Comedia delle ninfe fiorentine

A Comedy by Boccaccio

The Comedia delle ninfe fiorentine or Comedy of Florentine nymphs is an allegorical romance in a pastoral setting, composed by Boccaccio after his return to Florence, around1341-42.

The original title, substituted by XV century copyists and editors with the more incisive Ameto or, by analogy with the Ninfale fiesolano, with the diction Ninfale d’Ameto, shows that it was inspired by Dante’s model of the Divine Comedy. Boccaccio’s use of the same generic term can be justified in terms of what we find in the Epistola a Cangrande. With the term “comedy”, for which Dante’s paternity is none too certain, this letter describes a work in which the internal organisation of the narrative material evolves from a sad beginning towards a happy ending. In Boccaccio’s pastoral romance one finds a similar ascending structure, that leads the protagonist Ameto to acquire full intellectual and spiritual maturity. Also the choice of place, a fantastic elaboration of the Florentine countryside, could justify classifying it within the genre of comedy as it is here defined, if it, as professed in the Epistola XIII, can be etymologically  linked to the “canto dei villani” (song of villains, in the sense of peasants) and thus the description of pastoral scenes.

Ameto is an uncouth shepherd who lives between the Arno and the Mugnone. His encounter with seven beautiful nymphs fires him with love for one of them, Lia. On the day of the feast of Venus  this genteel band welcomes him in its den and invites him to listen to the stories of their loves. After having heard the seven stories, Ameto undertakes a purifying and cathartic bath, that transforms him from country yokel into an accomplished man and allows him to reveal the identity of the seven virtues (Mopsa-Wisdom, Emilia-Justice, Adiona-Temperance, Acrimonia-Fortitude, Agapes-Charity, Fiammetta-Hope, Lia-Faith), hidden under the attractive female shapes of the story tellers.