In 1363 Boccaccio went on a visit to Naples to the seneschal Acciajuoli (the same Florentine who had in 1344 persuaded the elder Boccaccio to permit his son's return to Naples), who commissioned him to write the story of his deeds of valour. On his arrival, however, the poet was treated with shameful neglect, and revenged himself by denying the possibility of relating any valorous deeds for want of their existence. This declaration, it must be confessed, came somewhat late, but it was provoked by a silly attack on the poet himself by one of the seneschal's indiscreet friends.
During the next ten years Boccaccio led an unsettled life, residing chiefly at Florence or Certaldo, but frequently leaving his home on visits to Petrarch and other friends, and on various diplomatic errands in the service of the Republic. He seems to have been poor, having spent large sums in the purchase of books, but his independent spirit rejected the numerous splendid offers of hospitality made to him by friends and admirers. During this period he wrote four important Latin works - De Genealogia Deorum libri XV., a compendium of mythological knowledge full of deep learning; De Montium, Silvarum, Lacuum, et Marium nominibus liber, a treatise on ancient geography; and two historical books - De Casibus Virorum et Feminarum Illustrium libri IX., interesting to the English reader as the original of John Lydgate's Fall of Princes; and De Claris Mulieribus. To the list of his works ought to be added Il Ninfale Fiesolano, a beautiful love-story in verse, and Il Corbaccio ossia Il Laberinto d' Amore, a coarse satire on a Florentine widow who had jilted the poet, written about 1355, not to mention many eclogues in Latin and miscellaneous Rime in Italian (the latter collected by his biographer Count Baldelli in 1802).
In 1373 we find Boccaccio again settled at Certaldo. Here he was attacked by a terrible disease which brought him to the verge of death, and from the consequences of which he never quite recovered. But sickness could not subdue his intellectual vigour. When the Florentines established a chair for the explanation of the Divina Commedia in their university, and offered it to Boccaccio, the senescent poet at once undertook the arduous duty. He delivered his first lecture on the 23rd of October 1373. The commentary on part of the Inferno, already alluded to, bears witness of his unabated power of intellect. In 1374 the news of the loss of his dearest friend Petrarch reached Boccaccio, and from this blow he may be said to have never recovered. Almost his dying efforts were devoted to the memory of his friend; urgently he entreated Petrarch's son-in-law to arrange the publication of the deceased poet's Latin epic Africa, a work of which the author had been far more proud than of his immortal sonnets to Laura.
In his last will Boccaccio left his library to his father confessor, and after his decease to the convent of Santo Spirito in Florence. His small property he bequeathed to his brother Jacopo. His own natural children had died before him. He himself died on the 21st of December 1375 at Certaldo, and was buried in the church of SS. Jacopo e Filippo of that town. On his tombstone was engraved the epitaph composed by himself shortly before his death. It is calm and dignified, worthy indeed of a great life with a great purpose. These are the lines: " Hac sub mole jacent cineres ac ossa Joannis; Mens sedet ante Deum, meritis ornata laborum Mortalis vitae. Genitor Boccaccius illi; Patria Certaldum; studium fuit alma poesis."
Continued on page eight.
This article is from the 1911 edition of an encyclopedia, which is out of copyright here in the U.S. See the encyclopedia main page for disclaimer and copyright information.
