, from the most cheerful and funny to the most tragic and touching.

“The Decameron” has been translated into almost all languages ​​(Russian translation by A. N. Veselovsky, M., 1891), many writers drew from it, and most of all Shakespeare.

Boccaccio in Russian literature

Editions

The first edition of it, the so-called. "Deo gratias", published without date or place, the second in Venice in 1471, both in folio and now extremely rare. Among the newest editions the best are: Poggiali (Livorno, 1789-90, 4 vols.); "Ventisettana" (Florence, 1827); critical edition by Biagioli, with historical and literary commentary (Paris, 1823, 5 vols.);