GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO: BIOGRAPHY, WORKS - LITERATURE - 2024

Giovanni Boccaccio was, along with Dante Alighieri and Francisco Petrarca, one of the three great poets of the 14th century Italian. In El Decamerón, his masterpiece, he showed his ingenuity and sensitivity. Made up of about a hundred narratives, in all the stories in this work the author portrayed the free, sensual, and unbridled life and society of his time.

In every way, Giovanni Boccaccio was a man of the Renaissance. His humanism included not only the study of the classics but also tried to rediscover and reinterpret ancient texts. He also tried to elevate literature in modern languages ​​to the level of the classical, thus setting high standards for it.

This poet advanced beyond Petrarch in this direction not only because he sought to dignify prose and poetry, but also because in many of his works, he ennobles everyday experience, tragic and comic alike. Without Boccaccio, the literary evolution of the Italian Renaissance would be historically incomprehensible.

The works of Giovanni Boccaccio inspired many other literary artists both in his time and later. In England, Geoffrey Chaucer (1343 - 1400), known as the father of English literature, composed his Canterbury Tales inspired by The Decameron.

On the other hand, the famous poet William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616) was also influenced by Boccaccio's Il Filostrato before writing his comedy Troilo y Crésida (1602). Similarly, his Pastorals helped popularize the genre of pastoral poetry throughout Italy.

Boccaccio's influence can be felt in the works of several other authors. Among them we can mention François Rabelais (1483 - 1553), Bertolt Brecht (1898 - 1956), Mark Twain (1835 - 1910), Karel Capek (1890 - 1938), Gómez de la Serna (1888 - 1963) and Italo Calvino (1923-1985).

Biography

Birth and early years

The exact date and place of Giovanni Boccaccio's birth are uncertain. His historians think that he was born in 1313 in Florence or in a town near Certaldo (Italy). His father was the prominent Florentine merchant Boccaccino di Chellino.

Also, regarding the identity of his mother there are divided opinions. Some specialists maintain that it was Margherita dei Marzoli who was from a wealthy family and was married to di Chellino. Others on her side claimed that Boccaccio was of an unknown mother, most likely conceived out of wedlock.

Now Boccaccio spent his childhood in Florence. His early education was taught by Giovanni Mazzuoli, a tutor assigned by his father. From Mazzuoli, he may have received his first notions of Dante's works. Subsequently, Giovanni attended school in Florence and was able to complete his initial education.

In 1326, his father was appointed head of a bank in Naples. This precipitated the whole family moving from Florence. At this time, Giovanni Boccaccio, at just 13 years old, began working at that bank as an apprentice. The experience was unpleasant because the boy did not like the banking profession.

Youth

Some time after starting in the banking profession, the young Bocaccio convinced his father to allow him to study law at the Studium (now the University of Naples). In 1327, he was sent to Naples to study canon law. There he studied for the next six years.

During this same period he also showed curiosity about literary subjects. His growing interest in these subjects prompted him to withdraw from his studies and dedicate himself entirely to literature. In the 1330s, his father introduced him to the court of Robert the Wise, King of Naples.

Then, this contact with the Neapolitan nobility and the court allowed him to come into contact with prominent poets of his time. Also, at that time he fell in love with a daughter of the king who was already married. From this passion arose the character "Fiammetta" immortalized by Giovanni Boccaccio in many of his prose books.

At the age of 25, he returned to Florence to become his younger brother's guardian upon the death of his father. Also during this time he served, by royal appointment, as a court official in public offices and diplomatic missions in France, Rome, and elsewhere in Italy.

Adult life

Since his arrival in Florence, he devoted himself to letters with passion and erudite fury. Some time after her arrival, the black plague broke out and swept the city. The rats that came from the ships that brought spices from the east and the unsanitary conditions of the city unleashed the epidemic

Thus, as a result of this, about a third of the inhabitants of the city disappeared. During this period of illness, Giovanni Boccaccio turned away from literary activity and immersed himself in the world of the common people.

Taverns, beggars' roosts, and popular hangouts were his new favorite places. There he was in permanent contact with lust and all kinds of scoundrels and excesses that were exacerbated by the feeling of the end of the world created by the plague. This contact positively influenced the quality of the works to come.

Around the year 1350, he struck up a friendship with the Italian lyricist and humanist Francesco Petrarca. This friendship would be for life. From that year on, close collaborations between the two artists would be frequent.

Petrarca's friendship greatly influenced Boccaccio. Giovanni went from poetry and the Italian prose novel to Latin scholarly works. He devoted himself to studying the works of Dante Alighieri. Just two years before his death he wrote the biography of Dante and was appointed as Dante Alighieri's official reader in Florence.

Death

At the end of his life, some love disappointments and health problems contributed to Giovanni Boccaccio falling into a deep depressed state. She then took refuge in Certaldo where she spent the last stage of her life.

These days he spent poor, isolated, assisted only by his old maid Bruna and very affected by dropsy (a condition that causes spillage or abnormal accumulation of serous fluid) that had deformed him to the point of not being able to move.

As a result of this crisis, his writings began to show signs of bitterness, especially towards women. The intervention of her friend Petrarca prevented her from selling part of her work and burning her extensive library.

Although he never married, Boccaccio was the father of three children at the time of his death. He died of heart failure on December 21, 1375 (a year and a half after the death of his great friend Francesco Petrarca) at the age of 62. His remains were buried in the cemetery of the church of Saints Jacobo and Felipe in the Tuscan town of Certaldo.

