Boccaccio Reading Cino Reading Dante in Filostrato 5.62–66

My homage to Pier Massimo Forni, to whom I owe all that I know on Giovanni Boccaccio, must begin by recalling a conversation I had with one of the finest connoisseurs of the Italian novella, Marziano Guglielminetti, early in the spring of 2005, a few months before my move to Baltimore and about a year before Guglielminetti's premature death. What struck me the most in that long conversation about Italian studies in North America was his high esteem for Pier Massimo: "Forni is the greatest Boccaccio scholar around," he confessed. Vittore Branca had passed away one year earlier (in May 2004) and, as I would soon realize while reading Forni's books and attending his classes, Guglielminetti's words were not merely personal opinion. All that I learned from Forni's teaching in the six academic years spent in Baltimore cannot be acknowledged here or elsewhere but I hope that his method of reading Boccaccio, which has informed my own ever since, finds in the following pages a faithful exposition.

One of the key texts Forni would present to his classes to explain Boccaccio's use of sources is the famous rewriting of Cino of Pistoia's La dolce vista e 'l bel guardo soave (canzone 111) in his Filostrato (5.62–66).¹ The first part of this paper examines how Boccaccio reworked the verses of Cino's canzone, while the second shows that his refined adaptation was aimed at dramatizing an imaginary dialogue on imitation between Cino and Dante Alighieri. The entire contribution owes [End Page S-105] a twofold debt to Pier Massimo Forni: first with regard to the topic, through which he introduced his students to Boccaccio's poetic and intellectual relationship to his authors; and second with regard to the interpretive method, which aspires to Forni's perfect blending of intertextuality and hermeneutics.

Critics have devoted much attention to comparisons between Boccaccio's octaves and Cino's canzone for several reasons, two of which are particularly relevant here: the still debated question of the origin of ottava rima—a meter which finds its first literary use in the Filostrato, if not its very creation through Boccaccio's skillful adaptation of the stanza of the canzone²—and the poetic relationship between Cino and Boccaccio. If it is commonly assumed that the young Boccaccio attended Cino's lectures at the Neapolitan Studio between 1330 and 1332 and that it was Cino the law professor who introduced Boccaccio to stilnovo poetics and Dante's work,³ then the choice to rewrite Cino's text in the Filostrato reveals an intimate dialogue on the nature and meaning of poetic imitation which surpasses the allusive art of the cento form.

This pre-humanistic dialogue will become apparent through a synoptic reading of the two texts:

Cino, canzone 111La dolce vista e 'l bel guardo soavede' più begli occhi che lucesser mai,ch' ho perduto, mi fa parer sì gravela vita ch'io vo traendo guai;e 'n vece di pensier' leggiadri e gaich'aver solea d'Amore,porto disir' nel coreche son nati di morte,per la partenza, sì me ne duol forte.

Omè, Amor, perché nel primo passonon m'assalisti sì ch'io fossi morto?Perché non dipartisti da me, lasso,lo spirito angoscioso ch'io porto?Amor, al mio dolor non è conforto:anzi, com'io più guardo,a sospirar più m'ardo,trovandomi partutoda que' begli occhi ov'io t'ho già veduto.

Boccaccio, Filostrato 5.62–66—[…] La dolce vista e 'l bel guardo soavede' più begli occhi che si vider mai,ch'i' ho perduti, fan parer sì gravela vita mia, ch'io vo traendo guaied a tal punto già condotto m'haveche 'nvece di sospir leggiadri e gai,ch'aver solea, disii porto di morteper la partenza, sì me ne duol forte.

Oh me, Amor, perché nel primo passonon mi feristi sì ch'io fossi morto?Perché non dipartisti da me, lasso,lo spirito angoscioso che io porto,per ciò che d'alto mi veggio ora in...