Il mare, la tempesta, la quiete: un passaggio fondamentale nella trama e nel significato del Filocolo

This paper inquires the characteristic elements of Filocolo, linked to sea and tempest elements, interpreted as symbolic transpositions of the love oriented sentiment. In the context of Boccaccio’s youth productions, incursions in Dante’s Vita Nova and Commedia are suggested too, without neglecting some reenactments of Classical sources.

La bisbetica domata: proposta di lettura di Decameron IX 9 attraverso i proverbi e i novellieri toscani tra Tre e Quattrocento

The essay focuses on the analysis and the use made by G. Boccaccio of a proverb inside Decameron IX.9. After a brief overview of the use of proverbs and auctoritates in the medieval rhetorical treatise and a summary of the studies over Boccaccio's utilization of proverbs, it will be tried to give an interpretation over the proverb in Decameron IX.9. Then it will be analyzed the comment over this proverb made by Raimondo d’Amaretto Mannelli and some rewriting of this novella by Franco Sacchetti, Giovanni Fiorentino and inside the Motti e Facezie del Piovano Arlotto.

Il Boccaccio di Baldassar Castiglione: la duplice immagine del Certaldese nelle pagine del Cortegiano

Giovanni Boccaccio is quoted several times in Castiglione’s Cortegiano, but all these mentions are inserted in two specific contexts: on the one hand, the debate on literary language, developed in the letter of dedication to don Michel De Silva and in the first book; on the other hand, the definition of the joke in book II. Starting from these premises, this essay analyses the meanings of Boccaccio’s presence in the Cortegiano. It shows that Castiglione’s treatise provides two different and concurrent representations of the author of the Decameron: a positive one, connected to the ‘questione della lingua’, that offers Boccaccio as a promoter of the usage (‘uso’); a critical one, deriving from the theory of the ‘facezia’, that makes Boccaccio a challenging and challenged model.

«Ut testatur Ovidius»: Boccaccio lettore dei commenti alle Metamorfosi

The article investigates the relationship between Boccaccio's Genealogie and the exegesis of Ovid's Metamorphoses. For each character included in his genealogy, Boccaccio reports first of all the contents of the myth related to it and then the different literal and allegorical interpretations. The main sources are, besides Ovid, Paolo da Perugia and a mysterious Theodontius, who can be identified with a commentary on the Metamorphoses produced in the 11th or 12th century. The article aims to demonstrate that Boccaccio follows the method used by medieval exegetes of the Metamorphoses: rejecting the pagan contents of the myth, the commentators offered an allegorical and moralising interpretation, in fact rewriting the Metamorphoses as a 'medieval' work.

L’Urbano. Origine e fortuna di una novella pseudo-boccaccesca

The paper pursues an investigation on an apocryphal text still underinvestigated by scholars: the Urbano, falsely attributed to Boccaccio. The first part focuses on its fortune in the Boccaccio’s canon, from the first edition of the Vocabolario della Crusca to the Boccaccio’s complete works edited in the Ottocento; furthermore, are pointed out its connections with the Libellus de Constantino Magno eiusque matre Helena, the main source of the plot, and with other genealogical medieval tales, such as the Libro imperiale and the Manfredo. The second part focuses on the manuscript tradition of the text, in order to demonstrate as its circulation in Quattrocento’s miscellaneous manuscripts of rhetorical texts in the vernacular, containing several texts by Boccaccio, has probably influenced the spurious attribution.

Ira e compassione. Fonti aristotelico-tomiste di Decameron VIII 7

This essay aims to examine the philosophic sources behind the representation of passions in Boccaccio’s tale of the scholar and the widow (Decameron VIII 7). If the definition of anger is attributable to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, I believe that it is possible to assume that the description of compassion, only mentioned in the moral treatise, derives instead from the Aristotle’s Rhetoric, where compassion is seen as a passion opposed to a kind of wrath, that is, indignation. The paper also investigates Boccaccio’s reception of the Latin translation of Aristotle’ Rhetoric. Did Boccaccio have direct knowledge of the Aristotelian text? Or had it been mediated to him by Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae?

Il fantasma di Alatiel: desiderio, parola e memoria in Decameron II 7

The aim of this essay is to analyse the story of Alatiel in its philosophical context, comparing the novella with the erotic and ethic conceptions in Middle Ages. From this point of view, it is possible to recognize two models in the story: the first is embodied by the lovers of the young woman and their savage behaviour, which seems to annihilate reason and morals, in line with the comment of Dino del Garbo to Donna me Prega. The second model is proposed by Alatiel, forced to indulge fortune’s will. Around this antithesis Boccaccio develops his narrative technique, switching focalization from Alatiel to her lovers, and again to Alatiel, to debate about one of the most important themes of the whole Decameron: human action between the context created by the fortune and moral choice.

Boccaccio erudito e il prologo del De viris illustribus petrarchesco

Giovanni Boccaccio used prologues and epilogues of his Latin works to discuss relevant topics such as the finding of reliable sources or the dissamination of the knowledge. Francesco Petrarca faced the same issues when he wrote his scholarly and historical works. This paper aims at enlightening the intertextuality between prologues and epilogues of Boccaccio’s Genealogia and De montibus and the prologue of Petrarca’s De viris illustribus, showing that the formers were probably inspired by the latter.

Boccaccio, il Decameron e la Crusca: le fonti spogliate dagli Accademici

This survey concerns the lexicographic presence of Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron in the Vocabolario of the Accademici della Crusca (from the first to the fourth edition). Boccaccio is the author that counts 15.600 occurrences (considering also his others literary works) already in the first edition. This is a significant situation about Decameron, because we know that a lot of its passages went through modifications and censorship: all of these interventions on Boccaccio’s text would have had some influence on the quotations into the Vocabolario. Starting from the declarations of the Accademici, the study wants to investigate about the employment of Decameron’s sources during the works for the Vocabolario, involving editions, manuscripts and Accademici’s autograph papers.

Dal Filostrato ai rispetti di ambiente laurenziano: la ricezione quattrocentesca della prima lettera di Troiolo a Criseida

The article informs that some octaves of Boccaccio’s Filostrato can be found since the turn of the 14th century as a single Rispetto d’amore or in series of Rispetti continuati or even under the title Canzona. Boccaccio’s ottava rimas were used as love Rispetti both in manuscripts and in incunabula: the article gives an index and a description of them.