Rhymes
The polycentric tradition of Boccaccio’s rhymes has greatly influenced in a negative way studies on the lyrical work of the author of the Decameron. The majority of codes is relatively recent, ascribable o the XV or XVI century, and hands down to posterity groups of compositions in which one cannot detect any kind of unity of theme or content. A more compact nucleus of 103 rhymes is to be found in cc. 60r-80r of the Raccolta Bartoliniana, kept at the Accademia della Crusca in Florence.
The sylloge was believed to be particularly authoritative by Aldo Francesco Massera, who in his annotated edition[1] points out how it was carefully transcribed and how it is intrinsically homogenous. It is to this same publisher that we owe the pseudo-biographical order of the various lyrical fragments, on the basis of an amorous parable. The erotic rhymes of youth, quite clearly in the vein of the stilnovo, are a felicitous expression of the poet’s love for Fiammetta, originally set against a marine and Neapolitan scenario. The poet’s departure from Naples and his beloved’s subsequent betrayal are the subject of a painful song, which are followed by gnomic and parenetic lyrics, concentrated upon a metaliterary reflection and the expression of religious praise, which are believed to be characteristics ascribable to Boccaccio’s later years.
The variety of motifs -stilnovo, late gothic, comical-realistic – corresponds to the plurality of stylistic registers. The use of the excellent models that were Dante and Petrarch, particularly obvious, could be linked to different periods of the poet’s life, in congruence with the dichotomy youthful love- senile repentance, suggested by the Mavortis Milex[2].
Although it is impossible to know whether there ever existed a macro-text written by the author, the emergence of sequences of rhymes, justifiable on the basis of a series of intertextual relationships of a thematic, stylistic and lexical nature, would seem by now to have been ascertained together with evidence for a small collection of youthful erotic works, circa 1334-35.
[1]Rime di Giovanni Boccaccio, ed. A.F. Massera, Bologna 1914.
[2]For this and the subsequent affirmation see G. Natali, Il Canzoniere di Giovanni Boccaccio, “La Cultura”, 39 (2001), pp. 55-89; I. Tufano, “Quel dolce canto”. Letture tematiche delle “Rime” di Giovanni Boccaccio, Florence, 2006.
