CHAPTER VIII

1346-1350

IN ROMAGNA--THE PLAGUE--THE DEATH OF FIAMMETTA

The few notices we have of Boccaccio's life at this time are almost entirely mere hints which enable us to assert that in such a year he was in such a place: they in no way help us to discover why he was there or what he was doing. Thus we are able to affirm that probably between 1344 and 1346, certainly in 1345, he was in Naples, but why he went there, unless it were for the sake of Fiammetta, we cannot suggest, for if Florence was a shambles, so was Naples. In much the same way we know that he was in Ravenna with Ostasio da Polenta not later than 1346; for in a letter Petrarch wrote him in 1365 he reminds him that he was in Ravenna "in the time of the grandfather of him who now rules there."[334] But why Boccaccio went to Ravenna, unless it were that, finding Naples too hot to hold him and Florence impossible, he took refuge with some relations he had there, or with the Polenta who had befriended Dante, we do not know. Nor do we know what he did there. It may be that during his stay in Naples he had already begun to think of writing a life of Dante; and hearing that the great poet had left a daughter Beatrice in Ravenna he set out to see her. This, however, is but the merest conjecture. Baldelli,[335] indeed, thinks that Boccaccio was at this time in Romagna as ambassador for Florence. For Ravenna was not the only place he visited about this time. If we may believe the third _Eclogue_, he was also the guest of Francesco degli Ordelaffi, the great enemy of the Church in Romagna and of King Robert the Wise.[336]

In the third _Eclogue_ Palemone reproves Pamfilo for idly reposing in his cave while all around the woods ring with the cries of Testili infuriated against Fauno. Now Fauno, as Boccaccio tells us in his letter to Frate Martino da Signa,[337] where he explains some of the disguises of the _Eclogues_, is Francesco degli Ordelaffi, and Testili, although Boccaccio does not say so, is without doubt the Church, which had in fact no greater enemy in all Romagna than Ordelaffo, the usurper, if you will, of the ecclesiastical dominion, who held in contempt the many excommunications launched against him, replying always by an attack on some bishop, and by making continual war on the legates sent against him.[338]

Those cries, and the anger which causes them, fill the first part of the _Eclogue_. In the second part, it is clearly recounted how King Louis of Hungary came down into Italy to avenge the murder of his brother Andrew. Argo, the head shepherd worthy to be praised by all, has perforce abandoned the sheep.[339] Argo is Robert King of Naples,[340] wise as King Solomon, who follows the Muses. Alexis is Andrew of Hungary and Naples, who, made free of the woods by Argo, being careless and without caution, has been assailed by a she-wolf, pregnant and enraged, that is by Queen Giovanna; for here, at any rate, Boccaccio eagerly sides with the rabble and accepts the guilt of the Queen as fact. They say, he adds, that the woods held many cruel wild beasts and lions, and that Alexis met the death of Adonis. Now Tityrus, that is King Louis of Hungary, the brother of the dead Alexis, heard of this beyond Ister or the Danube, and set forth with innumerable hunters to punish the wolf and the lions.[341] And many Italians joined with Tityrus, says Boccaccio; among them was Faunus, although Testili threatened him and cursed him sore.[342]

What this means is obvious. The Pope, dismayed by the descent of King Louis into Italy,[343] having tried unsuccessfully in a thousand ways to turn him from his purpose, hindered him as best he could when he had once set out. The Vicar in Romagna, Astorgio di Duraforte, was ordered not to allow him to enter any city; a papal legate met him at Foligno, forbidding him on pain of excommunication to enter the Kingdom. In spite of the papal prohibition the _signorotti_ of Romagna gladly entertained the king. Francesco Ordelaffi above all, as Villani tells us,[344] "bade him welcome, and went out to meet him in the _contado_ of Bologna with two hundred horse and a thousand foot, all under arms. On December 13 he received him in Forlì with the greatest honour, furnishing his needs and those of all his people. And there they sojourned three days with much feasting and dancing of men and women, and the king made knights of the lord of Forlì and of his two sons."

