Italy - Sicily - and the Mediterranean Sea - c.14th Century
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| The Flagellation |
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| Madonna Enthroned |
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Map identifies Location of Day 5 Stories
First story occurs in Rhodes & Cypress
These stories are allegories with complications resulting in the separation and eventual rejoining of romantic partners. The moral is that love is the beneficial force, the redeeming virtue. The
Decameron was written in the vulgar Italian rather than Latin, the
standard for scholarly work in the day. Boy meets girl, he falls in
love. For political, social or economic reasons consummation is not
possible.
- Story 1:You're too weird! And anyway, father says I'm promised to another.
- Story 2: We love each other. Can't wait. But father says: "No! You're too poor!"
- Story 3: They love one another and agree to elope to Rome. He's mesmerized by looking into her eyes and as a consequence they get lost and separated. Bad things happen; then good. "Keep your eyes on the road, son!"
- Story 4: They fall in love. Father finds them. Ricciardo marries her and remains on good terms with the father.
- Story 5: Two boys love the same girl. They fight. We discover Gianole is her brother. Minghino marries her.
- Story 6: Gianni loves Restituta; she's coy. Then she loves him. King feels better and remembers he liked the girl, and goes to find them naked in one another's arms. Ties them both to stakes. It turns out ok.
- Story 7: Teodoro falls in love with Violante and they get pregnant; he's condemned to hang for it. Whipped on his way to the gallows he's recognized by his father and set free. They marry.
- Story 8: Nastagio spends all his wealth wooing a girl above his station. She demures. He goes away but not too far. Sees naked beauty running through the woods chased by a Knight who calls on the nearby dogs to attack her. Knight is a fiction undergoing eternal punishment. Invites his love interest to a banquet, she sees the Knight do his thing with the dogs and she agrees to marry Nastagio.
- Story 9: Federigo falls in love with Monna Giovanna, a fine and beautiful woman in Florence. She demures. He goes broke wooing her, and moves away but no too far. Nothing left except a falcon. Long time passes and Monna's son is sick and as a wish he wants Federigo's falcon. She shows up on his farm and is invited to stay for dinner. All he has left is the falcon and serves it to her. She is so touched she agrees to marry.
- Story 10: She says, "Since this sorry pervert abandons me to go up the dry path in his clogs, I’ll do my best to get others to board my boat and carry them through the rain. I took him as my husband and brought him a fine large dowry, acting on the assumption that he was a man and believing he was interested in the kind of thing men generally like, as they certainly should."
The
male demonstration of love, while it helps, is not necessary for
women/girls to burn with desire. (witness from Elvis to Justin Bieber.)
In these stories women are generally though not always subordinated to
men and often appear to be treated as property. Violence is around every
corner. Reference is made to families of the nobility. Their Castles
are destinations where the lovers may finally rejoin one another, or as
is the case with Story 10, accept the situation. There are four of the
ten stories presented below. I summarize them and try to add the
translators notes.
It
appears that the distance from Florence decreases with each additional
story, as if everything is returning to Florence. Also, the complexity
of each story appears to increase. The first 9 stories are between young
male and female characters. The 10th story set in Perugia the Castro
district of Italy is between a gay husband and a sex hungry woman and is
considerably more complex with an aggressive woman and a confused male
whom the woman calls foul names. The notion of two husbands is raised.
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| Construction Florence Cathedral and baptistery began in the Romanesque style under Diotisalvi in 1153. Nicola and Giovanni Pisano gave the upper part a Gothic transformation between 1 277 and 1297 and Cellino di Nese added the Gothic dome in the 1300s. It was finally completed in 1363. |
Day Five Introduction
“Here
ends the Fourth Day of the Decameron and the Fifth begins, in which,
under the rule of Fiammetta, they speak of lovers who, after terrible
accidents or misfortunes, finally found happiness.
