Giovanni boccaccio works. Boccaccio, Giovanni - short biography

Giovanni Boccaccio - Italian poet and writer of the early Renaissance, humanist. Born in 1313, presumably in June or July. He was born in Florence and became the fruit of the love of a Florentine merchant and a Frenchwoman. Perhaps it is because of his mother that some sources indicate the place of his birth in Paris. Giovanni himself called himself Boccaccio da Certaldo - after the name of the area where his family came from.

Around 1330, Boccaccio moved to Naples: despite the boy’s literary talent, noticeable from an early age, his father saw him in the future only as a merchant, so he sent him to learn the tricks of commerce. However, the young Boccaccio showed neither ability nor interest in trading. The father eventually lost hope that his son would continue his work, and allowed him to practice canon law. But Boccaccio did not become a lawyer either, his only passion was poetry, to which he got the opportunity to devote himself only much later, after the death of his father in 1348.

Living in Naples, Boccaccio becomes part of the entourage of King Robert of Anjou. It was during this period that he became a poet and humanist. His friends were scientists, educated people, influential people. Giovanni read ancient authors avidly, and the environment itself greatly contributed to the expansion of his ideas about the world. It is with Naples that a rather large period of its creative biography. In honor of his muse, whom he called Fiametta in verse, he wrote a large number of poems; in addition, the poems "The Hunt of Diana", "Tezeid", "Filostrato" were created, as well as prose novel which were of great importance for the formation of new Italian literature.

In 1340, the father, who by that time was completely ruined, requested the return of Boccaccio to Florence, although he, as before, was indifferent to commerce. Gradually, the humanist became involved in the political and public life cities. In 1341, a friendship appeared in his life, which he carried through his whole life, with Francesco Petrarch. Through this relationship, Boccaccio began to take himself and life more seriously. Among the townspeople, he enjoyed great influence, he was often given diplomatic assignments on behalf of the Florentine Republic. Boccaccio devoted a lot of energy to educational work, aroused interest in antiquity, in the sciences, and personally rewrote old manuscripts.

In 1350-1353. Boccaccio wrote the main work of his life, which glorified him for centuries - "The Decameron" - a hundred short stories that were ahead of their time, creating a vivid panorama Italian life, imbued with free-thinking, lively humor, ideas of humanism. His success was simply stunning, and in different countries into whose languages ​​it was immediately translated.

In 1363, Boccaccio left Florence and arrived in Certaldo, a small estate, where he completely immersed himself in his books, lived, content with little. The closer old age loomed, the more superstitious Boccaccio became, the more serious he was about faith and the church, but to say that a turning point had occurred in his worldview would be a great exaggeration. This is evidenced by his work, and the apogee of friendship and unity of views with Petrarch. From the works written in these years devoted to Dante, literary criticism of a new type began to develop. Public lectures on Divine Comedy he read until a severe illness knocked him down. The strongest impression on Boccaccio was made by the death of Petrarch, he outlived his friend by a little less than a year and a half. December 21, 1375 the heart of the great humanist, one of the most educated people Italy of his time, stopped.

