Genealogy of the Pagan Gods (review)

We have waited centuries for an English translation of the Genealogia deorum gentilium, Boccaccio’s survey of Greek and Roman myth. Edmund Spenser and John Milton read it in Latin. A French translation of Books I–XIII appeared as early as 1498, and an Italian translation by 1547. Why did we have to wait so long? Because it is a titanic task, fifteen books long.

Drawing on more than 200 Greek and Latin authors, the Genealogy is a feat of erudition that shows a Boccaccio barely seen in the Decameron. It is “a veritable encyclopedia of mythological information” (x) and for the better part of two centuries it was Europe’s guide to the gods. The gods and goddesses, their liaisons, and progeny seemed a hopeless confusion. How many Hermes were there? Who says Minerva was a mother? How many women did Jupiter seduce? As best he could, Boccaccio sorted out the affairs and families of the gods. He admitted he couldn’t make sense of it all. Why try?

Sometime between 1347 and 1349, Hugo, King of Cyprus, isle of Venus, sent an officer to ask Boccaccio to research and write the Genealogia. Boccaccio demurred, saying he had “a slow wit and a fluid memory” and was unequal to the task. The officer insisted. Boccaccio replied that many books had been destroyed by time and by Christi nuntiis, “messengers of Christ.” Much was lost and remains were widely scattered. It would be “a labor apt to bear little, if any fruit” (15). Still the officer insisted until at last Boccaccio relented and replied he would do it, but no one should wonder if he failed. “The mere thought of the undertaking makes me stagger under its excessive weight” (23). Knowing from the start that he’d never reach the end, he worked on the Genealogy for decades, revising and expanding it.

The research was difficult, the writing dangerous. The shade of Numenius appeared to Boccaccio, warning, “Do you by some chance believe that you can open up the halls of the gods with impunity? You are deceiving yourself, and unless you desist you will not recognize their anger before you experience it” (317). Boccaccio defied Numenius, laughed in the face of Demogorgon, and evaded Apollo’s ancient snares, but while he was describing Venus, a tempest arose and blew him away (33, 621, 409). As he tells it, Boccaccio was very brave, or very bored, doing what he could to enliven a time-devouring chore.

The Genealogy tells who begat whom—bare bones stuff, but solid, and fleshed with quotations. Boccaccio cited Homer, Vergil (“divine genius,” 93), Horace, Ovid (“the fabricator,” 285), and Statius. He cited Cicero, Augustine, Fulgentius, Macrobius, Lactantius, and especially his own teachers, Paul of Perugia and Theodontius, “the most expert researcher in these matters” (463). Theodontius is the sole source for many variants, odd details, and otherwise forgotten gods.

Generically, the Genealogy is esoterica: divinity divined. “It is not for all to know the secrets of the gods; if they were known, the power of divinity would be considerably depreciated” (39), but here are gods’ secrets in their hundreds for King Hugo. The Genealogy could have had hundreds more: Boccaccio told Hugo that fabulas have so many meanings, that he had to pick and choose (51). If he gave every explanation for Pan, he’d fill up the volume (63).

Boccaccio kept his distance from pagan gods and when he could, he dismissed them. He assails them with scripture, he astrologizes, he allegorizes, he etymologizes fantastically, and he relentlessly euhemerizes. One god after another is explained away as a man or woman whose invention, industry, or victory persuaded Greeks to vaunt them to heaven. He prefers simplicity to profundity: “I believe that Semele’s being struck by a thunderbolt was taken from an event, namely, that she was struck by a thunderbolt” (711).

Book I starts with Chaos then descends to Demogorgon and the...