Federigo e il re di Cipro: Note su Boccaccio lettore di Aristotele

By considering three different instances of Aristotelian intertextuality in the Decameron, this paper highlights the role of books III and IV of Nicomachean Ethics as a source of Boccaccio’s novellas and describes the rhetorical devices of his rewriting. Aristotle’s Ethics plays a role both in the elocutio and in the inventio of the tales: his lexicon and figures of speech contribute to outline the rhetorical and linguistic surface of the Decameron, while Aristotelian motifs are employed as narrative topoi, in order to shape some features of the fabula, or to provide a psychological ground for the behavior of its characters.