Boccaccio Quotes

You must read, you must persevere, you must sit up nights, you must inquire, and exert the utmost power of your mind. If one way does not lead to the desired meaning, take another; if obstacles arise, then still another; until, if your strength holds out, you will find that clear which at first looked dark.

To have compassion for those who suffer is a human quality which everyone should possess, especially those who have required comfort themselves in the past and have managed to find it in others.

While farmers generally allow one rooster for ten hens, ten men are scarcely sufficient to service one woman.

Nothing is so indecent that it cannot be said to another person if the proper words are used to convey it.

Laughter, on the other hand, " Petrarch went on, "is an explosion that tears us away from the world and throws us back into our own cold solitude. Joking is a barrier between man and the world. Joking is the enemy of love and poetry. That's why I tell you yet again, and you want to keep in mind: Boccaccio doesn't understand love. Love can never be laughable. Love has nothing in common with laughter.

Kissed mouth don’t lose its fortune, on the contrary it renews itself just as the moon does.

In this world, you only get what you grab for.

Heaven would indeed be heaven if lovers were there permitted as much enjoyment as they had experienced on earth.

I am one who could have forgotten the plague, listening to Boccaccio's stories; and I am not ashamed of it.

Human it is to have compassion on the unhappy

Do as we say, and not as we do

Wrongs committed in the distant past are far easier to condemn than to rectify.

In the affairs of this world, poverty alone is without envy.

„Често човек си мисли, че е далече от щастието, а то с тихи стъпки вече е дошло до него.

The scholar, as wise as he was full of wrath, knowing that threats only serve as weapons to the person so threatened, kept all his resentment within his own breast [...]

One demands a little originality in these days, even from murderers," said Lady Swaffham. "Like dramatists, you know--so much easier in Shakespeare's time, wasn't it? Always the same girl dressed up as a man, and even that borrowed from Boccaccio or Dante or somebody. I'm sure if I'd been a Shakespeare hero, the very minute I saw a slim-legged young page-boy I'd have said: 'Ods bodikins! There's that girl again!

No-thing less splendid than a golden sepulchre would have suited so noble a heart.

Let this grisly beginning be none other to you than is to wayfarers a rugged and steep mountain.

Because misogynists are the best of men.” All the poets reacted to these words with hooting. Boccaccio was forced to raise his voice: “Please understand me. Misogynists don’t despise women. Misogynists don’t like femininity. Men have always been divided into two categories. Worshipers of women, otherwise known as poets, and misogynists, or, more accurately, gynophobes. Worshipers or poets revere traditional feminine values such as feelings, the home, motherhood, fertility, sacred flashes of hysteria, and the divine voice of nature within us, while in misogynists or gynophobes these values inspire a touch of terror. Worshipers revere women’s femininity, while misogynists always prefer women to femininity. Don’t forget: a woman can be happy only with a misogynist. No woman has ever been happy with any of you!

La giovane, che non era di ferro né di diamante, assai agevolmente si piegò ai piaceri dello abate.

Senseless creatures, you don't see how much evil is concealed under a little good appearance.

It is not as if it is tales out of Boccaccio.' She laughs. 'They could tell Boccaccio a tale, those sinners at Wolf Hall.

it is obvious that all vices have a grievous effect on those who indulge them and often on others too. But I believe that the one which can transport us with the most unbridled haste into danger is anger. This is nothing other than a sudden thoughtless impulse, provoked by some perceived offence, which banishes reason and clouds the eyes of the mind, rousing the soul to blazing fury.

Mejor estaría con diablos: de siete veces seis no saben lo que ellas mismas quieren.