This, however, did not content Ordelaffo, for with three hundred of his best horse he followed King Louis to help him in his undertaking on December 17, 1347.[345] Now Ordelaffo was not only a lover of the chase and of war, but in his way a humanist also, who, like Sigismondo Malatesta later, surrounded himself with poets and men of letters. Among his friends and counsellors was that Cecco da Meleto who was the friend of Petrarch and Boccaccio.[346] He was a great admirer of Petrarch, and merited the title Boccaccio gave him in that letter to Zanobi: _Pieridum hospes gratissimus_. If that letter is authentic,[347] then Boccaccio not only met King Louis of Hungary[348] at Forlì, but accompanied him and Francesco degli Ordelaffi into the Kingdom in the end of the year 1347 and the beginning of 1348.[349] His sentiments with regard to the murder and the war which followed it are clearly expressed there. He speaks of the King's arms as "_arma justissima_," and though it surprises us to find Boccaccio on that side, the letter only states clearly the sentiments already set down in allegory in the third and eighth _Eclogues_, and clearly but more discreetly stated in the _De Casibus Virorum_. In the fourth _Eclogue_, however, he commiserates the unhappy fate of Louis of Taranto, and hymns his return. Can it be that, at first persuaded of the Queen's guilt, he learned better later? We do not know. The whole affair of the murder, as of Boccaccio's actions at this time and of his sentiments with regard to it, are mysterious. If in the third and eighth _Eclogues_ he tells us that Giovanna and Louis of Taranto were the real murderers of Andrew and wishes success to the arms of the avenger; in the fourth, fifth, and sixth _Eclogues_ he sympathises with Louis and tells of the misery of the Kingdom after the descent of the Hungarians, and at last joyfully celebrates the return of Giovanna and her husband.[350] And this contradiction is emphasised by his actions. So far as we may follow him at all in these years, we see him in Naples horrified and disgusted at the state of affairs, leaving the city after the torture and death of the Catanesi and repairing to the courts of the Polenta and of the Ordelaffi, the enemies of the Church which held Giovanna innocent, and of the champions of the Church, Robert and Naples. Nor does he stop there, but apparently follows Ordelaffo in his descent with King Louis on Naples in the end of 1347 and the beginning of 1348. Yet in 1350 he was in Naples, and in 1352 he was celebrating the return of those against whom he had sided and written. The contradiction is evident, and we cannot explain it; but in a manner it gives us the reason why, when Frate Martino da Segna asked for an explanation and key to the _Eclogues_, he supplied him with one so meagre and imperfect.[351]

King Louis of Hungary, as we know, had not been many months in the Kingdom when he was forced to fly for his life, not by a mortal foe, but by the plague--the Black Death of 1348. It was brought to Italy by two Genoese galleys which had been trading in the East and had touched at Pisa. In April it had spread to Florence, a month later to Siena, before Midsummer all Italy was in its grip, and by the following year the greater part of Europe. No chronicler of the time in Italy but has more than enough to say of this "judgment of God"; and beside the wonderful description by Boccaccio in the introduction to the _Decameron_, there is scarcely a novelist who does not recount some tale or other concerning it.[352]

