Mythological Allegory

In cc. 61r-62r of the Zibaldone Laurenziano XXIX 8 with the title De mundi creatione, is a highly symbolic work, of difficult interpretation. Its dating in 1339 would confirm the Neapolitan genesis of the text and would support the idea that it is centred upon allusions to historic events  linked to Naples.

The three sections of which it is composed first give a compendium of universal history, which contaminate its classical sources with the genesis, and recalls, by order, the creation of the world, the myth of the life of the world from gold to iron age, the Flood and the genesis of a new human race, thanks to the survivors Deucalion and Pirra. The tale then concentrates upon the story of salvation, with the incarnation and redemption of humanity, which then appears to be again menaced by Phetontes’ crazy flight, the subject of the end of the work.

If the cycle structure is recognisable as a common denominator of the Allegoria, which highlights how the fate of man continually swings to bad and back, thus making it unstable, one cannot say that a metaliterary preoccupation is entirely absent, with a particular interest for the divine inspiration of poetry. The reproposal of the myths of  Aracne and Marsia, exemplification of an art that goes beyond the limits imposed by the gods, and the exaltation of the “literary” talents of the character that is Phetontes, recalled in the poem just because of his poetic talent, would indicate that Boccaccio intended  to address the problem of art as something in line with divine will[1].

The predominant models of reference are Ovid’s Metamorphosis, but with the addition of religious themes. Also if we look at Giovanni di Virgilio’s comment on the Metamorphosis, a man who may have indeed been consulted by Boccaccio, we note more deformity than similitude by way of confirmation of the originality of the work contained in the Zibaldone laurenziano.

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[1]Cfr. C. Cazalé Bérard, Riscrittura della poetica e poetica della riscrittura negli Zibaldoni di Boccaccio, in Gli Zibaldoni di Boccaccio. Memoria, scrittura e riscrittura. Florence-Certaldo Int. Seminar (26-28 April 1996), ed. M. Picone-C. Cazalé Bérard, Florence 1998, pp. 425-453.