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Home , Corbaccio, De mulieribus claris, Giovanni Boccaccio, Incunable, Teseida, The Decameron

Locating Boccaccio in 2013

Locating Boccaccio in 2013 11 July to 20 December 2013 Mon 12.00 – 5.00 Tue – Sat 10.00 – 5.00 Sun 12.00 – 5.00

The John Rylands The University of

150 Deansgate, Manchester, M3 3EH Designed by Epigram 0161 237 9660

1 2 Contents

Locating Boccaccio in 2013 2

The Life of (1313-1375) 3

Tales through Time 4

Boccaccio and Women 6

Boccaccio as Mediator 8

Transmissions and Transformations 10

Innovations in Print 12

Censorship and Erotica 14

Aesthetics of the Historic 16

Boccaccio in Manchester 18

Boccaccio and the Artists’ Book 20

Further and Resources 28

Acknowledgements 29

1 Locating Boccaccio Te Life of Giovanni in 2013 Boccaccio (1313-1375)

2013 is the 700th anniversary of Boccaccio’s twenty-first century? His status as one of the Giovanni Boccaccio was born in 1313, either Author portrait, birth, and this occasion offers us the tre corone (three crowns) of Italian medieval in or nearby , the son of Decameron (: 1546), opportunity not only to commemorate this , alongside Dante and is a merchant who worked for the famous fol. *3v great author and his works, but also to reflect unchallenged, yet he is often perceived as Bardi company. In 1327 the young Boccaccio upon his legacy and meanings today. The the lesser figure of the three. Rather than moved to to join his father who exhibition forms part of a series of events simply defining Boccaccio in automatic was posted there. As a trainee merchant around the world celebrating Boccaccio in relation to the other great men in his life, Boccaccio learnt the basic skills of arithmetic 2013 and is accompanied by an international then, we seek to re-present him as a central and accounting before commencing training conference held at the historic Manchester figure in the classical revival, and innovator as a canon . On gaining access to the Town Hall, from 10-12 July 2013. in the of literary prose. In this way, court of King Robert of Anjou, Boccaccio met we affirm his achievements and innovations a host of learned scholars who shared his But where is Boccaccio in 2013? Who is in their own right. His intellectual interest interest in the and from then on he now, and what is his significance in the in gendered discourse, and the proliferation dedicated himself to the study of literature of female characters and gendered themes, and poetry, both classical and chivalric. has no doubt contributed to his cultural downgrading, and his personification His earliest works date from this Neapolitan the Life of Dante and began two of his as a ‘ladies’ man’, or even as the author period and include the Caccia di Diana (1334), Latin encyclopedic works, the Genealogia of medieval chick lit. While it would be Filostrato (1335) and Filocolo (1338), and deorum gentilium and the De casibus virorum historically anachronistic to understand demonstrate Boccaccio’s interest in combining illustrium. Between 1360-65 Boccaccio Pallas Athena, Boccaccio as a feminist, we nonetheless see a wide range of literary sources from French withdrew from political life on the exile of this attention to gender as one of his great romance to Latin and Italian poetic and his friends, including Pino de’ Rossi to whom (, 1473), fol. 8v strengths, and a signifier of his continuing historical works. Between 1341-48, on he penned a famous letter of consolation. relevance on this 700th anniversary. returning to Florence, he continued to write In 1361 he began the De mulieribus claris poetic and prose works such as the , and in 1365 wrote the misogynist tale Our exhibition locates Boccaccio and his , Comedia delle Ninfe and . Boccaccio’s interests as a scholar works in different times, languages and the Elegia di madonna Fiammetta before and writer are clearly reflected in his places, from the fourteenth century to the commencing work on in autograph notebooks, the so-called zibaldoni, present day, in , print, and beyond. 1348, the year of the . into which he copied classical and romance Every one of his works is represented in material. In 1373 he began a series of some form in the exhibition, and we are In the 1350 and 1360s Boccaccio was an public lectures in Florence on Dante’s Divine able to showcase the amazing variety of active civic office holder and communal , which remained incomplete on his forms his works have taken, using the diplomat, sent on important political and death in December 1375. remarkable resources of the Rylands. His cultural missions to popes and emperors, enduring ability to inspire is demonstrated and he twice visited Petrarch in and Boccaccio’s legacy as literary innovator, in the rich range of artists’ . During this period he completed polymath, and transformational cultural commissioned for this anniversary. the Decameron, wrote his first version of mediator lives on!