Perhaps Tuscany suffered most severely. "In our city of Florence," writes Matteo Villani,[353] for old Giovanni Villani perished in the pestilence--"in our city of Florence the plague became general in the beginning of April of the year 1348, and lasted till the beginning of September. And there died in the city, the _contado_, and the district, of both sexes and of all ages, three out of every five persons and more, for the poor suffered most, since it began with them who were utterly without aid, and more disposed by weakness to be attacked." Already Giovanni Villani had noted that in 1347 "there began in Florence and in the _contado_ a sort of sickness which always follows famine and hunger, and this especially fell on women and children among the poor."[354] Giovanni Morelli[355] tells us that in Florence it was a common thing to see people laughing and talking together, and then in the same hour to see them dead. People fell down dead in the streets, and were left where they fell. "Many went mad and cast themselves into wells or out of windows into the Arno by reason of their great pain and horrible fear. Vast numbers died unnoticed in their houses, and were left to putrefy upon their beds. Many were buried before they were actually dead. Priests went bearing the cross to accompany a corpse to burial, and before they reached the church there were three or four biers following them. The grass grew in the streets. So completely were all obligations of blood and of affection forgotten, that men left their nearest and dearest to die alone rather than incur the danger of infection."[356] Nor was this all. Every sort of moral obligation was forgotten. Boccaccio more than hints at this, and we have evidence from many others. In the continual fear of death men and women often forgot everything but the present moment, which they were content to enjoy in each other's arms, even though they were strangers. Ah, poor souls! Amid the terror and loneliness of the summer, when the hot sunshine was more terrible than the darkness, which at least hid the shame, the disorder, and the visible horror, there was no lack of opportunities. All social barriers were gone, and rich and poor, bond and free, took what they might desire. It was the same in Siena; and if in Naples and the Romagna the deaths were less numerous, what are a few thousands when the lowest mortality was more than two in every five? People said the end of the world was come. In a sense they were right. It was the end of the Middle Age.

In Florence there perished among the rest Giovanni Villani, as I have said, and, as we may believe, Bice, the second wife of Boccaccino. In Naples it seems certain that Fiammetta died.

But where was Boccaccio during those dreadful five months of 1348? Was he with Fiammetta in Naples? Did he perhaps close her eyes and bear her to the grave? Or was he in Florence with his father, or in Forlì with the Ordelaffi? All we know is that he was not in Florence,[357] and it therefore seems certain that he was either in Naples, though we cannot say with Fiammetta, or in Forlì with Ordelaffo. Wherever he was, he did not escape the terrible sights that the plague brought in its train. He tells us of one of these which he himself had seen in the Introduction to the _Decameron_. On the whole, however, it seems likely that Boccaccio was in Naples at this time, and Baldelli even cites the letter to Franceschino de' Bardi, which he tells us bears the date of May 15, 1349,[358] and which was certainly written in Naples. Wherever he may have been, however, he was recalled to Florence by the death of his father, which befell not in the plague, for in July, 1348, he added a codicil to his Will,[359] but between that date and January, 1350, when, as Manni proved, Giovanni was appointed tutor to his brother Jacopo.[360]

In that year, 1350, Boccaccio was thirty-seven years old, and, save for his stepbrother Jacopo, he was now alone in the world. His father was dead, his stepbrother Francesco had long since been in the grave, and now Fiammetta also was departed. And those last ten years, which had robbed him of so much, of his youth also, had been among the most terrible that even Italy can ever have endured. He had seen Florence run with blood, and every sort of torture and horror stalk abroad in Naples. Rome, if he ventured there, can have appeared to him but little less than a shambles. Rienzi, with all that hope, had come and vanished like a ghost. The fairest province in Italy lay under the heel of a barbarian invader. And as though to add a necessary touch of irony to the tragedy that had passed before his eyes, he had taken refuge and found such peace as he enjoyed among the unruly and riotous _signorotti_ and bandits of the Romagna, where properly peace was never found, but which amid the greater revolutions on the western side of the Apennines seemed perhaps peaceful enough. And then had come the pestilence, which cared nothing for right or wrong, innocent or guilty, young or old, bond or free, but slew all equally with an impartial and appalling cruelty that was like a vengeance--the vengeance of God, men said. In that vengeance, whether of God or of outraged nature, all that he loved or cared for had been lost to him. That he always loved his mother, dead so long ago, better than his father goes for nothing; that he loved his father as all men love him who has given them life is certain, he could not choose but love him. But in spite of the easy laugh, too like a sneer to be quite true or sincere, at the beginning of the _Decameron_, the wound he felt most nearly, that he never really forgot or quite forgave, was the death of Fiammetta, whom he had loved at first sight, with all the eagerness and fire of his youth, with all his heart, as we might say, ruthlessly keeping nothing back. From this time love meant nothing to him; there were other women doubtless in his life, mirages that almost lured him to despair or distraction, for he was always at the mercy of women; but the passion, if we may so call it, which henceforth fills his life is that of friendship--friendship for a great and a good man which, with all its comfort, left him still with that vain shadow, that emptiness in his heart--

"The grief which I have borne since she is dead."

