i. It will be seen that if our theory be correct, Giovanni Boccaccio

bears the names of both his parents--Giovanna and Boccaccio. It is necessary to point out, however, that there is not much in this, for a paternal uncle was called Vanni, and Giovanni may have been named after him, as his brother was named after another uncle. Cf. BALDELLI, _Vita di Gio. Boccaccio_ (Firenze, 1806), p. 274, note 1.

[19] In the _Filocolo_ (_ed. cit._, Vol. II, pp. 242-3) we read: "Ma non lungo tempo quivi ricevuti noi dimorò, che abbandonata la semplice giovane e l' armento tornò nei suoi campi, e quivi appresso noi si tirò, e non guari lontano al suo natal sito la promessa fede a Giannai ad un' altra, Garamita chiamata, ripromise e servò, di cui nuova prole dopo piccolo spazio riceveo." Cf. BALDELLI, _Vita di Gio. Boccaccio_ (Firenze, 1806), p. 275.

[20] See F. VILLANI, _Le Vite d' uomini illustri Fiorentini_ (Firenze, 1826). F. Villani was a contemporary of Boccaccio, and succeeded him in the chair founded at Florence for the exposition of the _Divine Comedy_.

[21] See Galletti, _Philippi Villani: Liber de Civitatis Florentiæ famosis civibus ex codice Mediceo Laurentiano, nunc primum editus_, etc. (Firenze, 1847), and on this CALÒ, _Filippo Villani e il Liber de Origine civitatis_, etc. (Rocca S. Casciano, 1904), pp. 154-5.

[22] The son of his "natural father" may mean that Boccaccio di Chellino was not his adoptive father, or it may mean that Giovanni was a bastard. See on this CRESCINI, _op. cit._, p. 38 _et seq._, and DELLA TORRE, _La Giovinezza di Gio. Boccaccio_ (Città di Castello, 1905), cap. i.

[23] Domenico Bandini Aretino says: "Boccatius pater ejus ... amavit quamdam iuventulam Parisinam, quam prout diligentes Ioannem dicunt quamquam alia communior sit opinio sibi postea uxorem fecit, ex qua genitus est Ioannes." See SOLERTI, _Le vite di Dante, Petrarca e Boccaccio scritte fino al secolo XVII_ (Milano, 1904). The lives of Boccaccio constitute the third part of the volume; the second of these is Domenico's. Cf. MESSERA, _Le più antiche biografie del Boccaccio_ in _Zeitschrift für Rom. Phil._ (1903), XXVII, fasc. iii. See also CRESCINI, _op. cit._, p. 16, note 1, and ANTONA TRAVERSI, _op. cit._ in _Fansulia della Domencia_, II, 23, where many authors of this opinion are quoted.

[24] Giovanni Acquettino da Prato was a bad poet. His sonnet says: "Nacqui in Firenze al Pozzo Toscanelli." Pozzo Toscanelli was in the S. Felicità quarter, close to the Via Guicciardini.

[25] _St. della Lett. Ital._ (1823), V, part iii. p. 738 _et seq._

[26] _Op. cit._, pp. 277-80.

[27] CORAZZINI, _Lettere edite e inedite di G. Boccaccio_ (Firenze, 1877), p. viii. _et seq._

[28] KOERTING, _Boccaccio's Leben und Werke_ (Leipzig, 1880), p. 67 _et seq._, and _Boccaccio Analekten_ in _Zeitschrift für Rom. Phil._ (1881), v. p. 209 _et seq._ If Antona Traversi has disposed of Corazzini's assertions, Crescini seems certainly to have demolished the arguments of Koerting.

[29] All the dates and facts so carefully established by Crescini and Della Torre are really dependent on the date of Boccaccio's birth, 1313, being the true one. This is the corner-stone of their structure. But the story of his illegitimacy and foreign birth was current long before this date was established. It was the commonly received opinion. Why? Doubtless because Boccaccio himself had practically stated so in the _Filocolo_ and the _Ameto_. That Filippo Villani's Italian translator was dependent on these allegories for his story seems to be proved (cf. DELLA TORRE, _op. cit._, p. 30); so probably was the general public. The question remains: Was Boccaccio speaking the mere truth concerning himself in these allegories? Filippo Villani himself, as we have seen, believed that he was born at Certaldo; so did Domenico Aretino. For myself, I do not think that enough has been allowed for the indirect influence of Fiammetta in the _Filocolo_ and the _Ameto_. They were written for her--to express his love for her. She was the illegitimate daughter of King Robert of Naples by the wife of the nobleman Conte d'Aquino--a woman of French extraction. It is strange, then, that Boccaccio's story of his birth in the allegories should so closely resemble hers. She doubtless thought herself a very great lady, and was probably prouder of her royal blood than a legitimate princess would have been. But Boccaccio was just the son of a small Florentine trader; and he was a Poet. To proclaim himself--half secretly--illegitimate was a gain to him, a gain in romance. How could a youthful poet, in love with a princess too, announce himself as the son of a petty trader, a mere ordinary bourgeois, to a lady so fine as the blonde Fiammetta? Of course he could not absolutely deny that this was so, especially after his father's visit (1327), and also we must remember that the Florentine trader held, or is supposed to have held, quite a good social position even in feudal Naples. Nevertheless his bourgeois birth did not please the greatest story-teller of Europe. So he invented a romantic birth--he too would be the result of a love-intrigue, even as Fiammetta was. And because he loved her, and therefore wished to be as close to her and as like her as possible, he too would have a French mother. Suppose all this to be true, and that after all Boccaccio is the son of Margherita, the wife of his father; that he was born in wedlock in 1318; that he met Fiammetta not on March 30, 1331 (see Appendix I), but on March 30, 1336, and that he told Petrarch he was born in 1313 because he knew his father was in Paris at that date--this last with his usual realism to clinch the whole story he had told Fiammetta.