“Day 5, Story 1 Rhodes and Cypress
Cimone
acquires wisdom through his love for his lady Efigenia, whom he then
abducts at sea. Imprisoned in Rhodes, he is freed by Lisimaco, with whom
he once again abducts both Efigenia and Cassandrea during their
wedding. They then flee with their ladies to Crete, where they get
married, after which they are summoned to come back to their homes with
their wives.
"Aristoppo
of Cypress has a son Gabeso referred to as Cimone by everyone (in their
language it means Stupid Ass). Father sends him to live with
shepherds. Guided by Fortune he spies a beautiful maiden who transforms
him instantly into a connoisseur of beauty.. His heart pierced by Love's
arrow he's now intelligent and became an accomplished musician,
horseman and martial arts specialist. "Love transformed him from a
muttonhead into a man." Efigenia is none to keen on this because she was
promised to Pasimunda, nobleman of Rhodes. Cimone however won't quit.
He outfits a ship and with great vigor boards Pasimunda's ship and
slaughters some men. Then Cimone gives a speech: must have Efigenia who
is weeping. Fortune is fickle and soon Cimone experiences incalculable
sadness and bitter weeping. Violent storm arrives. Fortune changes her
mind and they find a small harbor. But not so quickly:the crew are taken
by Lisimaco to prison for life. Lisimaco resolves to carry off
Cassandrea who was to marry Ormisda brother of Pasimunda. And as
Lisimaco is betraying Pasimunda, he enlists the help of Cimone who has
some skin in this game. They have a plan. Cimone slices off half of
Pasimunda's head and then kills his brother Ormisda. Cimone marries
Efigenia and lives a happy life."
Notes
1
Although this story contains many motifs from Greek romance, there is
no single source for it. The theme of its first half—the educational and
transformative power of love and beauty—made it quite popular, and it
was both imitated by later writers and made the subject of paintings by
Botticelli, Veronese, Rubens, and others.
2 Cimone’s real name, Galeso, comes from a Greek word meaning “milk,”
but Boccaccio’s etymology for “Cimone” is misleading. It could be
related to the Greek words for goat or for the muzzle of an animal, but
is more likely meant to recall the historical Cimon (510–450 BCE), who
was the son of Miltiades, the hero of the battle of Marathon. Cimon
himself became a famous political leader and general in Athens who was
celebrated for his bravery in the naval battle of Salamis, but who was
said to have been somewhat simpleminded when he was a young man by both
Valerius Maximus, Factorum et dictorum memorabilium libri IX (Nine Books
of Memorable Deeds and Sayings), 6.9.3, and Plutarch in his Life of
Cimon.
3“In
Italian, she says, Cimone, rimanti con Dio, which means, literally,
“Cimone, abide [remain] with God.” Although she is essentially saying
“good-bye,” her phrase is a variant of the more usual va’ con Dio
(nowadays: addio), and she has no doubt chosen it because she really
does want Cimone to remain where he is and to let her get away.
Day 5, Story 2 Lipari (<== CLICK HERE FOR SIDE TRIP)
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| Lipari |
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| Aeolus was here |
“Day 5, Story 2
Gostanza
is in love with Martuccio Gomito, but when she hears that he has died,
in her despair she sets off alone in a boat, which is carried by the
wind to Susa. Upon finding him alive in Tunis, she reveals herself to
him, and he, who was a great favorite of the King’s because of the
advice he had given him, marries her and then, having become a rich man
returns with her to Lipari”
"Martuccio Gomito, a handsome dude fell in love with Gostanza, and she likewise burned for him. Martuccio asked her father:
NOPE you are too poor. Marty rigs a ship to become a pirate robbing
anyone he could dominate. Not satisfied with his success they sought
more wealth but made the mistake of running into a Saracen fleet. Now in
prison. Word got back to Lipari he was dead. She rigs a boat having
"neither steerman or ballast" expecting to drown or get smashed on
rocks. Fishermen find her sleeping and from her clothes they knew she
was Christian. Meets a friendly woman, gets help. Capresa sends her to a
Saracen woman. King of Tunis has a rival with an army. Martuccio in
prison hears of this and offers to give advice to the King. (The bow
string trick.) And it works. They reduced the dimensions of the bow
string on their arrows so the enemy could not use their arrows to shoot
back at them. Gostanza learns Martuccio is alive. She goes to Tunis
finds him. No words can express their happiness, They marry.