FOOTNOTES:

[334] See Lett. 19 del Lib. XXIII, _Epist. Familiarum_. FRACASSETTI has translated this letter into Italian: see _Lettere di Fr. Petrarca volgarizz. Delle Cose Fam._, Vol. V, p. 91 _et seq._ Petrarch says: "Adriæ in litore, ea ferme ætate, qua tu ibi agebas cum antiquo plagæ illius domino eius avo qui nunc præsidet." It is Fracassetti who dates this letter 1365 (Baldelli dates in 1362, and Tiraboschi in 1367). If, as we believe, Fracassetti is right, then Boccaccio must have been in Ravenna in 1346, for in 1365 Guido da Polenta ruled there, the son of Bernardino who died in 1359, the son of Ostasio, who died November 14, 1346. Boccaccio had relations in Ravenna. In the proem to the _De Genealogiis_ he tells us that Ostasio da Polenta induced him to translate Livy.

[335] Yet there may be something in it. Baldelli tells us that he wrote the _Vita di Dante_ in 1351, and in 1349 we find him in communication with Petrarch. That Beatrice di Dante was in Ravenna in 1346 seems certain. PELLI, _Memorie per servire alla vita di Dante_ (Firenze, 1823), p. 45, says: "As for the daughter Beatrice ... one knows that she took the habit of a religious in the convent of S. Stefano detto dell' Uliva in Ravenna." We know from a document seen by Pelli that in 1350 the Or San Michele Society sent Beatrice ten gold florins by the hand of Boccaccio. What I suggest is that Boccaccio found her in Ravenna in 1346 very poor. He represented the facts to the Or San Michele Society, who, after the Black Death of 1348, had plenty of money in consequence of all the legacies left them and, as is well known, were very free with their plenty.

I give the document Pelli saw as he quotes it. He says he found it in "un libro d' entrata ed uscita del 1350 tra gli altri esistenti nella cancelleria de' capitani di Or San Michele risposto nell' armadio alto di detta cancelleria." There, he says, is written the following disbursement in the month of September, 1350: "A Messer Giovanni di Bocchaccio ... fiorini dieci d' oro, perchè gli desse a suora Beatrice figliuola che fu di Dante Alleghieri, monaca nel monastero di S. Stefano dell' Uliva di Ravenna," etc. See also BERNICOLE in _Giornale Dantesco_, An. VII (Series III), Quaderno vii (Firenze, 1899), p. 337 _et seq._, who rediscovered the document which is republished by BIAGI and PESSERINI in _Codice Diplomatico Dantesco_, Disp. 5 (1900).

[336] Cf. FERRETUS VICENTINUS, Lib. VII, in _R. I. S._, Tom. IX.

[337] CORAZZINI, _op. cit._, p. 268. "Tertiæ vero Eclogæ titulus est _Faunus_, nam cum eiusdam causa fuerit Franciscus de Ordolaffis Forolivii Capitaneus, quem cum summe sylvas coleret et nemora, ob insitam illi venationis delectationem ego sæpissime Faunum vocare consueverim, eo quod Fauni sylvarum a poetis nuncupentur Dei, illam Faunum nominavi. Nominibus autem collocutorum nullum significatum volui, eo quod minime videretur opportunum."

