The Decameron, vol. 1 | Page 9

activity, have written the first and not the least powerful and artistic of
psychologic romances, for even such is L'Amorosa Fiammetta.
But whatever may be the final verdict of criticism upon these minor works of Boccaccio,
it is impossible to imagine an age in which the Decameron will fail of general recognition
as, in point alike of invention as of style, one of the most notable creations of human
genius. Of few books are the sources so recondite, insomuch that it seems to be certain
that in the main they must have be merely oral tradition, and few have exercised so wide
and mighty an influence. The profound, many-sided and intimate knowledge of human
nature which it evinces, its vast variety of incident, its wealth of tears and laughter, its
copious and felicitous diction, inevitably apt for every occasion, and, notwithstanding the
frequent harshness, and occasional obscurity of its at times tangled, at times laboured
periods, its sustained energy and animation of style must ever ensure for this human
comedy unchallenged rank among the literary masterpieces that are truly immortal.
The Decameron was among the earliest of printed books, Venice leading the way with a
folio edition in 1471, Mantua following suit in 1472, and Vicenza in 1478. A folio edition,

adorned, with most graceful wood- engravings, was published at Venice in 1492.
Notwithstanding the freedom with which in divers passages Boccaccio reflected on the
morals of the clergy, the Roman Curia spared the book, which the austere Savonarola
condemned to the flames. The tradition that the Decameron was among the pile of
"vanities" burned by Savonarola in the Piazza della Signoria on the last day of the
Carnival of 1497, little more than a year before he was himself burned there, is so
intrinsically probable--and accords so well with the extreme paucity of early copies of the
work--that it would be the very perversity of scepticism to doubt it. It is by no means to
the credit of our country that, except to scholars, it long remained in England, an almost
entirely closed book. (2) Indeed the first nominally complete English translation, a sadly
mutilated and garbled rendering of the French version by Antoine Le Macon, did not
appear till 1620, and though successive redactions brought it nearer to the original, it
remained at the best but a sorry faute de mieux. Such as it was, however, our forefathers
were perforce fain to be content with it.
The first Englishman to render the whole Decameron direct from the Italian was Mr. John
Payne; but his work, printed for the Villon Society in 1886, was only for private
circulation, and those least inclined to disparage its merits may deem its style somewhat
too archaic and stilted adequately to render the vigour and vivacity of the original.
Accordingly in the present version an attempt has been made to hit the mean between
archaism and modernism, and to secure as much freedom and spirit as is compatible with
substantial accuracy.
(1) As to the palaces in which the scene is laid, Manni (Istoria del Decamerone, Par. ii.
cap. ii.) identifies the first with a villa near Fiesole, which can be no other than the Villa
Palmieri, and the second (ib. cap. lxxvi.) with the Podere della Fonte, or so-called Villa
del Boccaccio, near Camerata. Baldelli's theory, adopted by Mrs. Janet Ann Ross
(Florentine Villas, 1901), that the Villa di Poggio Gherardi was the first, and the Villa
Palmieri the second, retreat is not to be reconciled with Boccaccio's descriptions. The
Villa Palmieri is not remote enough for the second and more sequestered retreat, nor is it,
as that is said to have been, situate on a low hill amid a plain, but on the lower Fiesolean
slope. The most rational supposition would seem to be that Boccaccio, who had seen
many a luxurious villa, freely combined his experiences in the description of his palaces
and pleasaunces, and never expected to be taken au pied de la lettre.
(2) Nevertheless Shakespeare derived indirectly the plot of All's Well that Ends Well
from the Ninth Novel of the Third Day, and an element in the plot of Cymbeline from the
Ninth Novel of the Second Day.
-- Beginneth here the book called Decameron, otherwise Prince Galeotto, wherein are
contained one hundred novels told in ten days by seven ladies and three young men. --
PROEM
'Tis humane to have compassion on the afflicted and as it shews well in all, so it is
especially demanded of those who have had need of comfort and have found it in others:
among whom, if any had ever need thereof or found it precious or delectable, I may be

numbered; seeing that from my early youth even to the present I was beyond measure
aflame with a most aspiring