Giovanni Boccaccio(Italian Giovanni Boccaccio; 1313, Certaldo - December 21, 1375, Certaldo near Florence) - famous Italian writer and poet, representative of the literature of the early Renaissance.
Author of poems on plots ancient mythology, the psychological story "Fiammetta" (1343, published in 1472), pastorals, sonnets. The main work - "The Decameron" (1350-1353, published in 1470) - a book of erotic, realistic short stories, imbued humanistic ideas, the spirit of freethinking and anti-clericalism, the rejection of ascetic morality, cheerful humor, a multi-colored panorama of the morals of Italian society. The poem "The Raven" (1354-1355, published in 1487), the book "The Life of Dante Alighieri" (c. 1360, published in 1477).
The illegitimate son of a Florentine merchant and a Frenchwoman. His family came from Certaldo, which is why he called himself Boccaccio da Certaldo. Already in infancy, he showed a strong inclination towards poetry, but in the tenth year his father apprenticed him to a merchant, who spent 6 whole years with him and was still forced to send him back to his father due to the ineradicable aversion of the young Boccaccio to the merchant occupation. Nevertheless, Boccaccio had to languish for another 8 years over merchant books in Naples, until his father finally lost his patience and allowed him to study canon law. Only after the death of his father (1348) did Boccaccio get the opportunity to completely surrender to his penchant for literature. During his stay at the court of the Neapolitan King Robert, he made friends with many scientists of that time and won the favor of the young Queen Joanna and the young Princess Mary, his inspirer, later described by him under the name of Fiammetta.
His friendship with Petrarch began as early as 1341 in Rome and continued until the latter's death. He owes it to Petrarch that he parted with his former wild and not quite chaste life and became generally more demanding of himself. In 1349, Boccaccio finally settled in Florence and was repeatedly elected by his fellow citizens for diplomatic missions. So, in 1350 he was an envoy to Astarro di Polento in Ravenna; in 1351 he was sent to Padua to announce to Petrarch that the verdict on his exile had been annulled and to persuade him to take a chair at the University of Florence. In December of the same year, he received an assignment to Ludwig of Brandenburg, son of Ludwig of Bavaria, to ask him for help against (Visconti). In 1353 he was sent to Innocent VI in Avignon to negotiate the latter's upcoming meeting with Charles IV and later to Urban V. From 1363 he settled on a small estate in Certaldo, living on meager means and completely buried in his books. There he contracted a long-term illness from which he slowly recovered. Through his efforts, the Florentines, who had once expelled their great citizen Dante, established a special pulpit to explain the latter's poem, and this pulpit was entrusted in 1373 to Boccaccio. The death of Petrarch upset him so much that he fell ill and died 17 months later, on December 21, 1375.
The monument to Boccaccio, erected on Solferinsky Square in Certaldo, was opened on June 22, 1879. A crater on Mercury was named in honor of Boccaccio.

BOCACCIO (Boccaccio) Giovanni (1313-1375), Italian writer, humanist Early Renaissance. Poems based on the subjects of ancient mythology, the psychological story "Fiammetta" (1343, published in 1472), pastorals, sonnets. In the main work "Decameron" (1350-53, published in 1470) - a book of realistic short stories, imbued with humanistic ideas, the spirit of freethinking and anti-clericalism, rejection of ascetic morality, cheerful humor - a multi-colored panorama of the mores of Italian society. The poem "The Raven" (1354-55, published in 1487), the book "The Life of Dante Alighieri" (c. 1360, published in 1477).

BOCACCIO (Boccaccio) Giovanni (1313, Paris - December 21, 1375, Certaldo, Tuscany, Italy), Italian poet, writer, connoisseur of classical antiquity.

Born in Paris, but all conscious and creative life was associated with such centers of culture Italian Renaissance like Naples and Florence. Was illegitimate son French women noble birth and a wealthy Florentine merchant, at whose insistence, in a very early age began to study law, banking and trade in the company of Bardi - a famous merchant family.

From 1330 he was with his father in Naples, who was the supplier of the court of the Neapolitan king Robert of Anjou. It was this sovereign, patron of the arts, who noticed the gift of the young Boccaccio, who, by his own admission, began to compose poetry as soon as he learned the letters. The creative vocation of Boccaccio, his interest in fine arts and classical antiquities were supported and developed in communication with a circle of artists, poets and thinkers close to the court of Robert of Anjou. IN different time at this brilliant court were Giotto, Chino da Pistoia, Barlaam of Calabria; the royal librarian who gave lessons to the young Boccaccio was Paolo Perugino. Love for Maria d "Aquino, the king's natural daughter, met in Naples, inspired many works love lyrics Boccaccio.

It was during his stay in Naples at the tomb of Virgil that Boccaccio vowed to devote his entire life to the service of the fine arts and poetry. Here, in his younger years, he created several popular works: "Diana's Hunt" - poetic composition in terzina (circa 1336), in which noble Neapolitan ladies are represented by heroines ancient myths- companions of the goddess Diana, "Filostrato" (1338) - a poem in octaves on the themes of the Trojan cycle, "Theseid" (1339). All these works are written in folk Italian- the so-called "volgar" and are often alterations of the plots of southern French medieval works.