They brought it to a common saying there that the most acceptable service one could render to God was to put the devil in Hell

Of women he was as fond as dogs of the stick; but in the contrary he delighted more than any filthy fellow alive.

here be said save that even in poor cottages there rain down divine spirits from heaven, like as in princely palaces there be those who were worthier to tend swine than to have lordship over men?

if my memory serves me right, here is my genealogical line: Boccaccio, Petronius, Rabelais, Whitman, Emerson, Thoreau, Maeterlinck, Romain Rolland, Plotinus, Heraclitus, Nietzsche, Dostoievsky (and other Russian writers of the Nineteenth Century), the ancient Greek dramatists, theElizabethan dramatists (excluding Shakespeare), Theodore Dreiser, Knut Hamsun, D. H. Lawrence, James Joyce, Thomas Mann, Elie Faure, Oswald Spengler, Marcel Proust, Van Gogh, the Dadaists and Surrealists, Balzac, Lewis Carroll, Nijinsky, Rimbaud, Blaise Cendrars, Jean Giono, Celine, everything I read on Zen Buddhism, everything I read about China, India, Tibet, Arabia, Africa, and of course the Bible, the men who wrote it and especially the men who made the King James version, for it was the language of the Bible rather than its “message” which I got first and which I will never shake off.

Umana cosa è l'aver compassione agli afflitti; e come che a ciascuna persona stea bene, a coloro è massimamente richiesto li quali già hanno di conforto avuto mestiere, e hannol trovato in alcuni: fra' quali, se alcuno mai n'ebbe bisogno, o gli fu caro, o già ne ricevette piacere, io son uno di quegli.

And the plague gathered strength as it was transmitted from the sick to the healthy through normal intercourse, just as fire catches on to any dry or greasy object placed too close to it. Nor did it stop there: not only did the healthy incur the disease and with it the prevailing mortality by talking to or keeping company with the sick--they had only to touch the clothing or anything else that had come into contact with or been used by the sick and the plague evidently was passed to the one who handled those things.

Fiammetta, whose wavy tresses fell in a flood of gold over her white and delicate shoulders

لقد أحسنت صنعا بالمجيء.فما الذي يمكن لرجل أن يفعله بين النساء؟.. العيش مع الشيطان أفضل منهن،لأنهن ست مرات من كل سبع لا يعرفن ما الذي يردنه.

richer, by far in coin than in wit,

since the beginning of the world men have been and will be, until the end thereof, bandied about by various shifts of fortune,

So long she held on in this mourning manner, that, what by the continuall watering of the Basile, and putrifaction of the head, so buried in the pot of earth; it grew very flourishing, and most odorifferous to such as scented it, that as no other Basile could possibly yeeld so sweete a savour.

«O miser, quest´è l´ora che ´nsieme n´anderete nello ´nferno! voi sarete oggi d´esto mondo fora, sanza veder di questa state il verno; e´ vostri nomi faranno dimora nel fiume dove siete, in sempiterno!».

One demands a little originality in these days, even from murderers,” said Lady Swaffham. “Like dramatists, you know—so much easier in Shakespeare’s time, wasn’t it? Always the same girl dressed up as a man, and even that borrowed from Boccaccio or Dante or somebody. I’m sure if I’d been a Shakespeare hero, the very minute I saw a slim-legged young page-boy I’d have said: ‘Ods-bodikins! There’s that girl again!

it was his custom to live for three days of the week on bread and water, and he had drunk this water with as much pleasure and as greedily (particularly when he was tired after praying or going on pilgrimage)

…dumheden hos disse mænd og den endnu større dumhed hos dem, der tror, at de er stærkere end naturen, og med eventyrlige argumenter bilder sig selv ind, at de formår, hvad de ikke formår, og ønsker at få andre til at handle ligesom dem selv, selvom det strider imod deres natur.

tu se´ colei che nelle tue mani hai la vita mia, e non la ti posso tôrre;

quando passaron dentro col favore degli occhi di colei,

Amor mi fa parlar, che m´è nel core gran tempo stato e fatto n´ha su´ albergo,

Tu non potrai fuggir le mie saette se l´arco tiro, o sciocca peccatrice! –

la gratitud, según lo creo, es entre las demás virtudes sumamente de alabar y su contraria de maldecir,

of the celestial bodies, or sent upon us mortals by God

[...] în pocale de aur bei venin la mesele regești

Nature has frequently planted astonishing genius in men of monstrously ugly appearance.

If they have a dull wit, let them not reproach the poets for their indolence, nor insist against them with frivolous barks.

He thought that Abraham would never become a Christian once he had seen the Papal Court; but, since it was useless, he gave up trying to dissuade him.

