CHAPTER VI

1341-1343

IN FLORENCE--HIS FATHER'S SECOND MARRIAGE--THE DUKE OF ATHENS

Those years which Boccaccio spent in Florence between 1341 and 1345, and which would seem for the most part to have been devoted to literature, the completion of the works already begun in Naples, the composition of the _Amorosa Visione_, the _Fiammetta_, and the _Ninfale Fiesolano_, were personally among the most unhappy of his life, while publicly they brought the republic of Florence to the verge of ruin. And indeed he was an unwilling victim. That he hated leaving Naples might seem obvious from his own circumstances at that time; nor were the political conditions of Florence encouraging. He had left a city friendly to men of letters, full of all manner of splendour, rich, peaceful, and, above all, governed by one authority, the king, for a distracted republic divided against itself and scarcely able to support a costly foreign war.[305] Nor were the conditions of his father's house any more pleasing to him. Soured by misfortune, Boccaccino seems at this time to have been a melancholy and hard old man. The picture Giovanni gives us of him is perhaps coloured by resentment, and indeed he had never forgiven his father for the desertion of the girl he had seduced, the little French girl Jeanne, Giovanni's mother;[306] but it is with a quite personal sense of resentment he describes the home to which he returned from Naples--that house in the S. Felicità quarter which Boccaccino had bought in 1333:[307] "Here one laughs but seldom. The dark, silent, melancholy house keeps and holds me altogether against my will, where the dour and terrible aspect of an old man frigid, uncouth, and miserly continually adds affliction to my saddened mood."[308] That was in 1341 one may think; and no doubt the loss of Fiammetta, his own poverty, and the confusion of public affairs in Florence added to his depression; and then he was always easily cast down. But as it happened, things were already improving for him.

It will be remembered that in the romance which passes under her name Fiammetta tells us that Panfilo (Giovanni), when he deserted her, promised to return in four months. Later[309] she says, when the promised time of his return had passed by more than a month, she heard from a merchant lately arrived in Naples that her lover fifteen days before had taken a wife in Florence.[310] Great distress on the part of Fiammetta; but, as she soon learnt, it was not Giovanni, but his father, who had married himself.

Is there any truth in this story? Assuredly there is. We know, indeed, that Boccaccino did marry a second wife, whose name was Bice de' Bostichi, and that she bore him a son, Jacopo;[311] but we do not know when either of these events happened. If we may trust the _Fiammetta_, which says clearly that Giovanni's father married again about five months after his son returned home, and if we are right in thinking that that return took place in January, 1341, then Boccaccino married his second wife in the spring, or more precisely in May, 1341. That they were man and wife in May, 1343,[312] we know, for, thanks to Crescini, we have a document which proves it. Beyond that fact all is conjecture in this matter. Yet it is significant that we find Boccaccino, on December 13, 1342, acquiring half a house in the popolo di S. Ambrogio in Florence,[313] and yet, as we know from the document just quoted,[314] in May, 1343, he was still living in popolo di S. Felicità.[315] For what possible reason could Boccaccino, ruined as he was, want half a house in which he did not propose to live? Had family history repeated itself? Was Giovanni in some sort again turned out of his father's house by his second stepmother as he had been by the first, and for a like reason--the birth of a legitimate son? It was for him, then, that Boccaccino bought the half-house in popolo di S. Ambrogio, and the occasion was the birth of Jacopo his son by Madonna Bice? It is possible, at any rate; and when we remember the efforts the old man had already made in his poverty for the comfort of a son who had disappointed him in everything, it seems more than likely. Nor can we but accuse Giovanni of ingratitude when we think of his constant allusions to his father's avarice and remember these benefits.[316]

Such, then, are the few and meagre personal events that have in any way come down to us of Boccaccio's life while he was writing all or nearly all those works of his youth which we have already examined, between his return to Florence in January, 1341, and his departure once more for Naples in 1344 or 1345. These years, materially none too happy for him but full after all of successful work, were disastrous for Florence. That tranquillity and internal peace which so happily followed the death of Castruccio Castracani and of Charles of Calabria in 1328, in which, among other splendid things, Giotto's tower was built, had been broken in 1340, when the _grandi_, who held the government, having grown oppressive, a rebellion headed by Piero de' Baldi and Bardo Frescobaldi was only crushed by a rising of the people. Things were quiet then for a moment, but the _grandi_ would heed no warning, and as one might expect, their insolence grew with their power. Nor was it only at home that things were going unhappily for Florence. When Louis of Bavaria, who claimed the empire against the will of the Pope, left Italy--it was the Visconti who had called him across the Alps in fear of the House of Anjou--some of his Germans, after Castruccio's death, seized Lucca and offered to sell it to the Florentines, who refused it. They repented later; and when it had come into the hands of Martino della Scala of Verona and Parma, who, in straits himself on account of Visconti, offered to sell it again, they found a competitor in Pisa, who was ready to dispute the city with them. Nevertheless they bought it, only to find that the Pisans, knowing the wealth of Florence and expecting this, had sat down before it. A war followed in which nothing but dishonour came the way of Florence, and Lucca fell into the hands of Pisa. This so enraged the Florentines that they rose against the _grandi_, who, at their wits' end what to do, asked their old ally Robert of Naples for help. This was in 1341. It was not, therefore, to a very prosperous or joyful city that Boccaccio returned from Naples; the words he put into the mouth of Fiammetta[317] were fully justified.

