Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-75) is best known as the author of the Decameron, for which he created a lieta brigata of young men and women narrating a series of popular stories in Italian. Yet during his lifetime and long afterward Boccaccio was celebrated as a leading figure in the revival of classical Latin in such literary and historical works as his Eclogues, The Genealogy of the Gods, and On Famous Women. In The Downfall of the Famous (De casibus virorum illustrium) Boccaccio also composed a work that followed classical models and provided civic and ethical guides for his readers. In this he joined the efforts of his role model, Francesco Petrarch, whose own Latin De viris illustribus and unfinished Africa set the standard for early modern humanists.
Boccaccio began The Downfall of the Famous circa 1355 and completed his authoritative version in 1374. In all he presented over ninety biographies of famous men and women in nine books. These ranged from Adam and Eve through biblical, ancient Near Eastern, and Greek lives to his prime examples -- famous Romans -- before concluding with medievals. He drew on a wide variety of sources, from the Bible, through classical Greek and Roman works, to medieval histories and Arthurian romances. He ended with material drawn from stories told him, and his own eye-witness, at the court of Naples.
This edition is based on the elegant 1965 translation by Louis Brewer Hall. Hall's edition was selective, concentrating on classical lives. But Hall did include Boccaccio's frames: his "visions" of a parade of historical figures passing before him and engaging in lively moral debates; and his direct musings on fame, private and public vice and virtue, and good and bad fortune. In fact, Fortuna emerges as this work's most important character and theme. Along with contemporaries like Giovanni Villani, Boccaccio saw history and biography as moral arts, underscoring the civic virtues and personal failings of famous men and women, Fortune balancing every success with its inevitable reversal.
Newly typeset and paginated, this volume presents Hall's complete English translation. It adds numerous historical, biographical, interpretive, and bibliographical notes reflecting a half-century of new Boccaccio scholarship.
Hall's introduction and translation with new preface, notes, bibliography, index, and illustrations. 276 pages.
Author Biography:
Giovanni Boccaccio was born in 1313, perhaps in Certaldo, the son of an unknown woman and of Boccaccino di Chellino, who married the noblewoman Margherita dei Mardoli in 1314. Giovanni was raised in Florence and received a standard urban education. In 1327 his father was appointed head of the Naples branch of the Bardi bank. But rejecting a banking career, Giovanni went on to study law at the University of Naples. In Naples his father introduced him to the court of King Robert the Wise, and Giovanni soon became familiar with most of its important personalities, including fellow Florentine Niccolò Acciaiuoli and early humanists and friends of Petrarch, such as Cino da Pistoia, Paolo da Perugia, Barbato da Sulmona, Giovanni Barrili, and Dionigi di Borgo San Sepolcro. Moving to Paris in 1332, he began his literary career with poetic works, such as "La caccia di Diana" (1334-37), "Filostrato" (1335?), "Filocolo" (1336-39), and "Teseida" (1339/40). Boccaccio returned to Florence in 1341 and moved to Forlì c.1347 in search of patronage. During the 1340s he produced more verse works, including the "Comedia delle ninfe fiorentine" (1341/42), "Amorosa visione" (1342/43), "Fiammetta" (1343/44), and "Ninfale fiesolano" (1344/45). Following the Black Death in Florence in 1348, Boccaccio began the "Decameron" c.1349 and completed its first version by 1351. In the later 1350s, he became closely involved with humanism and followed the path of many early humanists as a diplomat, serving Florence on wide-ranging missions. After their first meeting in October 1350, Boccaccio became a close friend and disciple of Petrarch, joining him in the study of Greek and Latin literature, and in 1360 began his "Genealogia deorum gentilium." Following a failed coup of 1361, Boccaccio left Florence for Certaldo, and in 1363 he experienced some sort of religious conversion. He returned to diplomatic duties for Florence in 1365 with missions to Rome, Venice, and Naples, probably completing his "Corbaccio" that year. Boccaccio's later works set a more classical standard. They include the present "De casibus virorum illustrium," "De claris mulieribus" ("On Famous Women," 1361-75), his geographical compendium "De montibus...liber" (1364), and his "Esposizioni sopra la Commedia di Dante" (1373). He retired to Certaldo in 1370 and died there on 21 December 1375.
