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Giovanni Boccaccio Boccaccio was born in Paris, in 1313, the illegitimate son
of a Florentine merchant and a French noblewoman. Reared in Florence, he was
sent to study accounting in Naples around 1323. He abandoned accounting for
canon law and gave that up for classical and scientific studies. He took part in
the life of the court of Robert d'Anjou, king of Naples. The king is supposed to
have had an illegitimate daughter, Maria de Conti d'Aquino. Although there is no
proof of her existence, she is said to have been Boccaccio's mistress and to
have inspired a great deal of his work. She is, perhaps, the Fiammetta
immortalized in his writings. Returning to Florence about 1340, Boccaccio
performed various diplomatic services for the city government, and in 1350 he
met the poet and humanist Petrarch, with whom he had a close friendship until
Patriarch’s death in 1374. In 1362 a friend, who promised him the patronage of
Queen Joanna of Naples, invited Boccaccio to Naples.
A cold reception at the
court of the queen led him to seek the hospitality of Petrarch, who was then in
Venice. However, he returned to his estate in Certaldo (near Florence).
Boccaccio's last years, in which he turned to religious meditation, were
brightened by his appointment in 1373 as lecturer on Dante. His series of
lectures was interrupted by his illness in 1374, and he died the next year.
Boccaccio's most important work is Il Decamerone (Ten Days' Work), which was
begun in 1348 and completed in 1353; it was first translated into English, as
The Decameron, in 1620. This collection of 100 stories is set within a
framework. A group of friends, seven women and three men, all well bred, of
worth and discretion, to escape an outbreak of the plague have taken refuge in a
country villa outside Florence. There they entertain one another over a period
of ten days with a series of stories told by each member. At the conclusion of
the 100th tale, the friends return to their homes in the city.
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