King Robert, however, did not send help to Florence at once. He was thinking always of Sicily and had been busy with the conquest of the Lipari Islands,[318] but when he did send it, in the person of Walter, Duke of Athens and Count of Brienne, a French baron, it proved to be the worst disaster of all. Yet at first the Florentines rejoiced, for they knew Walter of old, who had been vicegerent in Florence for Charles of Calabria in 1325, and as Machiavelli tells us, his behaviour had been so modest that every one loved him. That was not his attitude now, nor does it tally with Boccaccio's lively account of him,[319] which certainly reads like the work of an eye-witness and supports our belief that he was in Florence during 1342 and 1343--those disastrous years.

For as it happened, the Duke arrived in Florence at the very time when the enterprise of Lucca was utterly lost. The _grandi_, however, hoping to appease the people, at once made him Conservator and later General. But they had alienated every one. The _nobili_, long since their enemies, had always maintained a correspondence with the Duke ever since he had been vicegerent for Charles of Calabria; they thought now that their chance was come when they might be avenged alike on the _grandi_ and the people; so they pressed him to take the government wholly into his hands. The people, on the other hand, smarting under new taxes and oppression and insolence and defeat, to a large extent joined the _nobili_ against the _grandi_. In this conspiracy we find all the names of the great popular families, Peruzzi, Acciaiuoli, Antellesi, and Buonaccorsi, whom the unsuccessful war, among other things, had ruined, and who hoped thus to free themselves from their creditors.

The Duke's ambition, being thus pampered and exasperated, over-reached itself. To please the people he put to death those who had the management of the war, Giovanni de' Medici, Nardo Rucellai, and Guglielmo Altoviti, and banished some and fined others. And thus his reputation was increased, and indeed a general fear of him spread through the city, so that to show their affection towards him people caused his arms to be painted upon their houses, and nothing but the bare title was wanting to make him their Prince.

Being now sure of his success, he caused it to be signified to the Government that for the public good he judged it best that they should transfer their authority upon him, and that he desired their resignation. At first they refused, but when by proclamation he required all the people to appear before him in the Piazza di S. Croce (for he was living in the convent as a sign of his humility), they protested, and then consented that the government should be conferred upon him for a year with the same conditions as those with which it had been formerly given to Charles of Calabria.

So on September 8, 1342, the Duke, accompanied by Giovanni della Tosca and many citizens, came into the Piazza della Signoria with the Senate, and, mounting on the Rhingiera, he caused the articles of agreement between him and the Senate to be read. Now when he who read them came to the place where it was written that the government should be his for a year, the people cried out, "For his life. For his life." It is true, Francesco Rustichesi, one of the Signori, rose up and tried to speak, but they would not hear him. Thus the Duke was chosen lord by consent of the people not for a year, but for ever; and afterwards he was taken and carried through the multitude with general acclamation. Now the first thing he did was to seize the Palazzo della Signoria, where he set up his own standard, while the Palazzo itself was plundered by his servants; and all this was done to the satisfaction of those who maliciously or ignorantly had consented to his exaltation.