This artist left convinced of having made a mistake in all the most important decisions of his life. Giovanni Boccaccio wanted his passion for letters to be remembered forever on his grave with the phrase "studium fuit alma poesis" (his passion was noble poetry).

Plays

The Decameron

The Decameron is the work considered the most important by Giovanni Boccaccio. Its writing began in 1348 and was completed in 1353.

It is the compilation of a collection of one hundred stories told by a group of refugee friends in a villa on the outskirts of Florence, escaping from the outbreak of the Black Death that ravaged the city in that year 1348.

These tales were the way to entertain each other for a period of ten days (hence the title). The stories were told in turn by each of the refugees.

It represents the first purely Renaissance work since it deals only with human aspects, without making any mention of religious or theological themes.

On the other hand, its title comes from the combination of the two Greek words deka and hemera that mean ten and day, respectively.

This was the time frame in which the stories were told by the 7 young women and 3 young men in the refugee group.

Hunting for Diana

The Hunt for Diana was one of the first poetic works composed by Boccaccio. He wrote it in non-literary Italian, with a triplet scheme and in eighteen songs. It was composed when he was twenty-one and under the influence of his love for Fiammetta.

In this sense, it was the first of the works written by Giovanni Boccaccio driven by his passion for the king's daughter. Some historians point out that this lady may have been Maria de Aquino who was the illegitimate daughter of the king married to a nobleman of the court. In this and many other later works he would represent the character of Fiammetta.

In this erotic poem, the author describes a hunt organized by the goddess Diana (goddess of the hunt) for the most beautiful Neapolitan ladies. At the end of this event, the goddess invites the ladies to consecrate themselves to the cult of chastity. All the women, led by the adored Fiammetta, reject this request.

Then, the goddess Diana leaves disappointed. Next, the young Fiammetta invokes the goddess Venus who appears and transforms all the captured animals into handsome young men. Finally, the play concludes as a hymn to earthly love and its redemptive power.

The Teseida

This epic poem, written between 1339 and 1341, was published under its full title: Teseida of the marriage of Emilia (Teseide delle nozze di Emilia). Boccaccio wrote it in royal octaves and it was divided into twelve cantos.

In this work, the author narrates the wars of the Greek hero Theseus against the Amazons and the city of Thebes. At the same time, it tells of the confrontation of two young Thebans for the love of Emilia, who is the sister of the queen of the Amazons and wife of Theseus.

The Comedy of the Florentine Nymphs

The comedy of the Florentine nymphs is also known by the name of Ninfale D´Ameto, or just Ameto (name of the protagonist of the story). It is a prose fable composed in Florence between 1341 and 1342.

This work narrates the meeting of a shepherd named Ameto with a group of seven nymphs. The encounter takes place while they bathed in a pond in the forests of Etruria. The nymphs are then engaged in commenting to the shepherd about their love stories.

While listening carefully to them, Ameto receives a purifying bath from the goddess Venus. This action allows him to realize that the nymphs represent the virtues (three theological and four cardinal).

In this way, Boccaccio symbolizes in this encounter the love that allows the passage from animal to man under divine blessing.

Loving vision

The work Amorosa vision is a poem written in triplets and divided into fifty short songs. In it, Boccaccio tells of a vision in a dream of a woman sent by Cupid to search for him and make him abandon worldly delights. The woman guides the poet towards a castle with two doors, one narrow (virtue) and the other wide (wealth and worldliness).

The rest of the work follows the woman's attempts to make Boccaccio embrace true happiness. In this task she has the help of other characters who, through the dialogues, extol the advantages of good living.

Elegy of Madonna Fiammetta

Giovanni Boccaccio wrote this work in 1343 and 1344. It is a letter written in prose in which Fiammetta tells of his love for a young Florentine named Pánfilo. This relationship is abruptly interrupted when Pánfilo must return to Florence.

Then, feeling abandoned, Fiammetta attempts suicide. Her hopes resurface when she learns that Pánfilo has returned to Naples.

The joy does not last long for Fiammetta as he soon discovers that it is another young man with the same name as his beloved.

The Corbacho

El Corbacho is a moralistic tale written by Boccaccio in order to lash out at those who let themselves be carried away by low passions and abandoned the straight path of virtues.

The date of its writing is uncertain. However, some scholars set it between 1354 and 1355 and others between 1365 and 1366, when the author was 52 or 53 years old.

There is also no consensus regarding the meaning of the title of the work. The most widespread opinion is that the word corbacho (corbaccio in Italian) refers to the crow (corvo or corbo). In Italy, this is a bird considered as a symbol of bad omen and the precursor of bad news.

References

1. Harvard University. (s / f) Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375). Taken from chaucer.fas.harvard.edu.
2. Bosco, U. (2014, November 19). Giovanni Boccaccio. Taken from britannica.com.
3. Manguel, A. (2013, July 4). Fortuna by Giovanni Boccaccio. Taken from elpais.com.
4. Velez, JD (2004). Of the dramatic genre, history and our language. Bogotá: University of Rosario.
5. Famous Authors. (2012). Giovanni Boccaccio. Taken from famousauthors.org.
6. Cengage Learning Gale. (s / f). A Study Guide for Giovanni Boccaccio's "Federigo's Falcon." Farmington Hills: Gale.
7. Vargas Llosa, M. (2014, February 23). Boccaccio's house. Taken from elpais.com.
8. Gálvez, J. (2015). History of Philosophy - VI The Renaissance - Humanism. Ecuador: Editorial JG.