Critica del testo. XVI/3, 2013. Boccaccio autore e lettore

Premessa
Paolo Canettieri, Arianna Punzi

Il //Decameron// oggi
Roberto Antonelli

Il Decameron oggi
The extraordinary success of the Decameron in the world is also due to its attention to love and sensuality. Sensuality, style and literary depth however form a unitary and complex system and are not separable. Reading the statements of the same Boccaccio in the Proemio and in the Introduction to the IV giornata, the attempt is to identify those connections as well as to show its competitive relations to Dante and Petrarca.

La cultura a Napoli al tempo di Boccaccio
Charmaine Lee

La cultura a Napoli al tempo di Boccaccio
The Angevin dynasty that ruled the Kingdom of Naples for nearly two centuries in the later Middle Ages is mostly viewed as an unfortunate parenthesis in (Southern) Italian history and culture. While Naples does not stand out for its original literary production during this period, it was nevertheless a lively cultural centre, especially during the reign of Robert the Wise (1309-1343). This paper will discuss the different cultural trends present in Naples at the time, both Latin and especially French, and how these interests are reflected in Boccaccio’s works, in those he wrote while he lived in the Regno as a young man, but also in much of his later production.

Boccaccio architetto e artefice di libri: i manoscritti danteschi e petrarcheschi
Marco Cursi

Boccaccio architetto e artefice di libri: i manoscritti danteschi e petrarcheschi
Over all his life Giovanni Boccaccio was a tireless copyist of manuscripts and on many occasions had to solve the question of what was the most suitable form to for copying the works in Latin and in the vernacular left by other two major authors of fourteenth- century literature. This research examines from the point of view of palaeography and codicology the features of the manuscripts containing texts by Dante and Petrarch copied by him (starting with those transcribed in youth and ending with those copied in his old age), with the aim of reconstructing the tecniques of his book creations, its timings and of understanding the symbolic value of the innovative choices for mise-en-page Boccaccio implemented.

Rassettare il rassettato: le avventure di un postillato del Decameron di Salviati
Carlo Pulsoni

Rassettare il rassettato: le avventure di un postillato del Decameron di Salviati (1582)
This contribution analyzes an annotated text (“postillato”) of the editio princeps of Salviati’s Decameron (1582). These notes (“pastille”) were used to restore the original text after Salviati’s “rassettatura” (arranging) and are assumed to trace back to the first half of the 18th century, maybe reflecting the 4th edition of the Dictionary by the Accademici della Crusca.

Gli “inventori delle cose” nelle Genealogie di Boccaccio
Paolo Cherchi

Gli “inventori delle cose” nelle Genealogie di Boccaccio The heurematic literature which deals with the theme of the “the inventors of things”, had remarkable vitality in the ancient world especially thanks to Evemerism. With the advent of Christianity and the disappearance of the pagan gods, the theme faided away. It resurfaced among the Proto-Humanists. Boccaccio used it in De genealogia deorum, but he limited it to the inventions which made civilization progress (plowing, music, house construction, etc), inventions which are still useful today, surviving the inventors themselves. This survival offers strong evidence of the veracity of the myths and of the process through which a mythic mentality shapes a story. The structure of the “genealogies” contributes greatly to understanding this mentality. Boccaccio’s way of seeing the “inventors of things” in the context of mythical mentality was a powerful force in sustaining the heurematic literature through the Renaissance.

Il Proemio del Decameron
Roberto Mercuri

Il Proemio del Decameron
The essay discusses the relation linking Boccaccio's Proemio to Dante’s Commedia, in particular to the canti whose protagonists are Dante in his capacity as auctor and dramatis persona (If I e II), Francesca love heroin (If. V) and Ulisse the hero of adventures (If. XXVI), all characters which will play a fundamental role also in the Introduzione to the Prima Giornata.

Ghismonda e Beatrice. Il cuore mangiato e l’idea dell’amore tra Boccaccio e la Vita Nuova
Filippo Petricca

Ghismonda e Beatrice. Il cuore mangiato e l’idea dell’amore tra Boccaccio e la Vita Nuova
The traditional folk motif of the “eaten heart”, included in the vida of Guillem de Cabestanh, links the first sonnet of Dante’s Vita Nuova, A ciascun’alma presa e gentil core, to two tales from Decameron Day IV (IV, 9 and IV, 1). A significant new version of the theme occurs in the tale of Tancredi and Ghismonda, an exposition of Boccaccio’s theory of love, that marks a new beginning after the author’s intervention. Starting from an analysis of the vision in Dante’s libello, the essay focuses on the relevance of the novella and shows its intertextual relations with the Vita Nuova.

Dante «passionato» secondo Boccaccio
Roberto Rea

Dante «passionato» secondo Boccaccio
The essay aims to examine Boccaccio’s interpretation of the famous and controversial feeling of pity shown by Dante-character in the Inferno. Boccaccio, moving from a biographical reading of the poem, develops a consistent and original interpretation of Dante’s pity, which is based on the recognition of the ethical dimension of passions within Dante’s path of redemption.