2 3 Tales Trough Time

Boccaccio’s works were transmitted to very soon after his death, and the first French of the Decameron was made by Laurent de Premierfait (who also translated the De casibus) around 1414. A new French translation was made by Antoine Le Maçon in the 1540s, and published as a sumptuous with rich paratextual framework and illustrations. It was also printed in German, Spanish, and Dutch translation in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The first full English translation did not appear until 1620, and incorporated French into its design to signal the best of continental practices. It has been translated into many more languages since, and a selection of stories were translated into Welsh by the former Serena Professor of Italian at the University of Manchester, T. Gwynfor Griffith (1951).

From the advent of print onwards, editions of the Decameron have proliferated in Leonardo Bruni’s Latin translation of Dec. IV, 1: De duobus amantibus (, 1470) many different formats designed for different readerships, ranging in size from small pocket editions to larger prestige Boccaccio’s masterpiece, the Decameron, volumes. But whether the text appears as a Contes et nouvelles (Amsterdam, 1697) is a of 100 tales, told by a group prestige publication made for royal readers, of young noble men and women over ten or as a cheap post-war , as a days. Enormously popular since its first tiny sixteenth-century pocket or a publication in the fourteenth century, heritage book club edition, the enduring it has been remade and reimagined for ingenuity and insight of these stories many different readerships. continue to resonate across time and space.

4 5 Boccaccio and Women

Boccaccio is pioneering in his location of The widow in Day VIII, story 7 of the Decameron women within new and experimental literary is treated to a vicious series of punishments, forms, creating a collection of biographies including being left naked under the searing of famous women (De mulieribus claris/ Tuscan sun and at the mercy of gadflies for an On Famous Women) to complement the entire day, because she dared to trick a scholar. biographies of famous men composed from The Corbaccio is an amplification of this theme, antiquity onwards. Such was the success of wherein the narrator takes his revenge on Women have always been associated with this work that it sparked a new tradition of the widow who mistreated him by enjoying a Boccaccio. Female characters appear in defending women within , and was also dream-vision in which her dead husband makes various guises in almost all of his works. In rapidly diffused across in both Latin one of the most virulent antifeminist speeches his very first fiction in Italian, the Caccia di and lavishly illustrated translated editions. in . Diana (Diana’s Hunt), Boccaccio features mythological women, and also celebrates Although Boccaccio has been championed The multiplicity of Boccaccio’s representations the sixty most beautiful women in the city as a lover of women, his works also contain of women reflects the range of different of Florence. Women also have strong voices several less than complimentary portraits possible interpretations of his texts. The and speak for themselves. In the Decameron drawn from the misogynist tradition. contradictory and often ironic nature of his the decision to leave plague-ridden Florence De mulieribus claris includes examples of narrators’ attitudes has created an ongoing and escape to the countryside to tell stories female wantonness and cruelty, and moralizing discussion over Boccaccio’s position on the is taken by a woman, one of seven female outbursts on virtues such as female chastity. scale from antifeminism to protofeminism. and only three male storytellers. The stories themselves include many feisty women from all social classes who stand up for themselves with eloquence and wit.

Like Dante and Petrarch with their female muses, Beatrice and Laura respectively, Boccaccio has his own muse, most commonly named ‘Fiammetta’ (little flame). Fiammetta appears in various guises throughout his works, as a character in the Decameron, a dedicatee in the Teseida, and most significantly as the protagonist and narrator of her own extended Printed marginal lament (the Elegia di Madonna Fiammetta/ decoration showing Elegy of Madonna Fiammetta), in which she Adam and Eve, De mulieribus claris describes at great length the manner in which (Ulm, 1473), fol. 3v she was abandoned by her lover. vignette, Amorous Fiammetta (, 1929)

6 7 Boccaccio as Mediator

Boccaccio occupies a central role as one of Significantly, Boccaccio also mediated his own the key mediators between medieval and works, constantly , rewriting, glossing classical learning and literature. He functions and copying his texts in addition to collecting as a go-between in the same way as Prince together texts and excerpts by classical and Galahalt, after whom Boccaccio subtitled the medieval authors in notebooks (zibaldoni) Decameron, on account of Galahalt’s role in and forming his own collection of books bringing together and . that he lent to fellow scholars. Yet in addition to writing works which purported to bring lovers together, Boccaccio’s activity as author saw him assuming the roles of compiler, commentator, copyist and scribe. His sponsorship of the revived interest in classical learning, his fusion of medieval chivalric writing with civic orientated prose forms; his use of numerous literary registers from the encyclopaedic Latin works to poetry in and his sponsorship of Greek and the first of into Latin all testify to his status as one of the most important cultural brokers and innovators of the late medieval period. In addition he was central to the critical reception and status afforded to both Dante and Petrarch. He wrote biographies of both authors early in his career, his Life of Petrarch in 1342 and his Life of Dante in 1351. Towards the end of his life he returned to Dante, producing a partial commentary on the that he gave as public lectures in Florence in the late . His status as correspondent and friend of Petrarch (often held to be the founding figure of Renaissance ) has recently been re-evaluated, moving Boccaccio out of Boccaccio’s Life of Dante, in Dante’s Commedia the shadow of his self-proclaimed master. (Venice, 1477), fol. 1r De mulieribus claris (, 1541), fol. A6v