En una bandada de blancas palomas, un cuervo negro añade más belleza incluso que el candor de un cisne

ადამიანთა ზნე-ჩვეულებების წარჩინებულ მომთვინიერებლებს ვთხოვთ მოასვენონ პოეტები

let grease his palm with a good dose of St. John Goldenmouth's ointment[56

No one will ever know it and a sin that's hidden is half forgiven.

He was a terrible blasphemer of God and the saints, and that for every trifle, being the most choleric man alive.

El viajero que trepa penosamente hasta la cima de un escarpado monte, goza muchísimo más cuando al término de su viaje descubre ante su vista una vasta y deliciosa llanura.

Mimpi adalah jembatan antara dunia yang kita lihat dan dunia yang belum kita lihat.

Tedaldo adunque, tornato ricchissimo, perseverò nel suo amare, e, senza piú turbarsi la donna, discretamente operando, lungamente goderon del loro amore. Dio faccia noigoder del nostro.

There shall we heare the pretty birds sweetly singing, see the hilles and plaines verdantly flouring; the Corne waving in the field like the billowes of the Sea, infinite store of goodly trees,

he took her to wife, she would still study to please him, nor take umbrage at aught that he should do or say, and if she would be obedient, and many other like things, to all of which she answered ay;

it’s that particular connection between melancholy and humor that Klibansky, Panofsky, and Saxl examined in Saturn and Melancholy (1964). Just as melancholy is sadness made light, so humor is comedy that has lost its physical weight (that dimension of human carnality that, however, makes Boccaccio and Rabelais great) and casts doubts on the self, the world, and the entire network of relations they form.

Por lo que tengo que deciros, señoras mías, que a quien te la hace se la hagas; y si no puedes, que no se te vaya de la cabeza hasta que lo consigas, para que lo que el burro da contra la pared lo mismo reciba.

…un monaco, il quale in ogni cosa era santissimo fuor che nell'opera delle femine; e questo sapeva sí cautamente fare che quasi niuno, non che il sapesse, ma né suspicava, per che santissimo e giusto era tenuto in ogni cosa.

My story, gracious ladies, will not be of folk of so high a rank as those of whom Elisa has told us, but perchance ‘twill not be less touching. ’Tis brought to my mind by the recent mention of Messina, where the matter befell.

lo que Pietro se proponía para satisfacción de los tres se me ha olvidado; pero bien sé que a la mañana siguiente en la plaza se vio el joven no muy seguro de a quién había acompañado más por la noche, si a la mujer o al marido.

I purpose to relate to you of a marquess, not an act of magnificence, but a monstrous folly, which, albeit good ensued to him thereof in the end, I counsel not any to imitate, for it was a thousand pities that weal betided him thereof.

Thus, it is quite clear that things which the natural course of events, with its small, infrequent blows, could never teach the wise to bear with patience, the immensity of this calamity made even simple people regard with indifference.

Y si tú no te has dado cuenta de otra cosa, sí debes darte de ésta: que nosotras siempre estamos dispuestas, lo que no sucede con los hombres; y además de esto, una mujer cansaría a muchos hombres, mientras muchos hombres no pueden cansar a una mujer:

Whenever they are reproached for such actions and for the many other disgraceful things they do, they think they can unload the heaviest charges by replying, ‘Do as we say and not as we do’—as if constancy and steadfast behavior came more easily to the sheep than to their shepherds.

yo os pregunto, señor podestá, si él ha tomado de mí siempre lo que ha necesitado y le ha gustado, ¿qué debía hacer yo (o debo) con lo que me sobra? ¿Debo arrojarlo a los perros? ¿No es mucho mejor servírselo a un hombre noble que me ama más que a sí mismo que dejar que se pierda o se estropee?

I have lost my pains, which meseemed I had right well bestowed, thinking to have converted this man; for that, an he go to the court of Rome and see the lewd and wicked life of the clergy, not only will he never become a Christian, but, were he already a Christian, he would infallibly turn Jew again.

no creo que nunca en esta ciudad han sido los hombres y las mujeres tan fastidiosos y molestos como hoy, y no hay nadie en la calle que no me desagrade como la mala ventura; y no creo que haya mujer en el mundo a quien más fastidie ver a la gente desagradable que a mí, y por no verla me he venido tan pronto.

