Comedia delle ninfe fiorentine
Eschatology and catharsis
Apart from the model borrowed from Dante, one finds in the construction of the Comedia della ninfe fiorentine or Comedy of Florentine nymphs important medieval eschatologies. The education of man is the subject of the De mundi universitate by Bernardo Silvestre and the Anticlaudianus by Alan of Lille, echoed within the general structure of the work, rather than in specific parts of it. In the Comedia we however find not so much a birth as a metaphorical catharsis, which very much recalls, for the events it recounts the purifying bath- and the results the transformation from animals into men- the contents of Diana's hunt. Also the meter used, the so called terzina dantesca, also known as ìterza rimaî, links the two works, even though the Comedia alternates verse with prose, in that part in which the nymphs tell their tales. In this distended juxtaposition of poetry and narrative we can identify the prosimetric structure of the Vita nuova and of the above mentioned allegoric-scientific texts of the school of Chartres. The circle of story telling nymphs if it on the one hand recalls the episode of the amorous questions in the Filocolo, on the other can be said to anticipate the jolly brigade of the Decameron. One thus discovers a dense interplay between the texts, which link, like a red thread, all of Giovanni Boccaccioís works, projecting additional meanings from one to the others.
The most complex allegory to be found in the Comedia is presented by Adiona, who describes the nymph Pomenaís vegetable garden (XXVI, 8-39[1]). This incredible garden, with its many and varied species of plants is the opportunity for a show of encyclopaedism, with references to the most varied of classical and medieval sources, without forgetting verisimilitude, behind which we can intuit the authorís experience in botany. A revisiting of the locus amoenus and almost paradise on earth, Pomenaís garden requires incessant care, because, after the end of the golden age, there is no longer a happy and luxurious nature that grows spontaneously. A mythical image of an age passed, the nymphís garden is at the same time the propitiatory mirage for the commencement of a new course.
[1]Comedia delle ninfe fiorentine, ed. A.E. Quaglio, in Tutte le opere di Giovanni Boccaccio. Ed. V. Branca, vol. 2, Milan 1964, pp. 745-749.
