Boccaccio and the Invention of Italian Literature

Abstract

Giovanni Boccaccio played a pivotal role in the extraordinary emergence of the Italian literary tradition in the fourteenth century, not only as author of the Decameron, but also as scribe of Dante, Petrarch and Cavalcanti. Using a single codex written entirely in Boccaccio's hand, Martin Eisner brings together material philology and literary history to reveal the multiple ways Boccaccio authorizes this vernacular literary tradition. Each chapter offers a novel interpretation of Boccaccio as a biographer, storyteller, editor and scribe, who constructs arguments, composes narratives, compiles texts and manipulates material forms to legitimize and advance a vernacular literary canon. Situating these philological activities in the context of Boccaccio's broader reflections on poetry in the Decameron and the Genealogy of the Gentile Gods, the book produces a new portrait of Boccaccio that integrates his vernacular and Latin works, while also providing a new context for understanding his fictions.

The “accountant” stereotype in the Florentine medieval popular culture: “galantuomini” or usurers?

“…According to Eisner (2013), Giovanni Boccaccio has a relevant role in the extraordinary emergence of the Italian literary tradition in the 14th century [3]. Particularly, The Decameron was written around 1348-1351 and represents the transition from a medieval to a humanistic vision and the values of man during the 14th century (Barsella, 2007).…”

JohnMilton andGiovanniBoccaccio'sVita diDante

“…Boccaccio's version of Dante however is interestingly shaped, as Todd Boli and others have argued, by its author's desire to defend Dante before the eyes of Petrarch and Petrarchan humanism, and to render Dante at least partially conformable to a Petrarchan ideal of the poet dominant in the period after Dante's death (see further Eisner esp. 29‐49, Houston 73‐89).…”