Ninfale fiesolano

Tuscan mythologies

There is a great  deal of doubt as to when the Ninfale fiesolano was written. The poem, composed of 473 octaves, has been attributed to the period of the poet’s youth in Naples by Pier Giorgio Ricci[1]. The scholar, in contrast with the traditional dating, which places it circa 1344-46, just after the composition of the Fiammetta, has declared himself favourable to the idea that the Ninfale might have even been the poet from Certaldo’s first literary attempt, on the basis of a certain textual incongruence  within Boccaccio’s works. This hypothesis was rebuked by A. Balduino[2], inclined to accept the more traditional dating, today shared by most scholars.

The young shepherd Africo falls in love with Mensola, a nymph sacred to Diana and voted to chastity. With the complicity of Venus and disguising himself as a woman, Africo manages to reach the home of the nymphs, make Mensola fall in love with him and have her. Later rejected by the nymph, afraid of Diana’s anger, Africo kills himself out of pain for his lost love. The river where he had had his first amorous encounter with Mensola gathers the blood of the hapless lover and takes on his name, so as to testify to his sad end. A sinister parallel with a hapless family destiny, Africo’s story is similar to that of his grandfather Mugnone. He too, having fallen in love with a nymph, had died in the river that bears his name, whilst the nymph he had fallen in love with was transformed into a spring, with a metamorphosis similar to the one inflicted upon Mensola. Africo’s beloved is indeed transformed into a river, as a punishment for the culpable pregnancy from which is born Pruneo, son of Africo. The child is brought up by his paternal grandparents, Alimena and Girafone. Having become seneschal for Atlas, founder of Fiesole, he marries Tironea. This young woman gives Pruneo many strong children, who become the pride and the roots of the newly born community of Fiesole.

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[1]P.G. Ricci, Studi sulla vita e le opere del Boccaccio, Milan-Naples 1985, pp. 13-28.

[2]A. Balduino, Introduzione, in Tutte le opere di Giovanni Boccaccio, Milan 1974, vol. III, pp. 275-282.