8 9 Transmissions and Transformations

John Lydgate’s a ready audience and the Decameron was Fall of Princes translated into French in 1414, by Laurent (English version of the De de Premierfait working from an earlier Latin casibus), English translation of the text, into Catalan in 1429 MS 2, fol. 1r and German in 1473.

Boccaccio’s Latin works also spread quickly across the continent. The De mulieribus claris was translated into French and English and reproduced in both manuscript and early printed form. His De casibus virorum illustrium was translated into Castilian by the statesman and scholar Pedro López de Ayala (1332- 1407) the Grand Chancellor of Castile under King Henry III, testifying to the close links between the trading centres of Florence and Castile in the late medieval period.

Fall of Princes (London, 1494) The Parisian edition of Boccaccio’s Geneaology of the Gentile Gods on display here was produced by a German printer Boccaccio’s works enjoyed almost and French bookseller and was dedicated to instantaneous success and spread rapidly another German printer, Gottfried Hittorp, throughout Europe. During Boccaccio’s by a Dutch scholar Joannes Kierherus. This own lifetime Petrarch translated the tale of illustrates perfectly how the network of Patient (Day X, story 10) into Latin. printers, booksellers, editors, and scholars was He was followed by the famous humanist a truly European-wide enterprise by the early Chancellor of Florence, Leonardo Bruni, in sixteenth century. the early fifteenth-century, who wrote a Latin adaptation of the tale of Ghismonda Boccaccio’s texts continue to be rendered and Guiscardo (Day IV, story 1). The tradition in new fictive, cinematic and digital forms, of publishing and adapting individual tales from Pasolini’s film version of the Decameron from the Decameron still endures. In France, (1971) to the ongoing Boccaccio’s stories of chivalry and love found Decameron Web project.

10 11 Innovations in Print

The German goldsmith Johann Gutenberg newly established print shops that were As print contributed to a rise is usually credited with being the first cropping up across Italy. The first edition in the numbers of books in in Western Europe to print books using of the Decameron was probably printed in circulation in early modern Italy, moveable metal type. His invention quickly Naples around 1470, but Venice very quickly marketing became increasingly spread from into Italy, where established itself as the main centre for important. Information about printed books appeared as early as the the printing industry in early modern Italy printers and authors which 1460s. Boccaccio’s works were among some and the vast majority of sixteenth-century had been found at the end of of the first vernacular texts to appear using editions of the Decameron were produced by the book, moved to the front, the new technology, often selected as one print shops based in Venice. creating the title-page, which in of the first texts to be printed by the many turn developed over the sixteenth Printing houses often stayed within the century to become ever more control of the same family, who might print elaborate and persuasive. Over a whole series of works by the same author, time, the size of printed books sometimes producing several revised editions decreased as printers found new of the same work if it proved profitable. In ways of formatting the page the mid-1550s, the Venetian printer Gabriele with smaller, italic , and Giolito brought out multiple editions of the readers required books which Decameron in the same year, with each were lighter and more portable. edition shaped to suit different readers Many fifteenth-century editions through the inclusion of various supporting of Boccaccio’s works could only notes. Nearly two centuries after Boccaccio’s have been read comfortably at a death, readers were offered supplementary desk or lectern, but by the middle information about the author, often in the of the sixteenth century an avid form of portraits and biographies, as well reader of the Decameron could as guidance on how to write in Italian like a slip a copy into his or her pocket fourteenth-century Tuscan author, including and read it while out walking. lists of vocabulary used by Boccaccio. Filocolo (Venice, 1520) Developments in the provision of supplementary material (such as word lists), together with the physical form of the book (for example, its size and page design), tell us much about the ways in which print technologies change across time, as well as with Aldine anchor, Decameron about the ways in which books reflect the (Venice, 1522), fol. 1r expectations and habits of their readers. Gauffered edge, Roxburghe Decameron (Venice, 1471)