Notes:Capresa is made up of two words: cara which means dear, and presa
which means "taken" or "acquired." Thus, the name means something like
"dear acquisition" which is why Gostanza will take it as a good omen in
the next sentence.
Comment: The idea of suicide by wind is not that far fetched.
Lipari is part of the Aeolian Islands. Homer named it as the home of Aeolus the Greek god who gave Odysseus
two bags of wind: one favorable and the other unfavorable. When the
crew of uninitiated men opened the wrong bad it blew the ship back to
the Western Mediterranean. If not for Aeolus he'd have returned from
Troy in a few days. Some Odyssey, not!
Day 5 Story 3 Rome
“Fleeing
with Agnolella, Pietro Boccamazza runs into a gang of thieves, and
while the girl escapes through a forest and is led to a castle, Pietro
is captured by them. He manages to get out of their clutches, however,
and after one or two more adventures, he happens upon the castle where
Agnolella is staying, marries her, and returns with her to Rome.”
Pietro Boccamazza a Roman aristo. Has the harsh pain of desire; wants to marry Agnolella. She
agrees to elope to Rome. He takes a wrong turn, attacked by soldiers.
Girls horse bolts into the woods. Pietro is friend of Orsini, the
soldier's enemy. Lock him up! But the soldiers are then attacked by 25
men by surprise. Pietro jumps on a horse and flees after the girl. Girl
let the horse decide. She finds a good man with a wife no younger than
he. They make her agree to hold them harmless. She: it's better to be
mistreated by men than torn to pieces by wild beasts in the forest. She
hides in haystack in the morning. Bad guys leave.Goes to castle of
Orsini Liello di Campo di Fiore. Welcomed. She thinks Pietro dead.Wolves
eat Pietro's horse...where is Farley Mowat? Runs in to shepherds, joins
them. Gets to Castle. Very happy, marry.
Notes Day 5 Story 3
There
is no antecedent for this story, although the protagonists of medieval
romances typically wander through landscapes filled with surprises and
adventures.
2 There were two families named Boccamazza living in Rome in the
fourteenth century, one of which had an Angela in it who was still alive
in 1394 and may have been a descendant of Agnolella. There were no
Pietros, however, in either branch of the family, and nothing is known
about the family of Gigliuozzo Saullo. Boccaccio’s complaint here about
the decadence of contemporary Rome is not an isolated one in his works
and is a sentiment he shared with Petrarch. Both were reacting to the
decay of the city during the period known as the Babylonian Captivity,
when the Papacy was transferred to Avignon between 1305 and 1377 and was
under the thumb “of the French kings, leaving Rome to be overrun by
gangs of bandits. Boccaccio’s reference to Rome as being once “the head
of the world” is a translation of a common inscription found on Roman
coins, Roma caput mundi.
3 Anagni is a town about thirty miles southeast of Rome. To get there,
the couple plans to follow the ancient via Latina that continued on to
Naples. Scholars have suggested that they make a wrong turn at Casale
Ciampino, about nine miles outside of the city, and then get lost in the
forest of Aglio near Frascati.
4 The Orsini was a powerful, aristocratic Roman family who, as Guelfs,
supported the Church in its struggle with the Holy Roman Empire in the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Their enemy was the Colonna family,
who, as Ghibellines, backed the Empire. Presumably, the soldiers who
capture Pietro are members of the Colonna faction.
5 One branch of the Orsini family had taken its name from the
properties it owned near the Campo dei Fiori in Rome, and one of its
members, who was, in fact, named Liello (most likely a diminutive of
Raffaello), lived around the end of the thirteenth century and[…]” “of
the French kings, leaving Rome to be overrun by gangs of bandits.