The Duke was no sooner secure in his dominion than he forbade the Signori to meet in the Palazzo, recalled the Baldi and the Frescobaldi, made peace with the Pisans, and took away their bills and assignments from the merchants who had lent money in the war of Lucca. He dissolved the authority of the _Signori_ and set up in their place three _Rettori_, with whom he constantly advised. The taxes he laid upon the people were great, all his judgments were unjust, and all men saw his cruelty and pride, while many citizens of the more noble and wealthy sort were condemned, executed, and tortured. He was jealous of the _nobili_, so he applied himself to the people, cajoling them and scheming into their favour, hoping thus to secure his tyranny for ever. In the month of May, for instance, when the people were wont to be merry, he caused the common people to be disposed into several companies, gave them ensigns and money, so that half the city went up and down feasting and junketing, while the other half was busy to entertain them. And his fame grew abroad, so that many persons of French extraction repaired to him, and he preferred them all, for they were his faithful friends; so that in a short while Florence was not only subject to Frenchmen, but to French customs and garb, men and women both, without decency or moderation, imitating them in all things. But that which was incomparably the most displeasing was the violence he and his creatures used to the women. In these conditions it is not surprising that plots to get rid of him grew and multiplied. He cared not. When Matteo di Morrozzo, to ingratiate himself with the Duke, discovered to him a plot which the Medici had contrived with others against him, he caused him to be put to death. And when Bettone Cini spoke against the taxes he caused his tongue to be pulled out by the roots so that he died of it. Such was his cruelty and folly. But indeed this last outrage completed the rest. The people grew mad, for they who had been used to speak of everything freely could not brook to have their mouths stopped up by a stranger. "When," asks Machiavelli, "did the Florentines know how to maintain liberty or to endure slavery?" However, things were indeed at such a pass that the most servile people would have tried to recover its freedom.

Many citizens of every sort, we hear, resolved to destroy him, and out of this hatred grew three serious conspiracies by three sorts of people: the _grandi_, the people, and the _arti_. The _grandi_ hated him for he had robbed them of the government, the people because he had not given it to them, the _arti_ because they were ruined. With the first were concerned the Bardi, Rossi, Frescobaldi, Scali, Altoviti, Mazalotti, Strozzi, and Mancini, with the Archbishop of Florence; with the second, Manno and Corso Donati, the Pazzi, Cavicciulli, Cerchi, and Albizzi; with the third, Antonio Adimari, the Medici, Bordini, Rucellai, and Aldobrandini.

The plan was to kill him on the feast of S. John Baptist, June 24, 1343, in the house of the Albizzi, whither, as it was thought, he would go to see the _palio_.[320] But he went not and that design was lost. The next proposal was to kill him as he walked in the streets, but that was found difficult, because he was always well armed and attended and, moreover, very uncertain. Then it was debated to slay him in the Council, but this too was dangerous, for even should they succeed they would remain at the mercy of his guards. Suddenly all was discovered. The Duke learnt of the plots through the quite innocent action of a Sienese. He was both surprised and angry; and that is strange. At first he proposed to kill every man of all the families I have named; but he had not force enough to do it openly, so he in his turn plotted. He called the chief citizens to council, meaning to slay them there. But they got wind of it, and knowing not whom to trust, confessed at last to one another their three conspiracies and swore to stand together and get rid of the Duke.

Their plan was this: the next day, as it happened, was the feast of S. Anne, July 26, 1343, and they decided that then a tumult should be raised in the Mercato Vecchio, upon which all were to take arms and excite thepeople to liberty. And the next day, the signal being given by sounding a bell as had been agreed, all took arms and, crying out, "Liberty, liberty," excited the people, who took arms likewise. The Duke, alarmed at this noise, fortified himself in the Palazzo and then, calling home his servants who were lodged through the city, set forth with them to the Mercato. Many times were they assaulted on the way and many too were slain, so that though recruited with three hundred horse he knew not himself what to do. Meantime the Medici, Cavicciulli, and Rucellai, who were afraid lest he should attack, drawing together a force, advanced so that many of those who had stood for the Duke rallied over to their side, and though the Duke was again reinforced, yet was he beaten and went backward into the Palazzo. Meanwhile Corso and Amerigo Donati with part of the people broke up the prisons, burned the records of the Potestà, sacked the houses of the _rettori_, and killed all the Duke's officers they could meet with. And the Duke remained besieged in the Palazzo. Has not Boccaccio told us the story:--

"Upon a day they armyd in stele bright Magnates first with comons of the toun All of assent roos up anon right Gan to make an hydous soun: Late sle this tyrant, late us pull him doun. Leyde a syege by mighty violence A forn his paleys where he lay in Florence."[321]

While the Duke was thus besieged, the citizens to give some form to their government met in S. Reparata (S. Maria del Fiore) and created fourteen of their number, half _grandi_ half people, to rule with the Bishop. Then the Duke asked for a truce. They refused it, except Guglielmo of Assisi, with his son, and Cerrettieri Bisdomini, who had always been of his party, should be delivered into their hands. This for long the Duke refused, but at last, seeing no way out, he consented. "Greater, doubtless," says Machiavelli, "is the insolence and contumacy of the people and more dreadful the evils which they do in pursuit of liberty than when they have acquired it." So it proved here. Guglielmo and his son were brought forth and delivered up among thousands of their enemies. His son was a youth of less than eighteen years; yet that did not spare him nor his beauty neither. Those who could not get near enough to do it whilst he was alive wounded him when he was dead; and as if their swords had been partial and too moderate, they fell to it with their teeth and their hands, biting his flesh and tearing it in pieces. And that all their senses might participate in their revenge, having feasted their ears upon groans, their eyes upon wounds, their touch upon the bowels of their enemies which they rent out of their bodies with their hands, they regaled their taste also. Those two gentlemen, father and son, were eaten in the Piazza; only Cerrettieri escaped, for the people, being tired, forgot him altogether and left him in the Palazzo not so much as demanded, and the next night he was conveyed out of the city.

