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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
If Chaucer knew nothing at all of the Decameron, his failure to get hold of it has every aspect of mystery. If Chaucer was acquainted with that rich human document, the use which he made of it is to many of us a still greater mystery. Accordingly we are led to inquire how much the England of Chaucer's time, or even of the century after his death, may have known concerning Boccaccio's hundred tales, aside from the story of Griselda's persecution told at second- or third-hand. The facts concerning England's discovery of the Decameron are of course not summed up in what we know about Painter.
1 See A. Hortis, Studj sulle opere latine Boccaccio, Trieste, 1879, pp. 296 ff.
2 The English translation is my own. The original Latin may be found in Francesco Corazzini, Le lettere edite e inedite di Messer Giovanni Boccaccio, Firenze, 1877, pp. 298 ff.
3 See Edward Hutton, Giovanni Boccaccio, a Biographical Study, pp. 197 ff. for a brief account of the circumstances and for a bibliography. Also see Silvio Segalla, I Sentimenti Religiosi nel Boccaccio, Riva, 1909 p. 62.
4 See the famous letter in which Petrarch during a long discussion studiously avoids mentioning Dante by name. Among other places this may be found in the useful collection by Victor Develay, Lettres de François Pétrarque à Jean Boccace, Paris, 1891, pp. 30 ff.
5 Hubertis M. Cummings, The Indebtedness of Chaucer's Works to the Italian Works of Boccaccio, University of Cincinnati Studies, X (Part 2), 1916, p. 175. I have translated the original Latin.
6 Introduction to the Fourth Day.
7 Chaucer Society Originals and Analogues, pp. 151-172.
8 Arturo Farinelli, Sulla Fortuna del Petrarca in Ispagna nel Quattrocento, Giornale Storico della Letteratura Italiana, XLIV (1914), pp. 19-20, 315.
9 Henri Hauvette, Les Plus Anciennes Traductions Françaises de Boccace, 1909, p. 99.
10 Hauvette, same work, pp. 72 ft. Paulin Paris, Les Manuscrits Français de la Bibliothèque du Rai, 1836, I, 242.
11 Paris, op. cit., I, 251.
12 C. B. Bourland, “Boccaccio and the Decameron in Castilian and Catalan Literature,” Revue Hispanique, XII, 3 ff.
13 Bourland, op. cit. For further discussion of Boccaccio in Spain see M. Menéndez y Pelayo, Origines de la Novela, II.
14 For a summary of the material on this too-much-discussed question of Chaucer's possible meeting with Petrarch see Hammond, Chaucer, a Bibliographical Manual, pp. 305 ff.
15 For references see Hammond, p. 306.
16 Charles Dejob, La Foi Religieuse en Italie au Quatorzième Siècle, 1906, p. 249.
17 MS. Fr. 12,421. For a description see Kenneth H. Vickers, Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, 1907, p. 437, or Paulin Paris, work cited, I, p. 237.
18 Dictionary of National Biography.
19 Kenneth H. Vickers, Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, 1907, p. 412.
20 Same work, pp. 377-8.
21 Itemized in the Munimenta Academica, ed. Henry Anstey, Rolls Series, 1868, pp. 764 and 770.
22 See his praise of Boccaccio in his prologue.
23 Paulin Paris, Les Manuscrits Français de la Bibl. du Roi, I. 249.
24 Bk. I, Chap. XXI, fol. xxxvi of Pynson's edition, 1527.
25 British Museum MS. Arundel 20, fol. 50 b and 55. See Catalogue of Romances, III, p. 313.
26 Fol. 50 b.
27 Pynson's ed., Falls of Princess, 1527, Bk. I, Chap. XXI, fol. xxxvi b.
28 Brit. Mus Add. MS. 10,304. Described by Zupitza in Festschrift Zur Begrüssung des jünflen allgem. Deutschen Neuphilologentages, Berlin, 1892, pp. 93 ff.
29 fol. 2 b.
30 Work cited, p. 120.
31 Julius Zupitza, Die mittelenglischm Bearbeitungen der Erzählung Boccaccios von Ghismonda und Guiscardo, Vierteljahrsschrift für Kultur und Litterur der Renaissance, I (1885), pp. 63 ff.
32 Zupitza, same work, pp. 69 ff.
33 In two manuscripts: Brit. Mus. Add. 12,524 and Bodleian Rawl. C 86, described by Zupitza, pp. 83 ff.
34 Rolls of Parliament, VI, p. 200 b, 22 Edward IV.
35 Work cited, p. 84.
36 Described by Zupitza, work cited, pp. 66 ff.
37 Work cited, p. 69
38 The Decameron, Translated into English 1620 (Tudor Translations), London, 1909. Introduction by Edward Hutton, I, p. cxix. The belief that the Decameron was instantly appreciated in all quarters and widely circulated may in large part, I think, be traced to Franco Sacchetti's famous mention in the Proemio del Trecento Novelle (“che insino in Francia e in Inghilterra l'hanno ridotto alla loro lingua”). Along with some other interpreters of this passage I am now disposed to think that Sacchetti spoke of France and England merely by hearsay, though I once thought his statement deserving of more consideration (Chaucer's Clerkes Tale, Modern Language Notes, XXXIII, p. 202). The known facts simply cannot be made to agree with Sacchetti.