Unlike viral infections, which often left behind a large core of immune survivors to care for the ill and harvest the food the next time an epidemic struck, plague spared no one. Despite the findings about CCR5-D32, the best available current evidence is that Y. pestis does not produce permanent immunity in victims. During the Black Death, this biological quirk may have produced an enormous secondary mortality. As both Boccaccio and Stefani suggest, many people seem to have died not because they had particularly virulent cases of plague, but because the individuals who normally cared for them were either dead or ill themselves.

My friends, you constrain me unto that which I was altogether resolved never to do, considering how hard a thing it is to find a wife whose fashions sort well within one’s own humour and how great an abundance there is of the contrary sort and how dour a life is his who happeneth upon a woman not well suited unto him.

Alack!’ rejoined the other, ‘what is this thou sayest? Knowest thou not that we have promised our virginity to God?’ ‘Oh, as for that,’ answered the first, ‘how many things are promised Him all day long, whereof not one is fulfilled unto Him! An we have promised it Him, let Him find Himself another or others to perform it to Him.’ ‘Or if,’ went on her fellow, ‘we should prove with child, how would it go then?’ Quoth the other, ‘Thou beginnest to take thought unto ill ere it cometh; when that betideth, then will we look to it; there will be a thousand ways for us of doing so that it shall never be known, provided we ourselves tell it not.

but I beseech you, as most I may, that you inflict not on her those pangs which you inflicted whilere on her who was sometime yours; for methinketh she might scarce avail to endure them, both because she is younger and because she hath been delicately reared, whereas the other had been in continual fatigues from a little child.

But things are shifting rapidly. Women’s achievements are multiplying. We don’t always have to prove that we’re acquiescent or complicit to enjoy the crumbs dispensed by the system of male power. The power that we require must be so solid and active that we can do without the sanction of men altogether. The seven female narrators of the “Decameron” should never again need to rely on the great Giovanni Boccaccio to express themselves. Along with their innumerable female readers (even Boccaccio back then knew that men had other things to do and read little), they know how to describe the world in unexpected ways. The female story, told with increasing skill, increasingly widespread and unapologetic, is what must now assume power.

The Black Death’s visit to Florence is unusually well documented. We know that the mortality claimed roughly fifty thousand lives, a death rate of 50 percent in a city of about a hundred thousand. We also know that while public order held, anarchy and disorder were common. Major riots were avoided, but flight was general and greed ubiquitous. During 1348, municipal officials stole 375,000 gold florins from the inheritances and estates of the dead. We know, too, that in Florence victims often developed two buboes instead of the one characteristic of modern plague. We know as well that many animals died; along with Boccaccio’s pigs, there are reports of dogs and cats and apparently even chickens being stricken by the gavoccioli, or plague boil. What

it was one which the Old Man of the Mountain* was in the habit of using when he wished to send people to his paradise in their sleep, or when he wished to bring them back. This prince said also that, by varying the amount administered, it would work, without causing any harm, to send a man to sleep for a longer or shorter period and, while its effect lasted, no one would think him to be alive. The

Charming ladies, as I doubt not you know, the understanding of mortals consisteth not only in having in memory things past and taking cognizance of things present; but in knowing, by means of the one and the other of these, to forecast things future is reputed by men of mark to consist the greatest wisdom. To-morrow, as you know, it will be fifteen days since we departed Florence, to take some diversion for the preservation of our health and of our lives, eschewing the woes and dolours and miseries which, since this pestilential season began, are continually to be seen about our city. This, to my judgment, we have well and honourably done; for that, an I have known to see aright, albeit merry stories and belike incentive to concupiscence have been told here and we have continually eaten and drunken well and danced and sung and made music, all things apt to incite weak minds to things less seemly, I have noted no act, no word, in fine nothing blameworthy, either on your part or on that of us men; nay, meseemeth I have seen and felt here a continual decency, an unbroken concord and a constant fraternal familiarity; the which, at once for your honour and service and for mine own, is, certes, most pleasing to me. Lest, however, for overlong usance aught should grow thereof that might issue in tediousness, and that none may avail to cavil at our overlong tarriance,

Ništa nije manje postojano od naklonosti svetine; nijedna nada nije luđa, nijedna misao sumanutija od verovanja da će ona bilo koga utešiti. Neka se, zato, duše uzdignu ka nebu, u čijem večnom zakonu, u čijem neprolaznom sjaju, u čijoj istinskoj lepoti će moći bez ikakve senke da spoznaju postojanost Onoga ko i čoveka i sve drugo s razlogom pokreće; zato da bi u njemu kao u nepromenljivom cilju , napustivši sve što je prolazno, otpočnula svaka naša nada, ako ne želimo da budemo prevareni.

