United States or São Tomé and Príncipe ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Strange paintings of hell and the devil, mostly taken from Dante's rhapsodies, cover the walls of these fantastic galleries, attributed to the venerable Giotto and Bufalmacco, whom Boccace mentions in his "Decamerone."
Chaucer, a new edition of him, from manuscripts and old editions, with various readings, conjectures, remarks on his language, and the changes it had undergone from the earliest times to his age, and from his to the present; with notes, explanatory of customs, &c. and references to Boccace, and other authors from whom he has borrowed, with an account of the liberties he has taken in telling the stories; his life, and an exact etymological glossary.
I find I have anticipated already, and taken up from Boccace before I come to him; but there is so much less behind; and I am of the temper of most kings, who love to be in debt, are all for present money, no matter how they pay it afterwards: besides, the nature of a preface is rambling; never wholly out of the way, nor in it.
Boccace comes last to be considered, who, living in the same age with Chaucer, had the same genius, and followed the same studies; both writ novels, and each of them cultivated his mother tongue.
His last work was his Fables, ancient and modern, translated into verse from Homer, Ovid, Boccace, and Chaucer. To this work, which is perhaps, one of his most imperfect, is prefixed by way of preface, a critical account of the authors, from whom the fables are translated. Among the original pieces, the Ode to St. Cecilia's day is justly esteemed one of the most elevated in any language.
So in the Italian language, the first that made it aspire to be a treasure-house of science were the poets Dante, Boccace, and Petrarch. So in our English were Gower and Chaucer. After whom, encouraged and delighted with their excellent foregoing, others have followed, to beautify our mother tongue, as well in the same kind as in other arts.
In the serious part of poetry, the advantage is wholly on Chaucer's side; for though the Englishman has borrowed many tales from the Italian, yet it appears that those of Boccace were not generally of his own making, but taken from authors of former ages, and by him only modelled; so that what there was of invention in either of them may be judged equal.
I take the Tuscan nature to be so constituted that it will play with any given subject of speculation in much the same way. With one or two mighty exceptions to be sure Dante, of course, Buonarroti, of course, and, for all his secularities. Boccace it is not imagination you find in Tuscany.
So I can read Boccace the infidel, Poggio the gross, where Voltaire makes me a bigot and Catulle Mendes ashamed. The fresh breeze blowing through the Decameron keeps the air sweet. Even Lorenzo is a child for me, and Macchiavel, "the man without a soul," I decline to take seriously.
But the reformation of their prose was wholly owing to Boccace himself, who is yet the standard of purity in the Italian tongue; tho' many of his phrases are become obsolete, as in process of time it must needs happen.
Word Of The Day