[30] In 1318 Boccaccio di Chellino is spoken of as having been a dweller in the quarter of S. Pier Maggiore for some four years. See MANNI, _Istoria del Decameron_ (Firenze, 1742), p. 7, who gives the document. This may mean little, however, for the residence may have been purely formal, and have signified merely that a business was carried on there in his name. But see CRESCINI, _op. cit._, pp. 40 and 41, Note 1, and DELLA TORRE, _op. cit._, pp. 7-14.

[31] Cf. _Filocolo_, _ed. cit._, Vol. II, pp. 242-3.

[32] DELLA TORRE, _op. cit._, p. 2.

[33] Moreover, as we shall see, the story of the "two bears" which in his allegory followed his father and drove himself out of the house--to Naples--seems to make it necessary that they should all have been living together. See _infra_, p. 14.

[34] In the first page he says: "Vagabondo giovane i Fauni e le Driadi abitatrici del luogo, solea visitare, et elli forse dagli vicini monti avuta antica origine, quasi da carnalità costretto, di ciò avendo memoria, con pietosi affetti gli onorava talvolta...."

[35] The document is given in full in Appendix II. The fact that the parish of S. Pier Maggiore is mentioned proves that when Boccaccio di Chellino was married, he was living therein, for the property was part of the dowry of Margherita di Gian Donato his first wife.

[36] See my _Country Walks About Florence_ (Methuen, 1908), pp. 13-15 Casa di Boccaccio is within sight and almost within hail of Poggio Gherardo, the supposed scene of the first two days of the _Decameron_.

[37] In the _De Genealogiis Deorum_, Lib. XV, cap. x., he says "Non dum ad septimum annum deveneram ... vix prima literarum elementa cognoveram...." At this time he was already composing verses, he says.

[38] Cf. MASSERA, _Le più antiche biografie_ in _Zeitschrift für Rom. Phil._, XXVII, pp. 310-18. But see CRESCINI, _op. cit._, p. 48, note 3; and in reply DELLA TORRE, _op. cit._, p. 3, note 5.

[39] "Qui ... ferula ... ab incunabulis puellulos primum grammaticæ gradum tentantes cogere consueverat," writes Boccaccio in the letter to Iacobo Pizzinghe. See CORRAZINI, _Le Lett. ed. e ined. di G. B._ (Firenze, 1877), p 196, and _Filocolo_, _ed. cit._, I, 75-6. It was probably the _Metamorphoses_ of Ovid that he read with Mazzuoli, though in the _Filocolo_ he speaks of the _Ars Amandi_! The _Metamorphoses_ were read for the sake of the mythology as well as for the exercise in Latin. Cf. DELLA TORRE, _op. cit._, p. 4.

[40] Cf. HECKER, _Boccaccio Funde_ (Braunschweig, 1902), p. 288, and MASSERA, _op. cit._, p. 310.

[41] DELLA TORRE, _op. cit._, pp. 5, 6.

[42] In the _Ameto_:--

"Lì non si ride mai se non di rado, La casa oscura e muta, e molto trista Me ritiene e riceve a mal mio grado; Dove la cruda ed orribile vista D' un vecchio freddo, ruvido ed avaro Ogn' ora con affanno più m' attrista."

No doubt, after the gaiety of Naples and its court, the life with an old and poor Florentine merchant seemed dull; and besides, Fiammetta was far away.

[43] _Filocolo_, _ed. cit._, Vol. II, p. 243. He says: "Io semplice e lascivo" (cf. _Paradiso_, v. 82-4) "come già dissi, le pedate dello ingannator padre seguendo, volendo un giorno nella paternale casa entrare, due orsi ferocissimi e terribili mi vidi avanti con gli occhi ardenti desiderosi della mia morte, de' quali dubitando io volsi i passi miei, e da quell' ora innanzi sempre d' entrare in quella dubitai. Ma acciocchè io più vero dica, tanta fu la paura, che abbandonati i paternali campi, in questi boschi venni l' apparato uficio a operare." CRESCINI in _Kritischer Jahresbericht über Fortschrifte der Rom. Phil._ (1898), III, p. 396 _et seq._, takes these two bears to be old Boccaccio and Margherita, but DELLA TORRE, _op. cit._, pp. 18-30, asks very aptly how could Boccaccio speak thus of a father he allows in the _Fiammetta_ "per la mia puerizia nel suo grembo teneramente allevata, per l' amor da lui verso di me continuamente portato." Della Torre takes the two bears to be Margherita and her son Francesco, born _ca._ 1321. See _op. cit._, p. 24, and document there quoted.

[44] See Appendix I, where the whole question is discussed. Cf. DELLA TORRE, _op. cit._, p. 30, note 1, and caps. ii. and iii.; CASETTI, _Il Boccaccio a Napoli_ in _Nuova Antologia_ (1875); and DE BLASIIS, _La Dimora di Gio. Boccaccio a Napoli_ in _Arch. St. per le prov. Nap._ (1892), XXII, p. 11 _et seq._