[338] See HORTIS, _Studi sulle opere Latine del B._ (Trieste, 1879), p. 5 _et seq._

[339] Here is part of the _Eclogue_ which will be useful to us:--

"Fleverunt montes Argum, flevere dolentes Et Satyri, Faunique leves, et flevit Apollo. Ast moriens silvas juveni commisit Alexo, Qui cautus modicum, dum armenta per arva trahebat, In gravidam tum forte lupam, rabieque tremendam Incidit impavidus, nullo cum lumine lustrum Ingrediens, cujus surgens sævissima guttur Dentibus invasit, potuit neque ab inde revelli, Donec et occulto spirasset tramite vita. Hoc fertur, plerique volunt quod silva leones Nutriat haec, dirasque feras, quibus ipse severus Occurrens, venans mortem, suscepit Adonis . . . . . . . sed postquam Tityrus ista Cognovit de rupe cava, quæ terminat Istrum, Flevit, et innumeros secum de vallibus altis Danubii vocitare canes, durosque bubulcos Infrendes coepit, linquensque armenta, suosque Saltus, infandam tendit discerpere silvam Atque lupam captare petit, flavosque leones, Ut poenas tribuat meritis, nam frater Alexis Tityrus iste fuit. Nunquid vidisse furentum Stat menti, ferro nuper venabula acuto Gestantem manibus, multos et retia post hunc Portantes humeris, ira rabieque frementes, Hac olim transire via."

_Eclog. III_, p. 267 (ed. Firenze, 1719).

[340] Petrarch also calls him Argo in his third _Eclogue_. See HORTIS, _op. cit._, p. 6, n. 2.

[341] The lions--_biondi leoni_--according to Hortis, refer to Niccolò Acciaiuoli, whose coat was a lion, but for me they are the Conti della Leonessa. Cf. VILLANI, _op. cit._, Lib. XII, cap. 51. When then did Boccaccio quarrel with Acciaiuoli?

[342]

"... multi per devia Tityron istum Ex nostris, canibus sumptis, telisque sequuntur. Inter quos Faunus, quem tristis et anxia fletu Thestylis incassum revocat, clamoribus omnem Concutiens silvam. Tendit tamen ille neglectis Fletibus...." _Eclog. III_, p. 268, _ed. cit._

[343] It is well known, of course, that King Louis made two descents into Italy: one in 1347 before the Black Death, and one after it in 1350. Hortis tells us that this _Eclogue_ is certainly dated 1348 (_op. cit._, p. 5, n. 4). It therefore must allude to the first descent. This is confirmed, as Hortis points out, by the poems themselves. (1) By the chronological order in which Boccaccio treats of events in the _Eclogues_. The first two deal with his love, and those immediately following the third, of the events of 1348. (2) By the contents of the third _Eclogue_ itself, which deals first with the happiness of Naples under King Robert, with his death, the murder of Andrew, and the descent of King Louis, his passage, as we shall see, through Forlì in 1347, whence Francesco degli Ordelaffi set out with him for Lower Italy: all of which happened not in the second, but in the first (1347) descent of King Louis.

[344] VILLANI, _Cronica_, Lib. XII, cap. 107.

[345] Cf. _Annales Cæsenates R. I. S._, Tom. XIV, col. 1179, and HORTIS, _op. cit._, p. 8, n. 3. The latter argues long and successfully for the departure of Ordelaffo with King Louis at this date: to which he also ascribes the letters of Boccaccio to Zanobi (_Quam pium, quam sanctum_), by some considered apochryphal (CORAZZINI, _op. cit._, p. 447), where Boccaccio says: "Varronem quidem nondum habui: eram tamen habiturus in brevi, nisi itinera instarent ad illustrem Hungariæ regem in estremis Brutiorum et Campaniæ quo moratur, nam ut sua imitetur arma iustissima meus inclitus dominus et Pieridum hospes gratissimus cum pluribus Flamineæ proceribus præparetur; quo et ipse, mei prædicti domini jussu non armiger, sed ut ita loquar rerum occurrentium arbiter sum iturus, et præestantibus Superis, omnes in brevi victoria habita et celebrato triumpho dignissime proprias [_sic_] revisuri." The letter is dated Forlì.