Satiated thus with blood, they suffered the Duke to depart peacefully on August 6, attended by a host of citizens who saw him on the way to the Casentino, where, in fact, though unwillingly it seems, he ratified the renunciation.

And all these things befell in Florence while Giovanni Boccaccio was writing in the popolo di S. Felicità and in the popolo di S. Ambrogio in the years 1341, 1342, and 1343. In 1344, as we may believe, Boccaccio returned to Naples.

FOOTNOTES:

[305] Cf. _Fiammetta_, _ed. cit._, cap. ii. p. 45, where by the mouth of Fiammetta his apprehensions are expressed. "La tua città [Florence]," she says to him, "as you yourself have already said, is full of boastful voices and of cowardly deeds, and she serves not a thousand laws, but even as many, it seems, as she has men. She is at war within and without, so that a citizen is like a foreigner, he trembles. She is furnished with proud, avaricious, and envious people, and full of innumerable anxieties. And all this your soul abhors. Now the city you would leave is, as you know, joyful, peaceful, rich, and magnificent, and lives under one sole king; the which things I know well are pleasing to you. And besides all these, I am here; but you will not find me whither you go."

[306] In _Ameto_, _ed. cit._, p. 187, when Ibrida tells his story, he says his father was unworthy of such a mistress: "Ma il mio padre siccome indegno di tale sposa traendolo i fati, s' ingegnò d' annullare i fatti sacramenti, e le 'mpromesse convenzioni alla mia madre. Ma gli Iddii non curantisi di perdere la fede _di sì vile uomo_, con abbondante redine riserbando le loro vendette a giusto tempo, il lasciarono fare; e quello che la mia madre gli era si fece falsamente d' un altra nelle sue parti. La qual cosa non prima sentì la sventurata giovane, dal primo per isciagurata morte, e dal secondo per falsissima vita abbandonata, che i lungamente nascosi fuochi fatti palesi co' ricevuti inganni, chiuse gli occhi e del mondo a lei mal fortunoso, si rendè agli Iddii. Ma Giunone nè Imeneo non porsero alcuno consentimento a' secondi fatti, benchè chiamati vi fossero; anzi esecrando la adultera giovane con lo 'ngannevole uomo, e verso loro con giuste ire accendendosi, prima privatolo di gran parte de' beni ricevuti da lei, e dispostolo a maggiore ruina a morte la datrice, la data e la ricevuta progenie dannarono con infallibile sentenzia, visitando con nuovi danni chi a tali effetti porse alcuna cagione." Cf. also _Ameto_, _ed. cit._, p. 252 _et seq._, and _Fiammetta_, _ed. cit._, cap. ii. p. 42.

[307] On the different houses of Boccaccino in Florence, see an unpublished MS. by GHERARDI, _La Villeggiatura di Maiano_, which I believe to be in the Florentine archives. A copy is in the possession of Mrs. Ross, of Poggio Gherardo, near Florence. From this copy I give cap. iv. of the MS. in Appendix III.

[308] _Ameto_, _ed. cit._, p. 254.

[309] _Fiammetta_, _ed. cit._, cap. v. p. 63: "Quando di più d' un mese essendo il promesso tempo passato."

[310] _Ibid._, p. 64. Fiammetta asks: "How long ago had you news of him?" "It is about fifteen days," says the merchant, "since I left Florence." "And how was he then?" "Very well; and the same day that I set out, newly entered his house a beautiful young woman who, as I heard, had just married him."