12 13 Censorship and Erotica

Boccaccio’s Decameron is one of the great references to the Church and clerics, and banned books of all time. Framed as a text even changing the endings of stories so that designed to give comfort and consolation the adulterous were married (or punished). to lovers, it has been both celebrated Other national traditions went in the and censured for its erotic content over opposite tradition. In French translations, the centuries. Illustrated editions have the blasphemous phrasing might be edited, often foregrounded this, from the Venice but the sexual content was often amplified 1492 edition, via the nineteenth-century by the inclusion of suggestive plates. ‘gentleman’s edition’, to the exuberantly Meanwhile, in English, the most notorious vulgar images of the 1930s Illustrated tales were censored either by total omission, Editions series and beyond. While the text or by the retention of the Italian text, until has acquired a notorious reputation, 1886; even then, their circulation was censorship has been concentrated on controlled by only being available in hugely those which were originally expensive editions which were limited to considered blasphemous for their sexual subscribers. These English editions often explicitness in the clerical context (e.g. Day themselves recycled French illustrations III, story 10; Day IX, 10). Over time, the to promote notions of exotic continental blasphemous connotations have been lost, sexual license. to be replaced by a general perception of The first freely available uncensored English sexual libertinage. translation was not published until 1930, Attitudes to censorship differ in different in an American edition. Even after this times and places: the woodcuts in the date, the British Everyman edition kept the controversial passages of Day III, story 10 first illustrated edition of the Decameron in Italian until the second half of the (Venice, 1492) focused their attention on of Day 5, story 4, Decameron (Venice, 1492) twentieth century. the sexual content of many of the tales, setting a precedent for generations of Boccaccio’s text enjoyed a flurry of popularity editions to come. In the sixteenth century in the 1920s and 1930s as an example of the Decameron was placed on the Index of ‘gallant erotica’. Even in the late twentieth Prohibited Books, and tales were censored century, the Decameron was still being for their blasphemous sexual content. marketed as ‘Classic Erotica’, and the sexual A variety of techniques were used to censor connotations of this text still endure in the tales: the Florentine editor Lionardo popular culture, as seen in the 2007 film Salviati changed the wording and signalled Decameron Pie (marketed as Virgin Territory omissions with asterisks, also removing in the UK and USA).

14 15 Aesthetics of the Historic Book

Boccaccio’s status as one of the great A more visual historicizing strategy can be medieval authors, combined with the visual seen in the work of the illustrator Byam Shaw, possibilities of his works, has meant that his who foregrounds the narrative possibilities of works have been republished many times by the frame in the 1899 Tales from Boccaccio. prestige printing houses and private presses. The richly illustrated frame on the title page These editions deploy a variety of strategies to of the 1520 Filocolo (see page 13 for image) allude to historic early printed editions in their shows a similar strategy with the double portrait design, for example in their and of the two lovers at the top of the page. , in the reuse of woodcuts from specific editions, or by illustrations playing on the medievalized aesthetic.

Byam’s Shaw’s frontispiece to Tales from Boccaccio (London, 1899)

Different editions express these relationships academic enterprise which combines scholarly in different ways. The 1913 parallel- accuracy with the highest production values text English retranslation of Boccaccio’s and historic aesthetic. Buccolicum carmen, translated from the Latin Rarity is often a prized quality for bibliophiles, by Professor Israel Gollancz, is an elegant as exemplified by the 1946 Roxburghe Club fine-press edition which draws explicitly on edition, the only modern edition of the first the typography of the incunable book. This English translation of the Ninfale fiesolano book was published for the 600th anniversary which survives in a single copy held in the Table of contents, ‘Roxburghe Decameron’ of Boccaccio’s birth, and is an explicitly Front cover binding, French translation of the (Venice, 1471) library of Worcester College, . Decameron (, 1545)

16 17 Boccaccio in Manchester

Manuscript, Manufacture, Manchester. reception in the merchant cities of northern Hand-written Victorian Manchester provided a welcoming , especially Manchester. It was the annotations in the first printed edition home for the works of Boccaccio as it invention of mechanical printing in the 1450s of the Decameron often compared itself with late medieval that led to the manufacture of books on a (Naples, c. 1470) and Renaissance Florence. Both cities were large scale and the more widespread diffusion mercantile centres with trading networks that of texts across the world. Fittingly, the John spread across the world. Both cities sought to Rylands Library houses one of the largest invest their wealth in civic building, education, collections of Boccaccio’s printed works from and cultured patronage. As a proud Florentine, the Renaissance to the modern day as many Boccaccio was a member of the city’s council, of the Italian collections made by merchants held numerous other civic offices, sat on the and scholars of the city contained editions management committee of local charitable of his . The study of the literary and organizations, represented his city’s interests on material forms of his works has continued to numerous diplomatic missions and was a major be an object of study by Manchester-based figure in the city’s cultural life. researchers to this day, from translations of his works into Welsh to the study of Boccaccio’s Boccaccio’s writings reflect this civic reception in English. engagement and account for his ready