<...> в Берлинцоне, в стране басков, в области, называемой Живи-лакомо, где виноградные лозы подвязывают сосисками, гусь идет за копейку, да еще с гусенком впридачу; есть там гора вся из тертого пармезана, на которой живут люди и ничем другим не занимаются, как только готовят макароны и клецки, варят их в отваре из каплунов и бросают вниз; кто больше поймает, у того больше и бывает; а поблизости течет поток из Верначчьо, лучшего вина еще никто не пивал, и нет в нем ни капли воды.("Декамерон", Дж. Бокаччо)

Even in these circumstances, however, there were no tears or candles or mourners to honour the dead; in fact, no more respect was accorded to dead people than would nowadays be shown towards dead goats. For it was quite apparent that the one thing which, in normal times, no wise man had ever learned to accept with patient resignation (even though it struck so seldom and unobtrusively), had now been brought home to the feeble-minded as well, but the scale of the calamity caused them to regard it with indifference.

Esto no puede sufrirse. Si no hubiera yo querido estar en el mundo me habría hecho monja; y si quiero estar, como quiero y estoy, si espero de éste placer y deleite tal vez puedo hacerme vieja esperando en vano; y cuando sea vieja, arrepintiéndome, en vano me doleré por haber perdido mi juventud, y para consolarla buen maestro es él con sus ejemplos para hacer que tome gusto a lo que a él le gusta, el cual gusto me honrará a mí mientras en él es muy reprobable; yo ofenderé sólo las leyes, mientras él ofende las leyes y a la naturaleza».

Oni su se udruživali i, izdvojeni od ostalih, živeli povučenim i usamljenim životom, koga su uredili s najvećom pažnjom... Mučno je sećati se kako je građanin izbegavao građanina, kako se među susedima jedva ko nalazio da prema drugome pokaže saosećanje, i kako se razdvojeni srodnici nikad ne sretahu. Ucveljenost je tako duboko prodrla u ljudske duše da je u tom užasu brat napuštao brata, a žena muža, dok očevi i majke, kao da su stranci, nezbrinutom ostavljahu decu njihovoj sudbini... Na vrhuncu zlopaćenja i ispaštanja našeg grada, ranjivi autoritet ljudskog i božanskog zakona beše zloupotrebljavan i gotovo se sasvim raspao, jer oni koji su trebali da ga primenjuju i sami behu mrtvi ili bolesni. Stoga je svaki čovek bio slobodan da čini što je u sopstvenim očima nalazio da je pravo...

