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Petrarch, Boccaccio, and the Space of Vernacular Literature Renzo Bragantini Petrarch, Boccaccio, and the Space of Vernacular Literature The subject matter entitling these pages has been broached innumerable times; therefore, one should not expect to gather from the present essay new findings of particular prominence. Rather, I will attempt to propose a more detailed reading – based wherever possible upon plausible motives and confirmed or well-established dates – of the instances in which Petrarch and Boccaccio discuss and confront the theme implied by the title above. A preliminary caveat is necessary here: most recently, the occasional reading has surfaced that presents Boccaccio as completely “petrarchized” so to speak; that is, made subordinate to the personality of his friend and teacher, to the point of voluntarily disrobing him of his own individual traits. The goal of this exercise, at first glance seemingly laudable, is to free the relationship between these two individuals from an overly pacific reading; however, a careful inspection of their texts, above all but not exclusively epistolary, suggests the need for further scru- tiny. Concerning this non-confrontational reading of the relationship between Petrarch and Boccaccio, Billanovich and Branca are traditionally identified as the primary representatives.1 The necessity to revisit that position has been declared most recently by Rico, who interprets the fellowship between the two authors from a very different perspective. Rico in fact relegates Boccaccio to an exclu- sively auxiliary role with regard to Petrarch; however, he shores up his argument with a limited and tendentious selection of texts, resulting in an interpretation that entirely ignores any intellectual rapport between the two, the importance of which should be abundantly clear.2 Given the authority of the critic and the prestige of the publisher, it is easy to see why this new and more casual path would attract proselytes, impatient with the tiresome work of fact-checking. In reality the dichotomy between an irenic and a conflictual reading, as indicated by Rico, cannot be presented in such absolute terms, if for no other reason than the Note: I would like to thank Monica Berté for reading this article and giving me useful bibliograph- ical suggestions. 1 See Giuseppe Billanovich: Petrarca letterato. I. Lo scrittoio del Petrarca. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura 1947, p. 59–294; Vittore Branca: G. Boccaccio. Profilo biografico. Florence: Sansoni 1977, p. 82–91. 2 Francisco Rico: Ritratti allo specchio (Boccaccio, Petrarca). Rome and Padua: Antenore 2012. Open access. © 2018 Renzo Bragantini, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 license. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110419306-016 314 Renzo Bragantini episodes that contradict this eternally rosy coexistence between the two person- alities are well known to all and have been thoroughly investigated for quite some time.3 A prime example is the letter of 18 July 1353, in which Boccaccio accuses Petrarch of grave ethical and political inconsistency for having chosen to relocate to Milan among the enemy Visconti (whom Petrarch himself previously opposed quite vehemently)4 – testimony, it must be said immediately, of which Rico makes only the most passing mention.5 Naturally, the motives at play in the letter are pri- marily political, but not exclusively so, as often people would like us to believe. Also under discussion, and quite markedly, is Petrarch’s moral consistency, as well as those very same principles constantly proclaimed in his intellectual activ- ity. Boccaccio writes, addressing Petrarch both with “you” and with his bucolic denomination of Silvanus: Non se solum labe hac sua Silvanus infecit, sed te me reliquosque, qui vitam, qui mores, qui cantus et calamos eius toto ore, totis viribus, apud quascunque silvas, apud quoscun- que pastores efferebamus, fedavit innocuos. Credisne quieturos hos ad quos venerit scelus hoc, quin in eum clamitent? imo iam clamitant et convitiis inhonestis veterem eius famam deturpant, falsam, fucatam, fictitio splendore coruscam dicentes […]. Hic solitudinum com- mendator egregius atque cultor, quid multitudine circumseptus aget? quid tam sublimi preconio liberam vitam atque paupertatem honestam extollere consuetus, iugo alieno subditus et inhonestis ornatus divitiis faciet? quid virtutum exortator clarissimus, vitiorum sectator effectus, decantabit ulterius? Ego nil aliud nosco quam erubescere et opus summ dampnare, et virgilianum illud aut coram aut secus cantare carmen: “Quid non mortalia pectora cogis / auri sacra fames?” [Not only himself, but you, me and all the other innocents did Silvanus infect with his dis- honorable act, whose life, traditions, whose song and pen we exalted with all our voice, with all our strength, in every wood, among all the shepherds. Do you truly believe that those who suffered this misdeed will endure it in silence instead of raising their voices? To the contrary: they already scream and sully his former reputation with dishonest insults, saying that it is false, constructed with a fictitious splendor […]. What will this egregious praiser and lover of solitude do, now surrounded with a flock? What will he who usually extols a life of freedom and honest poverty do, now that he submits himself to the foreign 3 See Billanovich: Petrarca letterato, p. 178–86; and Branca, G. Boccaccio. Profilo, p. 93–95. 