Three Rylands Boccaccios

18 19 Boccaccio and the Artists’ Book

Boccaccio continues to be read across the world and to evoke responses seven hundred years exceptions, the female characters depicted after his birth. In order to commemorate his anniversary and explore the ways in which his Artist: Steve Dales (UK) are all based on figures taken from the works works speak to new audiences we invited an international group of artists to create new Title: Untitled altarpiece of Pietro and his brother Ambrogio. Reading books about Boccaccio. The parameters of the project were left deliberately open and artists from left to right the inspirational women are: were invited to make a book in response to Boccaccio himself or to any of his texts. The short Medium/technique(s): Mahogany, walnut, (top register) Sophie Scholl, Alice Axford, Gail catalogue which follows documents the enduring appeal of a fourteenth-century author as well brass, egg tempera on Bristol board, gold Young, Mma Diapo; (central register) Ellen as showcasing the dynamic form of the artists’ book in the twenty-first century. paint, artificial gold leaf, gold leaf, Zerkall and Wilkinson, Maya Angelou, Laura Allen, Myrtle Somerset papers Yeoman; (bottom register) Pitstop, Edition size: 1 Camila Batmangelidjh, Florence Easton, Eva meeting for their annual reunion, decide that Watson. The central figure of Humility is now Artist: Mike Clements (UK) they will all take time off to walk the Camino Artist Statement: This book takes inspiration transformed into by virtue of an owl Title: From Pyrenees to Santiago – in the de Santiago from the French Pyrenees and from Boccaccio’s De mulieribus claris. (in place of a donor) with a hint of Rosie the Steps of Matamoros through northern . Alas, one of their Although quickly overtaken by other ideas, riveter by virtue of a spotted headscarf. She number is denied time off by his boss. As an initial stimulus was the set of engravings holds a copy of the book she now protects. Medium/technique(s): Ten postcards on they begin their journey, the ten others agree in the Matthias Apiarius edition of 1537. An Simili Japon 225gsm card, fan binding with that each of them will tell a story about the embossed image of Eve, derived from an The work displays many imperfections, which pockets for postcards from mi-teintes Camino and then send it on a postcard to engraving in the Apiarius version, decorates seem to lend it a certain character and appear 160gsm paper, cloth hard covers console their missing friend. The linking text, the cover of this book. not to distract from the overall effect. Thanks in ten instalments, is written by the left- to Ray Gill and Richard Chippington for their Edition size: 1 Twelve women were asked to provide the behind friend, who, coincidentally, has the help and support. name of an inspirational woman, an image Artist Statement: A with ten same name as the maker of this artist’s book. instalments: a group of university friends, and some information on the reason for their choice. No limitation was placed on choices and so, as with Boccaccio, choosers could select contemporary, historical or imaginary figures either famous or not. Their extremely interesting and varied responses are reproduced verbatim in the small white book, which sits inside the altarpiece and provided the inspiration for the images of the altarpiece.

Untitled altarpiece is based on the St. Humilitas polyptych, which is the work of trecento painter Pietro Lorenzetti (roughly contemporary with Boccacccio). With two