In 1340 Boccaccio, at the insistence of his father, returned to Florence. Except for a brief period in 1351, when he was in distress after his father's death, he avoided borrowing permanent positions in the communal hierarchy or in the service of influential persons. At the same time, during his life, Boccaccio willingly performed honorary diplomatic missions on behalf of the Florentine Republic, was a member of embassies sent to Romagna (1351.), Ravenna and Rome (1367), Naples (1351), Avignon (1354 and 1365), Venice ( 1367 and 1368.). It is obvious that Boccaccio enjoyed respect and authority among fellow citizens.

During his life in Florence, he created the prose works that glorified him: Fiametta (1343), Decameron (1348-1353), as well as the poetic cycle The Fiesolan Nymphs (1345). Boccaccio's literary masterpiece "The Decameron" has become a model of the perfection of language and style for Italian authors, a classic of world literature. The Decameron is a hundred stories told on behalf of noble Florentine ladies and young men; the story takes place against the backdrop of an epidemic of plague ("black death"), from which a noble society is hiding in country estate, and full of subtle psychologism and unexpected collisions.

From the 1340s Boccaccio worked on the "Genealogy pagan gods"(an essay in 15 books devoted to the analysis of ancient mythology, including the geography of myths). In 1350 he met Petrarch, who became his best friend. A circle of humanists formed around Boccaccio, among whom Coluccio Salutati and Filippo Villani later became famous. In addition, Boccaccio procured from the fathers of the city the establishment of a department Greek, which was occupied by a Greek from Calabria, Leontius Pilate (1359). Boccaccio not only accepted the teacher in own house and maintained at his own expense, but also acquired valuable Greek manuscripts for the needs of education and, apparently, carried out literary processing of Leontius's translations from ancient Greek. Although Leonty Pilate was not the best and most educated commentator on the Iliad and the Odyssey, he was nevertheless able to prepare the first latin translation Homeric poems.

Boccaccio also did everything possible to ensure that the Florentine authorities provided Petrarch with the opportunity to live and work comfortably in Florence, but he evaded the offered honor. Friendly communication and correspondence between the two great humanists continued for many years, in particular, in the early 1360s. - during severe shocks And moral quest- Boccaccio himself enjoys the hospitality of Petrarch: he moves in 1363 to Venice, where he settled.

IN last period life along with the continuation of work on the "Genealogy of the Pagan Gods" (up to 1371), the main thing Boccaccio was the glorification of personality and creativity - the great forerunner of humanism. Boccaccio writes "Commentaries on the Divine Comedy" (about 1362), which later became traditional for humanists, "Dante's Eulogy" (about 1360), and also, just before his death, a cycle public lectures about him, read in the church of St. Stephen in Florence. These works were the only compositions written by Boccaccio in Volgar in mature period his life. Boccaccio now prefers to write works in Latin and in more serious genres than before. In 1351-1367 he wrote in Latin "Bucolic poem" (imitation of Virgil), treatises "On the misfortunes famous people" and about famous women"(more than a hundred biographies from Eve to Queen Joanna of Naples, heiress of King Robert). This last treatise in its mood is the exact opposite of youthful writings full of the spirit of hedonism, such as "Diana's Hunt" and others.

In the late 1350s and early 1360s, Boccaccio experienced a deep mental crisis, the cause of which some biographers see in love failures and disappointments, others, on the contrary, in the natural acquisition of spiritual maturity through serious religious quest. In 1362 Boccaccio even accepted clergy under the influence of the monk Gioacchino Chani, he not only renounced the hedonistic spirit of his earlier writings, but also began to assert that even the institutions of marriage and family recognized by the church are dangerous and detrimental to cultural and moral development. Such intolerance towards women, which Boccaccio began to show in the last period of his life, caused controversy from other humanists, for example,. But, apparently, it was precisely this circumstance that allowed the Florentine bishop, who knew Boccaccio well, to certify the author of the Decameron and many love poems, known for his heartfelt hobbies and leaving behind several illegitimate children, as "a man of impeccable purity of faith and morals."