4 On the choice of Petrarch see the well-researched Enrico Fenzi: Petrarca a Milano: tempi e modi di una scelta meditata. In: Giuseppe Frasso/ Maurizio Vitale et al. (eds.): Petrarca e la Lom- bardia. Atti del Convegno di Studi, Milano, 22–23 maggio 2003. Rome and Padua: Antenore 2005, p. 221–263; Fenzi rightly remembers how Nelli (see here further on) distances himself from Boc- caccio’s position, but the claim that the latter’s opinion is only a “harsh personal judgment of Petrarch” (p. 225) seems reductive. 5 One can find the letter in Giovanni Boccaccio: Epistole e lettere. Edited by Ginetta Auzzas/ Au- gusto Campana. In: Giovanni Boccaccio: Tutte le opere di G. Boccaccio. Edited by Vittore Branca. 10 vols. Milan: Mondadori 1992, vol. V, 1, p. 574–583. See also Rico: Ritratti allo specchio, p. 30. Petrarch, Boccaccio, and the Space of Vernacular Literature 315 yoke, adorned with dishonest riches? What will this renowned inspirer of virtues often repeat, now that he has become the follower of vices? I know that nothing remains to me if not to blush and to condemn his actions, and to sing, either openly or to myself, that passage from Virgil: “Quid non mortalia pectora cogis / auri sacra fames?”].6 Petrarch, at least to our knowledge, does not respond, and parries the blow with indirect justifications, offered to people he knew to be dear to Boccaccio, such as in the two Fam., XVI 11 and 12, of 23 and 27 August 1353 to Francesco Nelli; and again in Fam., XVII 10 of 1 January 1354 to Giovanni Aghinolfi. This patient mending of wounds would bear its own fruits in terms of Boccaccio’s generosity of spirit, when very shortly he puts his contempt aside. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that however brief in duration, this crisis is the worst in their mutual relationship and represents a stance of exceptional intransigence on the part of Boccaccio, who underscores Petrarch’s insufficient fidelity in real life to the behavior often ideally pursued in his works, and particularly in his letters. This rift between the two friends continues for some time, as demonstrated by Sen., VI 2, this time addressed directly to Boccaccio – a letter that in its own turn inte- grates two others, the Disp., 40 and 46, of 12 July 1357 and 18 August 1360, respec- tively.7 The above-mentioned Sen. VI, 2 (traditionally dated to the first months of 1366), of a pointedly defensive tone, responds with a delayed outburst, reig- nited by the preoccupations of Boccaccio who learns that while Petrarch has by now transferred to Venice, he occasionally accepts the hospitality of Galeazzo II in Pavia.8 An attentive reading of the two Disperse shows that while Boccaccio quickly abandoned his reproachful tone, the embers of his incomprehension still smolder beneath the ashes. The punctum dolens, however, lies elsewhere, and I will treat it more directly. Rico’s book presents a version of Petrarch and Boccaccio’s relationship which is insufficiently discussed, and which, given the sketchiness of its treatment, can only be defined as aprioristic, if not truly hasty. He characterizes Petrarch as a man who conceals from one of his dearest friends both the pertinent facts of his own biography and above all the fruits of his own labor; he inhibits Boccaccio from using texts from his personal library; in other words, he treats his friend with an attitude that one could euphemistically define as condescending. These formulated accusations are easily dismantled by a heap of evidence, provided in 6 The passage is in Giovanni Boccaccio: Epistole e lettere, p. 578, 580; English translations by Bridget Pupillo. 7 The two letters are found in Francesco Petrarca: Lettere disperse, varie e miscellanee. Edited by Alessandro Pancheri. Milan-Parma: Fondaz. P. Bembo/U. Guanda 1994, p. 314–21, 338–59. 8 See Francesco Petrarca: Res seniles. Libri V–VIII. Edited by Silvia Rizzo with the collaboration of Monica Berté. Florence: Le Lettere 2009, p. 118–121. 316 Renzo Bragantini the first place by Boccaccio himself who, in the initial gestures of the very same indignant letter of 18 July 1353, makes reference to their Paduan meeting of 1351: Tu sacris vacabas studiis, ego compositionum tuarum avidus ex illis scribens summebam copiam. [You dedicated yourself to sacred studies; I, greedy for your compositions, made copies for myself].9 If these examples do not suffice, we might add the Milanese visit of March 1359, and the Venetian one of March 1363; occasions in which Boccaccio is Petrarch’s guest for one month and for more than three, respectively.
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