20 21 Artist Statement: Giovanni Boccaccio to the man she was supposed to marry – Artist: Jeremy Dixon, Hazard Press (UK) wrote De mulieribus claris (On Famous Artist: Glynnis Fawkes (US) these all constitute a happy ending in the Title: Book for Boccaccio Women) between 1361 and 1362. It was Title: Alatiel: The Seventh Tale on the logic of the story. Alatiel’s tale resonates probably the first biography of women Second Day with me especially as a (once) young woman Medium/technique(s): The book is ink-jet ever written. The women whose life stories traveling through the same Mediterranean printed and is produced from six sheets of Medium/technique(s): Gouache on paper are immortalized in this text were not only countries today. folded A5 paper, plus cover inserts, and famous through or deed, but also Edition size: 1 bound together with Japanese stitching. infamous and even notorious. Although Artist Statement: This particular story I Edition size: 100 the biography seems to be dominated Artist: Shirley Greer (Canada) by goddesses, queens, empresses and chose initially because it is one of the few in Artist Statement: The book celebrates the Title: Decameron incipits virgins, there are also soldiers, politicians, the Decameron that mentions the island of legacy of Boccaccio and looks at what his , where I spent nearly four years, and scholars, artists, poets, and inventors Medium/technique(s): Leather, name and work means to people today. The have published two books. A good friend in among their number. Regardless of thread, Somerset Satin paper, screen-printed images have been sourced from the internet Cyprus (an artist herself and bookshop owner) Boccaccio’s fourteenth-century moral stance text and imagery and the headings text-mined from the (particularly on virginity and chastity) and told me about this Boccaccio festival and Decameron as translated by Richard Aldington. Edition size: 3 his views on femininity (strong women are exhibition of artists’ books, and pointed me The chapter text was generated by the to this tale, which is partially set in the city of more like men) the range of positive and Artist Statement: I am an artist and part- Facebook group Modern and Contemporary . The tale of Alatiel was immediately negative human qualities that are attributed time University Professor, and I work primarily American Poetry (Coursera ModPo). captivating in its Mediterranean settings to these women offers us a surprisingly in the fields of book arts and printmaking. I and the tension between Boccaccio’s light- three-dimensional representation. This work live in a rural setting on the west coast of the hearted attitude toward her adventures and presents the biography as a condensed Island of Newfoundland, which is situated on Artist: Sue Doggett (UK) the actuality of repeated rape and murder. sequence of characteristics not only the east coast of Canada. Title: Doves and Firebrands to highlight the scope of the women’s It resonates with the story of . My artist’s book is in response to the call for experience and achievements, but also to Both are supremely beautiful women who Medium/technique(s): Digital print submissions for the Locating Boccaccio in emphasize their gender. The biography was travel eastward across the sea leaving a wake concertina with folded cover. Edges hand- 2013 conference. I drew inspiration from the an acknowledgement of the possibility, from of smitten and dead men. There are even coloured and polished. Decameron texts, and from the experiences Boccaccio at least, that they might have alternative ancient accounts that Helen went of my own travels in Italy. I chose a traditional Edition size: 5 made a difference. both to Cyprus and Egypt before Troy. Alatiel’s adventure, though covering similar territory book format to house the text and images, and themes, is several thousand years after both of which were screenprinted at Helen’s, and is set on ‘repeat’: she encounters Memorial University of Newfoundland’s one man after the other who falls for her Grenfell Campus printshop. and kills his predecessor. But no ordinary men Using re-purposed leather for the cover, – only the best-looking of the and “Incipits” is bound with a longstitch binding, royalty of such places as Majorca, the Morea, and is a variation of limp binding from a 1531 , Constantinople, and . This fact, account book owned by Jesper Kappenberg together with such comments as “Eventually, (see Bookbinding: Limp bindings from Tallin, however, she responded to Constantine’s Langwe Form, 2008, p. 16). efforts at consoling her, and began, as on previous occasions, to derive pleasure from “Incipit” refers both to the opening words the fate that fortune has consigned her”, of a medieval manuscript, as well as to the bring to mind a holiday party cruise as default file name given to untitled documents documented by a medieval Hello! magazine. in some word processing programs. In this Alatiel’s reunion with her father, the clever way the ancient text is linked to modern lie that she is still a virgin that saves her technology, my way of ‘locating Boccaccio from shame, and her eventual marriage in 2013’. My book presents an index of first