Boccaccio, Giovanni (1313-1375), Italian prose writer, poet, humanist. The illegitimate son of the merchant Boccaccio del fu Cellino, better known as Boccaccino from Certaldo, a town southwest of Florence, Boccaccio was born in 1313, presumably in Paris; his mother, Jeanne, was French.

By the time his son was born, Boccaccino was working for the Florentine banking house of Bardi. In 1316 or a little later, his employers recalled him to Florence. He took his son with him and early years future writer spent in the beneficial atmosphere of the city, where by that time commerce and the arts were flourishing. Under the guidance of Giovanni da Strada, the father of the poet Zanobi, he studied "grammar" (Latin). Later, his father decided to introduce him to "arithmetic" - the art of keeping accounts.

Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375), Italian writer, humanist of the Early Renaissance. Poems based on subjects from ancient mythology, the psychological story Fiammetta (1343, published in 1472), pastorals, sonnets. In the main work, The Decameron (1350-53, published in 1470), a book of realistic short stories imbued with humanistic ideas, the spirit of freethinking and anti-clericalism, rejection of ascetic morality, cheerful humor, is a multi-colored panorama of the mores of Italian society. The poem "The Raven" (1354-55, published in 1487), the book "The Life of Dante Alighieri" (c. 1360, published in 1477).

Boccaccio (Воccaccio) Giovanni (1313, Paris - December 21, 1375, Certaldo, Tuscany, Italy), Italian poet, writer, connoisseur of classical antiquity.

Born in Paris, but throughout his conscious and creative life he was associated with such cultural centers of the Italian Renaissance as Naples and Florence. He was the illegitimate son of a Frenchwoman of noble birth and a wealthy Florentine merchant, at whose insistence at a very early age he began to study law, banking and trade in the company of Bardi, a famous merchant family.

From 1330 he was with his father in Naples, who was the supplier of the court of the Neapolitan king Robert of Anjou. It was this sovereign, patron of the arts, who noticed the gift of the young Boccaccio, who, by his own admission, began to compose poetry as soon as he learned the letters. The creative vocation of Boccaccio, his interest in fine arts and classical antiquities were supported and developed in communication with a circle of artists, poets and thinkers close to the court of Robert of Anjou. At various times, Giotto, Chino da Pistoia, Barlaam of Calabria were in this brilliant court; the royal librarian who gave lessons to the young Boccaccio was Paolo Perugino. Love for Maria d "Aquino, met in Naples, the king's natural daughter, inspired many works of Boccaccio's love lyrics.

It was during his stay in Naples at the tomb of Virgil that Boccaccio vowed to devote his entire life to the service of the fine arts and poetry. Here, in his younger years, he created several works that were popular: "The Hunt of Diana" - a poetic work in terza (circa 1336), in which the noble Neapolitan ladies are represented by the heroines of ancient myths - companions of the goddess Diana, "Filostrato" (1338) - a poem in octaves on the themes of the Trojan cycle, "Theseid" (1339). All these works are written in the popular Italian language - the so-called "Volgar" and are often reworkings of the plots of southern French medieval works.

In 1340 Boccaccio, at the insistence of his father, returned to Florence. With the exception of a short period in 1351, when he was in distress after the death of his father, he avoided holding permanent positions in the communal hierarchy or in the service of influential persons. At the same time, during his life, Boccaccio willingly performed honorary diplomatic missions on behalf of the Florentine Republic, was a member of embassies sent to Romagna (1351.), Ravenna and Rome (1367), Naples (1351), Avignon (1354 and 1365), Venice ( 1367 and 1368.). It is obvious that Boccaccio enjoyed respect and authority among fellow citizens.

During his life in Florence, he created the prose works that glorified him: Fiametta (1343), The Decameron (1348-1353), as well as the poetic cycle The Fiesolan Nymphs (1345). Boccaccio's literary masterpiece "The Decameron" has become a model of the perfection of language and style for Italian authors, a classic of world literature. The Decameron is a hundred stories told on behalf of noble Florentine ladies and young men; The story takes place against the backdrop of a plague epidemic (“black death”), from which a noble society is hiding in a country estate, and is full of subtle psychologism and unexpected collisions.