So often have I studied the views of Florence, that I was familiar with the city before I ever set foot within its walls; I found that I could thread my way through the streets without a guide. Turning to the left I passed before a bookseller's shop, where I bought a couple of descriptive surveys of the city (guide). Twice only was I forced to inquire my way of passers by, who answered me with politeness which was wholly French and with a most singular accent; and at last I found myself before the facade of Santa Croce. Within, upon the right of the doorway, rises the tomb of Michelangelo; lo! There stands Canova's effigy of Alfieri; I needed no cicerone to recognise the features of the great Italian writer. Further still, I discovered the tomb of Machiavelli; while facing Michelangelo lies Galileo. What a race of men! And to these already named, Tuscany might further add Dante, Boccaccio and Petrarch. What a fantastic gathering! The tide of emotion which overwhelmed me flowed so deep that it scarce was to be distinguished from religious awe. The mystic dimness which filled the church, its plain, timbered roof, its unfinished facade – all these things spoke volumes to my soul. Ah! Could I but forget...! A Friar moved silently towards me; and I, in the place of that sense of revulsion all but bordering on physical horror which usually possesses me in such circumstances, discovered in my heart a feeling which was almost friendship. Was not he likewise a Friar, Fra Bartolomeo di San Marco, that great painter who invented the art of chiaroscuro, and showed it to Raphael, and was the forefather of Correggio? I spoke to my tonsured acquaintance, and found in him an exquisite degree of politeness. Indeed, he was delighted to meet a Frenchman. I begged him to unlock for me the chapel in the north-east corner of the church, where are preserved the frescoes of Volterrano. He introduced me to the place, then left me to my own devices. There, seated upon the step of a folds tool, with my head thrown back to rest upon the desk, so that I might let my gaze dwell on the ceiling, I underwent, through the medium of Volterrano's Sybills, the profoundest experience of ecstasy that, as far as I am aware, I ever encountered through the painter's art. My soul, affected by the very notion of being in Florence, and by proximity of those great men whose tombs I had just beheld, was already in a state of trance. Absorbed in the contemplation of sublime beauty, I could perceive its very essence close at hand; I could, as it were, feel the stuff of it beneath my fingertips. I had attained to that supreme degree of sensibility where the divine intimations of art merge with the impassioned sensuality of emotion. As I emerged from the porch of Santa Croce, I was seized with a fierce palpitations of the heart (that same symptom which, in Berlin, is referred to as an attack of nerves); the well-spring of life was dried up within me, and I walked in constant fear of falling to the ground. I sat down on one of the benches which line the piazza di Santa Croce; in my wallet, I discovered the following lines by Ugo Foscolo, which I re-read now with a great surge of pleasure; I could find no fault with such poetry; I desperately needed to hear the voice of a friend who shared my own emotion (…)

The plainest of ordinary lives conceals the possibility of something fabulous.

So long she held on in this mourning manner, that, what by the continuall watering of the Basile, and putrifaction of the head, so buried in the pot of earth; it grew very flourishing, and most odorifferous to such as scented it, that as no other Basile could possibly yeeld so sweete a savour.

The philosopher Boccaccio, chronicler of the Plague, said people were killed so quickly, they ate lunch with their friends and dinner with their ancestors.

Laymen, as well as clerics, were allured by the joys of authorship. The professional writer, the homme de lettres, appeared. A few, such as Dante and Petrarch, had university training; most had their education from life. They made no direct profit from their works, though Boccaccio, who was always broke, rented his manuscripts to copyists. The writers’ reward came from their celebrity and intellectual distinction, which brought them church livings or free lodging and gifts from princes or nobles. Thus, the first female professional writer, Christine de Pisan, supported herself and her children at the French court in the early fifteenth century.

Giovanni Boccaccio, autore del Decameron, gli dedica un’intera novella, in cui non solo lo celebra come il più bravo pittore vivente, ma sottolinea la sua alacrità nelle risposte e la vivace intelligenza.

Aussi incroyable que cela puisse paraître, pendant l’âge d’or du communisme, même les livres étaient condamnés à la prison, une prison réelle, concrète, tangible, incarnée dans les soi-disant « Fonds secrets de livres » ou « Fonds spéciaux de livres ». Car si de l’avis des formateurs politiques de Ceaușescu certains livres représentaient une menace pour le régime communiste, ils étaient tout de suite interdits à la lecture et incarcérés dans l’un des deux fonds cités plus haut. Parmi ces victimes innocentes de la persécution communiste on pouvait compter L’Archipel du Goulag, publié en 1973, créé par Alexandre Soljenitsyne, La Ferme des animaux, publié en 1945, crée par George Orwell, Docteur Jivago, publié en 1957, créé par Boris Pasternak, ou Les Droits de l’homme, publié en 1791, créés par Thomas Paine. Ceux-ci, et beaucoup d’autres, ont été interdits au public lecteur, car par leurs connotations politiques ils pouvaient sérieusement nuire au communisme. Le même destin a été appliqué à la Bible, au Talmud et à de nombreuses autres publications à caractère religieux, ainsi qu’à certains livres qui, pour des raisons de nature sociale, comme c’est le cas de l’ouvrage de Ken Kelsey, Vol au-dessus d’un nid de coucou, publié en 1962, ou même érotique (comme Le Décaméron du xive siècle écrit par Giovanni Boccaccio) étaient incarcérés dans ces fonds spéciaux ou secrets, presque inaccessibles.

