The myth of Naples

The myth of Naples and the hope of a felicitous return to the city where he had lived an exhilarating youth, taking part in the elegant courtly life, did not abandon Boccaccio for many years. Giovanni did for long hope that he could establish himself on a permanent basis at the Angevin court, obtaining some official post from the sovereign. And at least three attempts of this nature are documented. In 1355, after having in May met Zanobi da Strada and his childhood friend Niccolò Acciaiuoli, who held the post of gran Siniscalco of the Reign, and who was in Florence on a diplomatic mission, Boccaccio hoped to be appointed regal secretary, a post vacated by Zanobi, but his trip to Naples ended in failure, due to Acciauoli’s lack of support. Giovanni did however stop off at the Abbey of Montecassino to consult the library, rich in Latin texts.

In 1362 it was the selfsame Niccolò who invited him, but the welcome he gave him turned out to be tepid and rather embarrassing, as is recounted in Epistola XIII of 1363, addressed to Francesco Nelli and which has reached posterity via a transcription in the vernacular. At this stage the relationship between the two old friends was definitively broken and the IX eclogue of the Buccolicum carmen, dedicated to Midas, seals the rupture, making Acciauoli the target of ferocious satire.

The last Neapolitan sojourn was in 1370 and it again ended with an unexpected refusal. Even though he was warmly received by his friends Ugo di San Severino, Niccolò Orsini and Mainardo Cavalcanti, and despite the fact that Queen Giovanna, and her third husband, Giacomo di Maiorca, showed great pleasure at having him at court, Boccaccio refused to stay on. The idealised image of Naples, which had been a salvific mirage in times of woe, had by then become tarnished and replaced by the otium (idleness) of Certaldo, the place he had by then come to prefer above all others.