From the 1340s Boccaccio worked on the "Genealogy of the Pagan Gods" (an essay in 15 books devoted to the analysis of ancient mythology, including the geography of myths). In 1350 he met Petrarch, who became his best friend. A circle of humanists formed around Boccaccio, among whom Coluccio Salutati and Filippo Villani later became famous. In addition, Boccaccio procured from the fathers of the city the establishment of a department of the Greek language, which was occupied by a Greek from Calabria, Leontius Pilate (1359). Boccaccio not only received the teacher in his own house and maintained at his own expense, but also acquired valuable Greek manuscripts for the needs of education and, apparently, carried out the literary processing of Leontius's translations from ancient Greek. Although Leontius Pilate was not the best and most educated commentator on the Iliad and the Odyssey, he was nevertheless able to prepare for the West the first Latin translation of the Homeric poems.

Boccaccio also did everything possible to ensure that the Florentine authorities provided Petrarch with the opportunity to live and work comfortably in Florence, but he evaded the offered honor. Friendly communication and correspondence between the two great humanists continued for many years, in particular, in the early 1360s. - in a period of severe upheavals and moral quest - Boccaccio himself enjoys the hospitality of Petrarch: he moves in 1363 to Venice, where he settled.

In the last period of his life, along with the continuation of work on the "Genealogy of the Pagan Gods" (up to 1371), Boccaccio's main business was the glorification of the personality and work of Dante, the great forerunner of humanism. Boccaccio writes "Commentaries on the Divine Comedy" (circa 1362), which later became traditional for humanists, "Dante's Eulogy" (circa 1360), and also, just before his death, a series of public lectures about him, read in the church of St. Stephen in Florence. These works were the only works written by Boccaccio in Volgar in the mature period of his life. Boccaccio now prefers to write works in Latin and in more serious genres than before. In 1351-1367, he wrote in Latin the Bucolic Poem (imitation of Virgil), the treatises On the Misfortunes of Famous People and On Famous Women (more than a hundred biographies from Eve to Queen Joanna of Naples, heiress of King Robert). This last treatise, in its tone, is the complete opposite of youthful writings full of the spirit of hedonism, such as Diana's Hunt, etc.

In the late 1350s and early 1360s, Boccaccio experienced a deep spiritual crisis, the cause of which some biographers see in love failures and disappointments, others, on the contrary, in the natural acquisition of spiritual maturity through serious religious quests. In 1362, Boccaccio even took holy orders under the influence of the monk Gioacchino Chani and not only renounced the hedonistic spirit of his previous writings, but also began to assert that even the institutions of marriage and family recognized by the church are dangerous and detrimental to cultural and moral development. Such intolerance towards women, which Boccaccio began to show in the last period of his life, caused controversy from other humanists, for example, Leonardo Bruni. But, apparently, it was precisely this circumstance that allowed the Florentine bishop, who knew Boccaccio well, to certify the author of the Decameron and many love poems, known for his heartfelt hobbies and leaving behind several illegitimate children, as "a husband of impeccable purity of faith and morals."

Giovanni Boccaccio- Italian writer and poet, representative of the literature of the early Renaissance. He was the author of poems based on the subjects of ancient mythology, the psychological story Fiammetta (1343, published in 1472), pastorals, and sonnets. The main work is The Decameron (1350-1353, published in 1470) - a book of short stories imbued with humanistic ideas, the spirit of freethinking and anti-clericalism, rejection of ascetic morality, cheerful humor, a multi-colored panorama of the mores of Italian society.

The illegitimate son of a Florentine merchant and a Frenchwoman. His family came from Certaldo, which is why he called himself Boccaccio da Certaldo. Already in infancy, he showed a strong inclination towards poetry, but in the tenth year his father apprenticed him to a merchant, who spent 6 whole years with him and was still forced to send him back to his father due to the ineradicable aversion of the young Boccaccio to the merchant occupation. Nevertheless, Boccaccio had to languish for another 8 years over merchant books in Naples, until his father finally lost his patience and allowed him to study canon law. Only after the death of his father (1348) did Boccaccio get the opportunity to completely surrender to his penchant for literature. During his stay at the court of the Neapolitan King Robert, he became friends with many scientists of that time, among his close friends, in particular, the famous mathematician Paolo Dagomari, won the favor of the young Queen Joanna and Lady Mary, his inspirer, later described by him under the name of Fiammetta .