Le fiabe sono vere/Folktales are are real

Much of medieval literature is what Lewis, in one scholarly article, refers to as “traditional poetry.” Certain poems, such as the Iliad or the poems of Thomas Malory, are not individual acts of inspiration, but rather are more the works of a storyteller who, repeating the essential plot line, weaves new characters, themes, descriptions, or details into the basic outline he inherited, a kind of literary recycling. Lewis had analyzed, in particular, the Arthurian legends, which had been repeated, retold, translated, updated, and modified. Like a snowball rolling down a hill, they tended to become accumulations of the techniques and additions of all previous editions rather than a unique and unrepeatable literary vision. Lewis felt that critics in his age would dismiss an author as “derivative” and “unoriginal” who “merely” repeats what has been said before, or who does not invent his or her own personal style. But the greatest authors of the medieval period were just this: shapers, composers, and recyclers of old materials. Chaucer, Boccaccio, and Malory borrowed and translated, but also mended, updated, and altered. They wrote traditional poetry in the sense that they felt it their chief task to dress old stories in new garb. In other words, by adopting this medieval conception of the art of composition, Lewis could liberate himself from the need to be “original.

Sembra che sin dagli inizi il rapporto degli italiani con Dante sia ondivago, che conosca alti e bassi, che fluttui tra momenti quasi di adorazione e altri di distacco se non di oblio, che si accenda e si spenga nel corso dei secoli a intermittenze più o meno regolari. E i momenti migliori, chissà perché, sembrano essere proprio quelli di crisi, quando l'Italia ha da ridestarsi da un incubo o da una pesante recessione. Tra Boccaccio e Leonardo Bruni si avvia, nel pieno culto di Dante, la ripresa economica che porterà al Rinascimento; ma poi invece il classicismo quattro e cinquecentesco, negli anni del nuovo boom, gli preferirà di gran lunga Petrarca. Per un nuovo fervido risveglio della passione dantesca bisognerà attendere, dopo la crisi del Seicento, gli anni del riscatto nazionale, tra fine Settecento e Risorgimento.

If a third of the stories in the Decameron mock religion, two-thirds celebrate sex.

Come per tutto quel poco che sappiamo della sua vita, anche la data di morte di Dante è riferita da fonti contraddittorie. Secondo il Boccaccio morì il giorno dell’Esaltazione della Santa Croce, che corrisponde al 14 settembre, ma gli epitaffi che i letterati fecero a gara a scrivere per l’occasione datano la morte del poeta alle idi di settembre, cioè il 1319. Siccome uno di questi epitaffi, composto da Giovanni del Virgilio, è trascritto dal Boccaccio stesso, parrebbe che il biografo non ci vedesse nessuna contraddizione; e in effetti basta ricordare che le feste cristiane, in continuità con la tradizione ebraica, cominciano al tramonto della vigilia per concludere che Dante dev’essere morto nelle prime ore della notte fra il 13 e il 14. Quella notte, il profeta andò a scoprire se quanto aveva immaginato in tutti quegli anni era vero.

Giovanni Boccaccio wrote in his Decameron that people, afraid of contamination by the rotting corpses, would drag the dead outside their houses and leave them in front of their doors to be picked up, like so much garbage.

In Florence the sublime and terrible go hand in hand: Savonarola’s Bonfires of the Vanities and Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks and Niccolò Macchiavelli’s The Prince, Dante’s Inferno and Boccaccio’s Decameron.

Boccaccio definirà la Commedia «un pavone dai piedi sozzi di fango»; Dante sembra rispondergli in anticipo: col fango, dal fango vuole il suo risarcimento. Quel fango che tanto gli somiglia, che somiglia a ciò in cui si è trasformata la sua vita: un inferno, una tragedia, quella attraverso cui è costretto a passare ogni uomo sveglio. Tornare rinnegando la Commedia non avrebbe alcun senso. Ora non c’è più alcuna separazione tra lui e la Commedia, lui sta dentro alla Commedia, e chi rigetta la Commedia, in verità, rigetta lui.

People are more inclined to believe bad intentions than good ones. - Boccaccio