Studi Sul Boccaccio ed. by Ginetta Auzzas et al. (review)

After over fifty years with the Florentine publisher Le Lettere, number XLVI of the historic journal Studi sul Boccaccio (founded by Vittore Branca in 1963) has recently been published by another well-known press: L. S. Olschki of Florence. The volume collects significant contributions about the life, work and influence of Giovanni Boccaccio, with a new editorial look. The first thing that the reader notices is the great richness of the contents of this number. There are articles about philology, literary criticism and linguistics, embracing a large part of Boccaccio’s production, all of which analyse some interesting and new points of view concerning his influence on the literature. This volume can inform scholars about the current state of studies on Giovanni Boccaccio, and is certainly useful for anyone who wants to study in depth one of the “tre corone” (‘literary crowns’) of Italian Literature. The volume consists of fourteen essays, on the aforementioned subjects, and five reviews of recent and important works on Boccaccio, such as Boccaccio e la Francia by P. Guérin and A. Robin (reviewed by P. Rinoldi) or La Vita Nuova del Boccaccio. Fortuna e Tradizione by L. Banella (reviewed by N. Gensini). The volume also contains a useful general index of names and manuscripts cited and abstracts of all essays in the volume in both Italian and English. Finally, the journal Studi sul Boccaccio contains the “notiziario” of the Ente Nazionale Giovanni Boccaccio, whose site was recently revamped (http://www.enteboccaccio.it/s/casa-boccaccio/page/home), listing many forthcoming initiatives and conferences on Boccaccio.

In its range of essays, the volume is essential to gain up-to-date information about the most important acquisitions and ongoing research about Boccaccio’s work and influence. Moreover, all the works are interconnected at some level, and the volume ends up having a more solid structure than a first glance might suggest. The first essay, by C. M. Monti, is about the relationship between Boccaccio and Petrarca; more precisely, the self-representation that the former offers in the framework of an articulate “progetto culturale condiviso” (11). This topic is investigated through the philological analysis of two Latin expressions: itineris strator and audibus ex minimis, that are used in Boccaccio’s two ‘academic’ works: the Genealogie deorum gentilium and De montibus, written in the same period, under the influence of the aforementioned cultural project, the latter title is short for the original, “encyclopaedic” De montibus, silvis, fontibus, lacubus, fluminibus, stagnis seu paludibus, et de diversis nominibus maris. About the latter, the De montibus, a second essay by M. Papio e A. Lloret examines some philological aspects of their future critical edition, to be published with an English translation. The authors, in order to collate all the witnesses of this opera, have used one of the most advanced methods of philological analysis, the collation software Juxta (14, https://www.juxtasoftware.org/). A new, stronger interest in Boccaccio’s De montibus (and his importance on his general production) is apparent not only in these two articles, but also in a footnote inside Papio and Lloret’s essay, citing the forthcoming publication of this same work by V. Rovere in the main collection published by the Ente Nazionale (1: 13–14). As an anticipation of these two editions, the essay within this volume is extremely precise and focused on the main problematic issues and loci critici inside this problematic text, largely made of long lists of glossed toponyms. These future editions will eventually be crucial to our understanding of Boccaccio’s knowledge of Latin and Greek culture and their influence on his work. However, these important fields of study can count on an established tradition, and the present volume also includes an essay by L. Battaglia Ricci referencing Boccaccio’s knowledge of Homer. Battaglia Ricci explores the evolution of the author’s progressive discovery of Homer and Greek literature through his lifespan. This path of discovery climaxed...