His friendship with Petrarch began as early as 1341 in Rome and continued until the latter's death. He owes it to Petrarch that he parted with his former wild and not quite chaste life and became generally more demanding of himself. In 1349, Boccaccio finally settled in Florence and was repeatedly elected by his fellow citizens for diplomatic missions. So, in 1350 he was an envoy to Astarro di Polento in Ravenna; in 1351 he was sent to Padua to announce to Petrarch that the verdict on his exile had been annulled and to persuade him to take a chair at the University of Florence. In December of the same year, he received an order to Ludwig V of Brandenburg, son of Ludwig IV of Bavaria, to ask him for help against (Visconti). In 1353 he was sent to Innocent VI in Avignon to negotiate the latter's upcoming meeting with Charles IV and later to Urban V. From 1363 he settled on a small estate in Certaldo, living on meager means and completely buried in his books. There he contracted a long-term illness from which he slowly recovered. Through his efforts, the Florentines, who had once expelled their great citizen Dante, established a special pulpit to explain the latter's poem, and this pulpit was entrusted in 1373 to Boccaccio. The death of Petrarch upset him so much that he fell ill and died 17 months later, on December 21, 1375.

The monument to Boccaccio, erected on Solferinsky Square in Certaldo, was opened on June 22, 1879. A crater on Mercury was named in honor of Boccaccio.

Boccaccio was the first humanist and one of the most learned people in Italy. At Andalone del Nero, he studied astronomy and for three whole years kept the Calabrian Leontius Pilate, a great connoisseur of Greek literature, in his house to read Homer with him. Like his friend Petrarch, he collected books and copied with his own hands very many rare manuscripts, which almost all perished during the fire in the monastery of Santo Spirito (1471). He used his influence with his contemporaries to arouse in them a love for the study and acquaintance with the ancients. Through his efforts, a department of the Greek language and its literature was founded in Florence. He was one of the first to draw the public's attention to the miserable state of the sciences in the monasteries, which were considered their custodians. In the monastery of Monte Cassino, the most famous and learned in all of Europe at that time, Boccaccio found the library neglected to such an extent that the books on the shelves were covered with layers of dust, some manuscripts had sheets torn out, others were cut and mangled, and, for example, wonderful the manuscripts of Homer and Plato were streaked with inscriptions and theological controversy. There he learned, among other things, that the brothers made whistles for children and talismans for women from these manuscripts.

The early works of Boccaccio (of the Neapolitan period) include: the poems Philostrota (c. 1335), Tezeida (c. 1339-41), the novel Filocolo (c. 1336-38), based on the plots of medieval novels. Later works (of the Florentine period): The Fiesolan Nymphs (1345), authenticated by Ovid's Metamorphoses, Ameto, and the story Fiametta (1343). The pinnacle of Boccaccio's work is the Decameron.

In Italian, he wrote Tezeid, the first attempt at a romantic epic in octaves; "Love vision" ("Amorosa visione"); "Filocolo" ("Filocolo"), a novel in which the plot is borrowed from the ancient French romance of Fluire and Blancheflor; "Fiametta" ("L'amorosa Fiammetta", Padua, 1472), a touching story of the mental suffering of an abandoned Fiametta; "Ameto" (Venice, 1477) - a pastoral novel in prose and verse; "Filostrato" ("Il Filostrato", ed.1480), a poem in octaves depicting the love story of Troilus and Cressida; "Il corbaccio o labirinto d'amore" (Florence, 1487) - a caustic pamphlet on women ("Corbaccio") (1354-1355, published in 1487).

Latin writings

Boccaccio is the author of a number of historical and mythological works in Latin. Among them is the encyclopedic work "Genealogy of Pagan Gods" in 15 books (first edition around 1360, treatises "On mountains, forests, springs, lakes, rivers, swamps and seas" (begun around 1355-1357); 9 books "On the misfortunes of famous people" (first edition circa 1360) On Famous Women (begun circa 1361) includes 106 biographies of women- From Queen Joanna of Naples.