22 23 lines from Boccaccio’s Decameron, arranged found poetry can be discovered anywhere; abandoned and instead the five ‘spreads’ Brotherton Library University of Leeds, the not in alphabetical order, but in chapter and on street signs, overheard conversation, prose open as a continuous ‘pull-out’ accordion. Main Library University of Manchester and my story sequence. The Incipits are from each of or newspaper articles. This form was used own shelves. The first page is taken from the The theme is the story 4 from the second the ten stories told on each of the ten days, by surrealist and dada writers in the early first book, the second from the next and so day of the Decameron: Landolfo Ruffolo, a and reading them allows the viewer/reader 20th century and in the 21st century by the on until the end of the first day. merchant from Ravello sets sails for Cyprus to create their own endings, to read the texts modern experimental Eco poets. but is captured by pirates. Their ship sinks in a as poetry, or to otherwise respond to and storm. Landolfo clings to a chest and is carries engage with the text. Artist: James Reid-Cunningham, Hematite to where a compassionate woman Artist: Paul Johnson (UK) Press (US) rescues him. She bathes him and this restores Title: Landolfo Ruffolo his health. Landolfo makes his way back Title: Grievous Trouble and Annoy home and examines the precious stones in the Medium/technique(s): Unique accordion Medium/technique(s): Printed with an chest – now contained in a sack. He shows his pop-up book with sculptural spine. Epson Photo R-1800 inkjet printer using Industrial textile dyes on Saunders Waterford gratitude to the woman of Corfu by sending pigment inks on Chartham Translucent paper watercolour paper with pen work and gold her a generous sum of money. and Moab Lasal Matte 235 paper. Each copy inlays. There are no folds in the pop-up Ships at sea, pirates, storms, shipwrecks and has a unique binding. construction. All sections are joined with rescues are the stuff of good adventure yarns Edition size: 10 dovetail joints. so I reduced the text to five pop-ups that I Artist Statement: The tale is an extremely Edition size: 1 thought would make good illustrations. condensed version of a single tale from John Artist Statement: The sculptural cover of All the structural parts of the pop-up units Payne’s 1886 translation of the Decameron. are joined with dovetails joints and slotted Artist: Heather Hunter (UK) the book represents the rustic landscape of I have spent more than thirty years creating where seven young women and three units. As there are no folds and so no tension books, as a book conservator, design binder Title: Famous Proba – found (2013) young men escaping the plague in Florence or spring action as with conventional folded and book artist. As time passes, I am less structures the pages stay open. Another Medium/technique(s): Patchwork style tell stories – Boccaccio’s Decameron. and less clear of my intentions when creating advantage is that there is no ‘paper fatigue’ a new book. Each book is an enigma, an collaged pages using hand and digital prints. My original plan was for the book to be a caused by constant opening and closing of abstract design, an evocative object to be Bound using ‘designating duet’ method from carousel in five cyclical parts but this was ‘Woven and Interlocking Book Structures’ pages. The whole pop-up book can be taken handled and examined by readers as they to pieces and new sections replaced or added. explore myriad cryptic meanings leaf by leaf. Edition size: 1 Artist Statement: My found poem (a cento) has been taken from a word pool collected Artist: John McDowall (UK) from On Famous Woman by Giovanni Title: Giornata prima Boccaccio, translated, with an introduction and notes by Guido A. Guarino, Chapter XCV, Medium/technique(s): Digital printed on p. 218 : Faltonia Betitia Proba. Found poetry Italian Magnani 120gsm mould made book is not a modern phenomenon. The cento, a ‘velata avorio’ paper. Case-bound with cloth- form of found poetry, was first developed in covered boards. Ancient Greece when poets started stitching Edition size: Open together their own poems entirely from lines or verses taken from Homer. The name came Artist Statement: From page to page and from the Latin word cento ‘Cloak made of book to book, a reflection of story following patches’ (hence the shape of the book) or story from teller to listener/reader over time the Greek word kentron meaning ‘to graft from one version to the next. One page in trees’. Proba in 360AD created her cento that sequence is reproduced from each of the Boccaccio so admired. Words for 20th-century editions of the Decameron as found in the

24 25 I aim to challenge their initial perception of Edition size: 1 I enjoyed playing with combined archaic Artist: Carolyn Thompson (UK) the work, whilst divulging its layers slowly. and modern references in the way that Artist Statement: Caccia di Diana (Diana’s My intention is to question assumed truths. Boccaccio probably did; the style of Title: The Eaten Heart Hunt), was Boccaccio’s first book written the titling is suggestive of archive and Learning new skills and techniques has around 1333-34 when he was about 20 Medium/technique(s): The Eaten Heart museum practice. is an adaptation of the Penguin Great become an integral and necessary aspect of years old. It is quite playful and related Loves version of Giovanni Boccaccio’s The my practice. I hope to create works in which to stories by ; I was attracted by the The last image uses early anatomy diagrams Eaten Heart: Unlikely Tales of Love. Text it is obvious time, skill and endeavour have mysterious figure of the stag, who, unlike as the two main characters reveal themselves has been removed from every page with been employed in the production. The result Actaeon, survives, and his ‘lady’, not named intimately to each other in all their corporeal the use of a scalpel, leaving only words is a hybrid that lies somewhere between but probably ‘Fiammetta’, little flame. The glory – ‘this is what I am made of’, compared that could pertain to the body, or body conceptual art and more traditional craft, plot is thus: the narrator sees the goddess to the mythical and spiritual characters they parts. By removing these words from their encompassing the ideas of one and the skills Diana bathing and sends her nymphs out are mixed up with in the story. I love the context and grouping them together, of the other. to the four quarters of the world to hunt questing to-ing and fro-ing between material their significance changes dramatically, roebuck, boar, lion and unicorn. Then a posse and spiritual in the art and literature of the thus exploring the abundant innuendo in of Neapolitan noblewomen rush in to hunt, medieval period. Boccaccio’s original text. crashing through the woods chasing and killing all manner of beasts including a family Artist: Horst Weierstall (Germany) I often use techniques historically associated of snakes. On the advice of a mysterious ‘fair with craft, in its many forms, to transform lady’ they pile their trophies on a sacrificial fire Title: Navigatio now and then an original object or text. Elements of dedicated to , from which they spring Medium/technique(s): Xeroxed text on weaving, quilting, sewing, papermaking, as transformed into beautiful young men, who transparent paper, string well as the cut and paste aspects of collage running through a river emerge mantled in are used formally, sculpturally and/or to vermillion. As a final twist the narrator, who Edition size: 1 illustrate a concept. we now learn was actually a stag all along, Artist Statement: The work is based on is similarly transformed and offered to the Edition size: 3 Boccaccio’s lovestory: Cymon and Iphigenia ‘fairest lady’. Artist Statement: My interest lies in (Decameron, Day 5, story 1). The text stands developing pre-existing narratives into new The subject matter fitted well with my other for complex social and human conditions, a adaptations that reference the original in work where a lot of grows out of personal love story, where passion and pride either content or form. I use found objects, the forest – the book is stored in its box which dominate within a context of early capitalism, images and printed matter (text, books, is like a wood with a stag and a snake. crisis and revelation. maps and diagrams) as source material, in order to evoke a sense of memory, history, nostalgia and humour. The resulting adaptations are new visual versions in the form of artist’s books, collages, drawings and installations that reflect, or work in contrast to, the stories, histories or language Artist: Carolyn Trant (UK) of the original ephemera, whilst responding to sculpture, drawing and architecture. Title: Caccia di Diana