[311] Cf. BALDELLI, _op. cit._, p. 276, n. 1: "26 Januarii, 1349 [i.e. 1350 according to our reckoning]. Dominus Ioannes quondam Boccacci, populi Sanctæ Felicitatis, tutor Iacobi pupilli ejus fratris, et filii quondam et heredis Dominiæ Bicis olim matris suæ, et uxoris q. dicti Boccaccii et filiæ q. Ubaldini Nepi de Bosticcis." This document, which gives us the name of Boccaccino's second wife, tells us also that Giovanni was his brother's guardian and governor in January, 1350. CRESCINI had already suggested (_op. cit._, p. 102 n.), following Baldelli, that the Lia of the _Ameto_ was a Baroncelli when SANESI (_Un documento inedito su Giovanni Boccaccio_ in _Rassegna Bibliografica della Lett. Ital._ (Pisa, 1893), An. I, No. 4, p. 120 _et seq._) proved it to be so, giving a genealogical table:--

GHERARDO BARONCELLI | Donna Love = Baldino di Nepo de' Bostichi | ------------------------ | | Gherardo Bice = Boccaccino | Jacopo

[312] Cf. CRESCINI, _op. cit._, p. 155, note 3. _Arch. Stat. Fior._ (Archivio della Grascia Prammatica del 1343): "1343. die Maij Domina Bice uxor Boccaccij de Certaldo populi S. Felicitatis habet guarnaccham de camecha coloris purpurini," etc.

[313] See Appendix III, MS. of Gherardi.

[314] See _supra_, n. 1.

[315] Boccaccino still possessed the house in popolo di S. Felicità when he died. See _supra_, p. 98, n. 3.

[316] It must be remembered that in 1343 Giovanni was thirty years old.

[317] Cf. _Fiammetta_, _ed. cit._, cap. ii. p. 45, already quoted _supra_, p. 96, note 1.

[318] GIO. VILLANI, Lib. XI, cap. 137.

[319] See the _De Casibus Virorum Illustrium_, Lib. IX, cap. 24; cf. HORTIS, _Studi, etc._, pp. 127-8. A translation in verse of the _De Casibus_ was made by LYDGATE, _The Fall of Princes_, first printed by Pynson in 1494; later editions, 1527, 1554 (Tottel), and John Wayland's, 1558. There is no modern edition. It is a disgrace to our two universities that no modern edition of Lydgate has been published.

[320] Cf. W. HEYWOOD, _Palio and Ponte_ (Methuen, 1904), pp. 7-9. These races or _palii_ seem to have originated in the thirteenth century (cf. VILLANI, _Cronica_, Lib. I, cap. 60, and DANTE, _Paradiso_, XVI 40-2). Benvenuto da Imola says, "Est de more Florentiæ, quod singulis annis in festo Iohannis Baptistæ currant equi ad brevium in signum festivæ laetitiæ...." He goes on to say that the race was run from S. Pancrazio, the western ward of the city, through the Mercato Vecchio, to the eastern ward of S. Piero. Goro di Stazio Dati, who died in 1435, thus describes the _palio_ of S. John in Florence. I quote Mr Heywood's excellent redaction from DATI'S _Storia di Firenze_ (Florence, 1735), pp. 84-9, in his _Palio and Ponte, u s_ "... Thereafter, dinner being over, and midday being past, and the folk having rested awhile according to the pleasure of each of them; all the women and girls betake themselves whither the horses which run the palio will pass. Now these pass through a straight street, through the midst of the city, where are many dwellings, beautiful, sumptuous houses of good citizens, more than in any other part thereof. And from one end of the city to the other, in that straight street which is full of flowers, are all the women and all the jewels and rich adornments of the city; and it is a great holiday. Also there are always many lords and knights and foreign gentlemen, who come every year from the surrounding towns to see the beauty and magnificence of that festival. And there, through the said Corso, are so many folk that it seemeth a thing incredible, the like whereof he who hath not seen it could neither believe nor imagine. Thereafter, the great bell of the Palagio de' Signori is tolled three times, and the horses, ready for the start, come forth to run. On high upon the tower, may be seen, by the signs made by the boys who are up there, that is of such an one and that of such an one (_quello è del tale, e quello è del tale_). And all the most excellent race-horses of the world are there, gathered together from all the borders of Italy. And that one which is the first to reach the Palio is the one which winneth it. Now the Palio is borne aloft upon a triumphal car, with four wheels, adorned with four carven lions which seem alive, one upon every side of the car, drawn by two horses, with housings with the emblem of the Commune thereon, and ridden by two varlets which guide them. The same is a passing rich and great Palio of fine crimson velvet in two palii, and between the one and the other a band of fine gold a palm's width, lined with fur from the belly of the ermine and bordered with miniver fringed with silk and fine gold; which, in all, costeth three hundred florins or more.... All the great piazza of S. Giovanni and part of the street is covered with blue hangings with yellow lilies; the church is a thing of marvellous form, whereof I shall speak at another time...." Boccaccio must often have seen these races. Cf. _Decameron_, Day VI, Nov. 3.

[321] LYDGATE, _op. cit._, Lib. IX.