[346] Cf. FRACASSETTI, in a note to Lett. 3 of Lib. XXI, _Lett. Fam._ of Petrarch; and as regards Boccaccio, see BALDELLI, in note to Sonnet xcix., written for Cecco (Moutier, Vol. XVI, p. 175).

[347] Cf. HORTIS, _op. cit._, pp. 8 and 267-77. Cf. CORAZZINI, _op. cit._, p. 447.

[348] That he met King Louis is certain. In the third _Eclogue_ he says:--

"Nunquid vidisse furentem Stat menti."

[349] In the letters to Zanobi, spoken of above, beginning _Quam pium, quam sanctum_, he says he is going to the illustrious King of Hungary in the confines of the Abruzzi and of Campania: "Ad illustrem Hungariæ regem in estremis Brutiorum et Campaniæ."

[350] VILLANI, _op. cit._, Lib. XII, cap. 51, believed in the guilt of Giovanna, but he was writing from hearsay. He says the Queen lived in adultery with Louis of Taranto and with Robert of Taranto and with the son of Charles d'Artois and with Jacopo Capano.

[351] Boccaccio was and remained all his life a keen Guelf and supporter of the House of Anjou. Of that no doubt is possible. Cf. HORTIS, _op. cit._, p. 109.

[352] See especially SACCHETTI, Nov. XXI and CLVIII.

[353] M. VILLANI, _Cronica_, Lib. I, cap. ii.

[354] Cf. G. VILLANI, Lib. XII, cap. 84. After the horrible slaughters and wars in Florence, and indeed in all Tuscany, the disgraceful state of affairs in Naples, it is not wonderful that pestilence broke out and found a congenial soil.

[355] G. MORELLI, _Cronica_, p. 280. Cf. G. BIAGI, _La vita privata dei Fiorentini_ (Milano, 1899), pp. 77-9.

[356] W. HEYWOOD, _The Ensamples of Fra Filippo_ (Torrini Siena, 1901), p. 80 _et seq._

[357] In the Commentary on the _Divine Comedy_ (Moutier, Vol. XI, p. 105) he says: "E se io ho il vero inteso, perciocchè in que' tempi io non ci era, io odo, che in questa città avvenne a molti nell' anno pestifero del MCCCXLVIII, che essendo soprappresi gli uomini dalla peste, e vicini alla morte, ne furon più e più, i quali de' loro amici, chi uno e chi due, e chi più ne chiamò, dicendo, vienne tale e tale; de' quali chiamati e nominati assai, secondo l' ordine tenuto dal chiamatore, s' eran morti, e andatine appresso al chiamatore...." This might seem evidence enough that Boccaccio was not in Florence in 1348, for he expressly says so. There is a passage, however, in the _Decameron_ Introduction where he seems to say that he was in Florence; but as we shall see, we misunderstand him. He says: "So marvellous is that which I have now to relate that had not many, _and I among them_, observed it with their own eyes I had hardly dared to credit it...." He then goes on to tell us (assuring us again that he had seen it himself) that one day two hogs came nosing among the rags of a poor wretch who had died of the disease, and immediately they "gave a few turns and fell down dead as if from poison...." But this might have happened in Naples or Forlì quite as well as in Florence. It is only right to add that the Moutier edition of the _Comento sopra Dante_ notes that the MS. from which it is printed reads 1340 instead of 1348 in the passage already quoted. This may or may not be an error. There was a plague in Florence in 1340. See VILLANI, _op. cit._, Lib. XII, cap. lxxiii.

[358] See the letter in CORAZZINI, _op. cit._, p. 23. It is written in the Neapolitan dialect, and in all the versions I have been able to see bears the date of no year at all. It is signed thus: "In Napoli, lo juorno de sant' Anniello--Delli toi Jannetto di Parisse dalla Ruoccia."

[359] Cf. MANNI, _Istoria del Decamerone_ (Firenze, 1742), p. 21. See also KOERTING, _op. cit._, p. 179, and especially CRESCINI, _op. cit._, p. 257 _et seq._

[360] Cf. MANNI, _u.s._