Boccaccio illustratore e copista di se stesso
Decameron
The Hamilton 90 manuscript
The Hamilton 90 code, kept at the Berlin Staatsbibliothek, is a parchment manuscript, datable 1370. Very famous and much studied, it was Chiari who first recognised its authenticity in 1948[1], which was however only sanctioned in 1962 with Branca and Ricci’s[2] expertise.
The presence of many mistakes in the copying, throughout the text, had indeed led to a certain reluctance on the part of scholars to concede Boccaccio paternity for this manuscript. In effect it was indeed these repeated lapsus calami, together with some material characteristics of the code, such as the not particularly good quality and the none too refined preparation of the parchment, that together led to the idea that the Hamilton copy was a “working” copy, which probably had never left the author’s desk.
On the basis of the handwriting datable towards the end of Boccaccio’s life, the Hamilton 90 copy can be called a “last” version only in a chronological sense. The presence of numerous alternative or substitutive variants, written between the lines and alongside the text, show how the author continually went back over the text, considering it a sort of ‘job in progress’.
Preceding copies of the Centonovelle are said to be the Parigino italiano 482 and the Laurenziano Pluteo XLII 1, this according to the reconstruction proposed by Branca[3]. For its authenticity the Hamilton manuscript is the one scrupulously followed in the annotated edition published in 1976[4], in which only the most blatant errors and omissions have been corrected. Due to deterioration of the manuscript, the title of the work, the summaries of the novellas, a large part of day VII (1,16-9,32), the end of day IX and almost the whole of day X (IX 10,12-X 8,50) are illegible.
[1]A. Chiari, Un autografo del Decameron ?, “La Fiera letteraria”, 11 luglio 1948, 3 (1948), p. 27.
[2]V. Branca-P.G. Ricci, Un autografo del Decameron. (Codice Hamiltoniano 90), Padua, C.E.D.A.M., 1962, (Opuscoli accademici; 8).
[3]V. Branca, Tradizione delle opere di Giovanni Boccaccio. II, Rome 1991, p. 303.
[4]Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron. Edizione critica secondo l’autografo hamiltoniano, ed. V. Branca, Florence 1976.
