Decameron

The role of capital letters

The “signalling” role played by the capital letters in the Hamilton 90 manuscript in the indication of the beginning of each day and in marking out the rigid introductory ceremony to each novella has opportunely been indicated with rapid yet fundamental notations by Vittore Branca and has subsequently stimulated the interest of other scholars, in different contexts[1].

The larger ruled initial letters (type 1)[2] accompanied by blackish/brown capitals of a lesser size (type 5) indicate the start to the day; following each rubric we instead find ruled initial letters of type 2 (thus smaller and less elaborately decorated) that together with a type 5 capital tell the reader of the start to a new tale, generally articulated within the three moments of comment to the preceding novella,  from the introduction of the next storyteller and the novella. We are made aware that the new storyteller is commencing his tale, as if to mark the passage from the metanarrative space of the framework to that of the tale are the very simple type 3 capitals, alternately coloured in red and turquoise and always followed by a type 5 capital.  

There is thus some sort of hierarchical structure of initials, where the variation in colours indicates the different components of the text. This is true also of the type 4 simple capitals, to which is entrusted the identification of the semantically self-sufficient units of text, which one could compare to modern-day paragraphs.

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[1]V. Branca, Tradizione delle opere di Giovanni Boccaccio. II, Roma 1991, in part. p. 218; L. Battaglia Ricci, Boccaccio, Roma 2000, pp. 141-147; Giovanni Boccaccio, Decamerón, a c. di M. Hernández Esteban, Madrid 1994, in part. pp. 72 e 74; A. Petrucci, Il ms. Berlinese Hamiltoniano 90. Note codicologiche e paleografiche, in G. Boccaccio, Decameron. Edizione diplomatico-interpretativa dell’autografo Hamilton 90, a c. di C. S. Singleton, Baltimore and London 1974, 647-661, in part. p. 648; W. Pötters, Begriff und Struktur der Novelle. Linguistische Betrachtungen zu Boccaccios “Falken”, Tübingen 1991, in part. pp. 23-32; 72-90.

[2]The types of capitals in the Hamilton 90 code are classified as follows:

it would thus seem possibile to identify a typology, which is illustrated in the table below:

Capital	Decoration	Colour	Dimension
1.Type	filleted	Alternately red and turquoise	Touches four lines plus its own
2. Type	filleted	Alternately red and turquoise	Touches two lines plus its own
3. Type	simple	Alternately red and turquoise	Touches one line plus its own
4. Type	simple	Touched in yellow	Touches no other lines
5.Tipo	simple	Blackish/brown	Touches no other lines

Cfr. T. Nocita, Per una nuova paragrafatura del testo del Decameron. Appunti sulle maiuscole del cod. Hamilton 90 (Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Preußischer Kulturbesitz), “Critica del Testo”, II/3 (1999), pp. 925-934; Ead., La redazione hamiltoniana di Decameron I 5. Sceneggiatura di una novella, in Il racconto nel Medioevo romanzo. Atti del Convegno, Bologna, 23-24 ottobre 2000, Con altri contributi di Filologia romanza, Bologna 2002, pp. 351-366 [“Quaderni di Filologia Romanza”, 15 (2001)]; Ed. in collaboration with T. Crivelli, Teatralità del dettato, stratificazioni strutturali, plurivocità degli esiti: il Decameron fra testo, ipertesto e generi letterari, in Autori e lettori di Boccaccio. Atti del Convegno internazionale di Certaldo, Certaldo, 20-22 settembre 2001, ed. M. Picone, Florence 2002, pp. 209-233.