Contrasting notions are prominent in Medium/technique(s): My book is made as my work – adaptation and the original, an accordion book with six card pages and narrative and form, truth and fiction. By cut and collaged papers, some hand-painted, presenting something that is part fact and and designed to be easily displayed open for part fabrication, and revealing just enough this exhibition. The covers are wood veneered of the original to engage a viewer’s interest, boards and it has a decorated slipcase.

26 27 Further Reading Acknowledgements

Guyda Armstrong, The English Boccaccio: Boccaccio and Feminist Criticism, ed. by This exhibition has been curated by Guyda A History in Books (Toronto: University of Thomas C. Stillinger and F. Regina Psaki Armstrong, Stephen Milner (both University Toronto Press, 2013) (Chapel Hill: Annali d’Italianistica, 2006) of Manchester) and Rhiannon Daniels (University of Bristol). The curators’ research , Boccaccio: The Man and his David Wallace, Boccaccio: Decameron and publications focus on the social and Works, trans. and ed. by R. Monges and (: Cambridge University Press, political context in which Boccaccio was D. J. McAuliffe (New York: New York 1991). working and the ways in which he has been University Press, 1976) The Decameron Web: read and imitated, inside and outside Italy. Rhiannon Daniels, Boccaccio and the Book: http://www.brown.edu/decameron We would like to thank the artists who made Production and Reading in Italy 1340-1520 books for the exhibition and Sarah Bodman (London: Legenda, 2009) (University of the West of England) for her Stephen J. Milner, ‘Coming Together: advice and encouragement. Consolation and the Rhetoric of Insinuation We gratefully acknowledge the support of in Bocacccio’s Decameron’, in The Erotics the Duke of Devonshire and Chatsworth of Consolation: Desire and Distance in the House Trust for the loan of the Henry VIII De , ed. by Catherine E. Léglu and Recommended translations mulieribus claris manuscript, the , Stephen J. Milner (New York & Basingstoke: and the private collectors who have loaned Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), pp. 95-113 The Decameron, trans. by G. H , Les nobles et cleres dames books. Financial support for the international (Paris, 1493), fol. B5r McWilliam (Harmondsworth: Penguin Brian Richardson, Printers, Writers, and conference ‘Locating Boccaccio in 2013’, Classics, 2003) Readers in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge: which was organized in collaboration with Cambridge University Press, 1999) The Decameron: A New English Version the exhibition, has been gratefully received by Cormac Ó Cuilleanáin, Based on from The , Modern James Simpson, ‘The Sacrifice of Lady ’s 1886 Translation Humanities Research Association, Society Rochford: Henry Parker, Lord Morley’s (Ware: Wordsworth Classics, 2004) for Italian Studies, Society for Renaissance Translation of De claris mulieribus’, in Studies, and Society for the Study of of English: Henry Parker, Lord The Decameron, trans. by J. G. Nichols Medieval Languages and . Morley, Translator to the Tudor Court. (London: Vintage Classics, 2012) New Essays in Interpretation, ed. by Minerva, Mantone and by Marie Axton and James Carley (London: Giovanni Boccaccio, Extracted from The British Library, 2000), pp. 153-69 his ‘De mulieribus claris’, ed. and with Janet Smarr, Boccaccio and Fiammetta: an intro. by Rhiannon Daniels and The Narrator as Lover (Urbana: University Guyda Armstrong of Illinois Press, 1986)

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