Boccaccio’s reference to Rome as being once “the head of the world” is a
translation of a common inscription found on Roman coins, Roma caput
mundi.
Day 5 Story 10 Perugia
“After
Pietro di Vinciolo goes out to have supper, his wife invites a young
man to come to her house, but hides him underneath a chicken coop when
her husband returns. Pietro tells her that while he was eating at
Ercolano’s place, they discovered a young man who had been brought there
by his wife. Pietro’s wife criticizes her severely, but then an ass
unfortunately steps on the fingers of the young man underneath the coop,
and when he screams, Pietro runs out and sees him, thus discovering his
wife’s deception. In the end, however, because of his own perversion,
he reaches an understanding with her.1”
“The source of this story is Apuleius’s Metamorphoses (9.14–28), one of Boccaccio’s favorite works, which “he was actually making a copy of at the time he wrote the Decameron.”
I
do not know whether to term it an accidental failing stemming from our
bad habits, or a defect in our nature as human beings, but the fact is
that we are more inclined to laugh about bad behavior than about good
deeds, and especially when we ourselves are not involved. I'm going to
tell you a story...
As
you listen to it, you should do what you would normally do when you go
out into your gardens, where you stretch out your delicate hands to
pluck the roses, but leave the thorns alone. This you will do if you
leave the wicked husband to his ill-fated, degenerate behavior, while
laughing merrily at the amorous tricks of his wife, and feeling
compassion, as need be, for the misfortunes of others.
There
once lived in Perugia, not so very long ago, a rich man named Pietro di
Vinciolo who got married, perhaps to deceive his fellow citizens and to
improve the low opinion they all had of him, more than because of any
desire he had to take a wife.
An intro to story 10
“The
story is set in Perugia, which apparently had a reputation for
homosexuality in the period and was otherwise one of Florence’s
mercantile rivals. The Bardi bank, for which Boccaccio’s father worked,
had a branch there. There was, in fact, a Pietro from the well-known
family of the Vincioli who held various administrative positions in and
around the city at the end of the thirteenth and start”
Footnote:
The
two expressions in this sentence were proverbial: andare in zoccoli per
l’asciutto (“go in [his] clogs up [lit., through, along] the dry
[path]”) for homosexual love; and for heterosexual love, portare altrui
in nave per lo piovoso (“get others to board my boat and carry them
through the rain”). The first saying may involve the idea that since
clogs had high soles, there was no need for them when walking on a dry
surface—i.e., homosexual love is superfluous or irrelevant. But clogs,
in and of themselves, generally evoked homosexual love in the period,
perhaps through their association with friars. “The dry path” is
suggestive in its own right, of course, and the second saying about
heterosexual love, involving carrying people on board one’s boat when it
is raining, should need no comment.
Conclusion:
Songs and all celebrate Book 5. Dioneo wisecracks. The Queen says, "Stop joking around and sing us a nice one."
He sings:
O Love, the charming light
That issues from those gorgeous eyes of hers
Has made me now her slave and yours as well.
The splendor shining from her lovely eyes
Passed through my own, and entering my heart,
Set your flames there alight.
The beauty of her face made manifest
How overwhelming your true worth might be,
And contemplating it,
I felt I’d gathered all
The virtues, bound them up and gave her them,
Which gives me yet new reasons for my sighs.
One of your servants have I thus become,
Dear Lord, and now await obediently
What grace your might may give.
But yet I do not know if she’s aware
Of my unbroken faith, or of the high desire
You lodged within my breast,
For she possesses all
My thoughts so utterly that I can’t find,
Nor would I seek, my peace except in her.
Thus I beseech you, sweetest Lord of mine,
That you will show her this and make her feel
A little of your fire
On my behalf, because you see that I
Consume myself in loving, bit by bit,
And martyred, waste away.
So, when the time is ripe,
Commend me to her, as indeed you should,
Though to do that I’d gladly come with you.
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Italy - Sicily - and the Mediterranean Sea - c.14th Century
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