Boccaccio e la letteratura religiosa: la Prima e la Seconda Giornata del Decameron
Ilaria Tufano

Boccaccio e la letteratura religiosa: la Prima e la Seconda Giornata del Decameron
It has already been demonstrated that the first three tales from the First Day have close ties to religious literature and serve either a comic or a parodic purpose. The tales from the Second Day, though heavily influenced by Romance literature, also owe much to religious writings. In fact, the two initial tales strongly influence the later tales of that day in their mostly but not exclusively parodic use of the stories of the lives of the saints.

Passione negata, redenta, riscritta. Boccaccio e le emozioni di Didone
Valentina Atturo

Passione negata, redenta, riscritta. Boccaccio e le emozioni di Didone
The paper analyses the figure of Dido in Boccaccio’s works, paying special attention to the character’s emotional embodiment. With regards to the double-tradition concerning Elissa/Dido in the West and in the romance literatures, Boccaccio makes new choices. The repression of feminine emotions (as represented in fabula) and the defence of rational historia are an instrument for the author’s self-expression.

Da cappa a cappa. L’autodistruzione di frate Alberto (//Decameron//, IV 2)
Alfonso D’Agostino

Da cappa a cappa. L’autodistruzione di frate Alberto (Decameron, IV 2)
In his reading of the novel of Frate Alberto (Decameron, IV 2) the author tries to show the extent to which it constitutes a parody of the Annunciation and of the narrations that belong to its tradition. He also discusses the relationship in the Decameron between courtly culture and contemporary society and the structure of the novella, highlighting its intertextual links with other sections of the collection, and looking at time and space coordinates as well as at other artistic elements to furnish a new interpretative keys to the text.

«Quell’antica pazzia» di Alessandro e i «passaggi» di Olimpiade. Dal //De casibus// e //De mulieribus alle Genealogie//
Roberta Morosini

«Quell’antica pazzia» di Alessandro e i «passaggi» di Olimpiade. Dal De casibus e De mulieribus alle Genealogie
Fourteen-century Italian writers enjoyed the tales about the fantastic Alexander: his journey to heaven and to the abyss of the sea, as well as his voyages in India. Other Italian writers, like Petrarch, used Alexander to build the political myth of Alexander- Rome. None of these approaches applies to Boccaccio and his tales of Alexander. since his poetics is against any form of fanciful and implausible narration. A study of Alexander’s presence in Boccaccio’s works contributes to prove his commitment to narrate with “utilitas” a usefulness for the civic community, free of any moralistic judgment. From Boccaccio’s De casibus and De mulieribus a unique portrait of Alexander emerges through the space given to his mother Olympias. Why is Olympias so present in Boccaccio’s works? The article intends to show that through Olympias, Boccaccio shows the tragic consequences of Alexander’s «antica pazzia» (‘an ancient madness’, Genealogie, XIII lxxi, 1): the desire of fame by affiliation with the gods instead of earning it with virtuous deeds.

Boccaccio e l’immagine mimetica
Marco Ruffini

Boccaccio e l’immagine mimetica
Boccaccio’s interest in the visual arts – evident at the level of the content in the Decameron, due to a presence of artists and artworks unprecedented in literature – is in the first place connected to the literary experimentalism of the author on the form of the novella, the narrative unit of the book. This clearly emerges from a comparative analysis between the novella of Giotto and Forese (VI, 7), where Boccaccio explains to the reader the nature and functioning of the images painted by Giotto, and the novella of Lidia, Pirro, and Nicostrato, a short-story that does not deal with artists and artworks but dedicated to the experience of seeing.

Il discorso dell’auctor nella //Elegia di Madonna Fiammetta//
Maria Serena Sapegno

Il discorso dell’auctor nella Elegia di Madonna Fiammetta
The Elegia di Madonna Fiammetta is an extraordinary first example in vernacular of the constitution of a female authorial voice: for this purpose Boccaccio adopts a complex strategy in the use of sources and a dense network of metaliterary considerations that make it a small “manifesto”.

Il Decameron e i primi traduttori cinesi
Jingjing Li

Il Decameron e i primi traduttori cinesi The Decameron, which today enjoys a great fame in nowadays China, has a dozen different translations. The essay aims to study the first four, chronologically close in terms of the dates of publication, comparing their similarities and differences, analyzing the nuances of attitude assumed by the four translators, to understand their interpretations of this masterpiece when it appears in the world of Chinese literary.

Boccaccio en el //Cancionero General//: de la //Amorosa visione// a la //Visión deletable//
Marcial Rubio Árquez

Boccaccio en el Cancionero General: de la Amorosa visione a la Visión deletable Although the influence of Boccaccio is well known in the Spanish medieval and Renaissance literature, never before has been detected no trace of his Amorosa visione in it, probably because the work had not even been translated to Spanish. In the following pages, however, we will try to determine how the work of the Certaldese writer, through a series of works related to the Castilian literature composed in Naples, could have a direct influence on the composition of the second edition of the Cancionero General (Valencia, 1514): Obra de un caballero, llamada Visión deletable (Mi dolor jamás cansado).