Boccaccio, Giovanni (EN)

Boccaccio Giovanni, *1313, †21 December 1375 Certaldo (near Florence), Italian prose writer and humanist. The natural son of a wealthy merchant, after studying in Florence and Naples, he tried court service and trading, only to turn (around 1335) to writing and – after settling permanently in Florence – to offices. In this city, he experienced the economic crisis, the plague (1348), honours and dignities, friendship with Petrarch and the decline of his life in poverty. In his era, he was popular and appreciated primarily for Latin compilations of Homeric, Apuleius and Virgilian themes, for Dante’s life and commentary on the Divine Comedy, for poems, narrative poetry (Filostrato 1338, Teseida 1341, Ninfale fiesolano 1345), novels, satires – in the following centuries he became famous as the creator of the Decameron (Il Decamerone 1348–53), the first great work of Italian narrative prose.

The Decameron represents a kind of quodlibet (“100 stories told in 10 days by 7 ladies and 3 young men”), a set of heterogeneous plots, most often common ones, taken from ancient comedy (Plant), medieval exempla and disseminated by fabliaux jongleurs, from facetia popular at county fairs or stories heard, experienced and invented. The alignment of this mosaic into one whole is achieved thanks to the clarity of the macroform (successive stories are told by the participants of the framework story), thanks to the subordination of individual days (giornate) to a common theme (e.g. the 2^nd is about a sudden change of fate, 7^th about the plots of wives against their husbands), and finally, by placing all stories within contemporary realities. The realistic world of the “heroes” of the Decameron – guided by desire, cunning, violence and deceit more often than by higher feelings – is reduced to the supernatural, revealing and distinguishing, while what was previously omitted or the marginal, sensual experience of life, was shown with a dispassionate distance, beyond the good and evil, alongside compassion, releasing the cleansing element of laughter.

The Decameron resonated more strongly in these periods of history, in which people were interested in topics close to Boccaccio, and approached from a narrow point of view. It was visible in genres like commedia dell’arte, burlesque intermedia, opera buffa, drama giocoso, comic opera, ballet and operetta. Moreover, more serious themes were most often taken up, generally treated only as a starting point for far-reaching travesties and compilations. The character of Ginevra, “unfortunate and honest” (II/9), became the heroine of stage works by F. Paër (1802), G. Farinelli (ca. 1812), T. Mabellini (1841) and M. Delannoy (1942), and the clever Giletta di Narbonne (III/9) – the operetta by E. Audran (1882). Adventures of the naive Calandrino (VIII/3 and 6, IX/3 and 5) inspired the themes of the operas by G. Gazzaniga (1771) and A. Sacchini (1781), both with a libretto by G. Bertati, and the orchestral suite (Boccaceries ca. 1924) C . Delvincourt; a sentimental story about a falcon (V/9) – operas by V. Mazzocchi (Fiammetta o Il falcone 1637, Chi soffre speri, together with M. Marazzoli, 1639), with libretto by G. Rospigliosi. The most frequently used theme was the innocently persecuted Griselda, common to many writers (F. Petrarca, G. Chaucer, H. Sachs, C. Perrault) and reworked, among others, by A. Zeno and C. Goldoni; stage works were created by A. Scarlatti (1721), A. Caldara (1725), A. Vivaldi (1735), N. Piccinni (1793), F. Paër (1796), A. Adam (1848) and J. Massenet (1891). The atmosphere of Boccaccio’s work was conveyed in the operetta Boccaccio (1879) by F. v. Suppe.

The frame story of the Decameron can be treated as a source for the history of the practice of performing patrician trecento music: each of the 10 giornats ended with solo singing accompanied by a lute or viola, accompanied by dancing; sometimes (2nd and 3rd hours) the voice was accompanied by choir calls; some places (soni) were performed solely by instruments. The texts of these canzones are sung and danced at the same time – consisting of 2–3-line ripreses and 3–6 stanzas of 7–9 lines interwoven with 11– and 7–syllables, built according to the pattern: 2 piedi, chiare, volta – prove that it is a model of the typical Italian ars nova ballata in its two main varieties (xCD abab c CD and xDD abc abc c DD).

Boccaccio’s contemporary composers made music for his melic texts; works by representatives of the second generation of ars nova are known: Niccolo da Perugia (madrigal O giustizia regina al mondo freno), Lorenzo da Firenze (monodic ballata Non so quali mi voglia, madrigal Come in sul fonte fu preso, Narciso). The ballatas appearing in chiuse (ending) of individual giornatos were eagerly used again in the 16^th century – most often for one of the stanzas – to compose 3–6-voice madrigals. They were composed by J. Arcadelt (VI h., Li prieghi miei, 1541), G. Parabosco, D. M. Ferrabosco (IX h., Io mi son giovinetta e volontieri, 1542; madrigal famous for its many editions, lute intavolations – e.g. by V. Galilei, parodies – e.g. masses from 1570 by G. Palestrina), G. Scotto (IV h., Lagrimando dimostro, 1542; II h., Qual donna cantera, 1549), F. Corteccia, G. Palestrina (III h., Gia’fu chi m’ebbe cara, 1555, used by him also in a mass), G. Nasco (VII h., I’non so ben ridir, VIII h., Tanto è, Amor il bene, 1557). P. de Monte and G. Manenti (IX h., Io mi son giovinetta). Boccaccio’s erotic poems reached the peak of popularity within the madrigal in 1540–60; not equal in this respect to the texts of Dante and Petrarch – also mentioned above – or to the new ones by Ariosto and Tasso, they added their slightly different tone to the Mannerist trend.

Literatura: A. Bonaventura Il Boccaccio e la musica, „Rivista Musicale Italiana” XXI, 1914; H. Gutmann Der Decamerone des Boccaccio ais musikgeschichtliche Quelle, „Zeitschrift für Musikwissenschaft” XI, 1929; N. Pirrotta Lirica monodica trecentesca, „La Rassegna Musicale Italiana” IX, 1936; O. Chilesotti Una canzone celebre nel cinquecento: „Io mi son giooinetta” del Ferrabosco, „Rivista Musicale Italiana” I, 1894; K. Swaryczewska Przyczynek do zagadnienia repertuaru muzycznego w okresie renesansu, Studia Hieronymo Feicht septuagenario dedicata, ed. Z. Lissa, Kraków 1967.