#26 – Boccaccio Part Two

* Let’s talk about the Filocolo * The title means “the one struck down by love”. * It is considered to be the first novel of Italian literature written in prose. * Florio, son of the King of Spain, and Biancifiore, an orphan. * They grow up together, get separated, have a lot of adventures, then he searches for her and finds her and they are reunited. * The story influenced Chaucer and Shakespeare and many others. * Boccaccio and Maria also appear thinly disguised in the novel. * Anyway – the novel is packed full of him talking about Maria, who he calls Fiammetta (Italian for “little flame”), about how beautiful she is and how much he (as another character) is in love with her. * He writes that her teeth were candid Eastern pearls, her lips, living rubies clear and red, her cheeks, roses mixed with lilies, her hair, all gold like an aureole about her happy face. * Around 1334, he first read Petrarch and they started a correspondence. * They didn’t meet until 1350. * But during this period she doesn’t give him many chances to see her. * Finished in 1336 or 1338. * He was 23. * It took him FIVE YEARS * During these years he became so consumed with his mad love for Maria, and his writing, that he finally quit his canon law studies. * During this period, he starts work on The FILOSTRATO: The title, a combination of Greek and Latin words, can be translated approximately as “laid prostrate by love” * The story goes back to Homer’s Iliad. * Which, strangely enough, Boccaccio hadn’t read, because it wouldn’t be translated into Italian until 20 years later – and he was the guy who made that happen. * Troilus and Cressida, minor characters in the older stories. * Tragic lovers from opposite sides of the tracks, he’s a Trojan, she’s a Greek. * Boccaccio is the first person to write an entire story with them as the main characters. * Apparently in the same year he finished Filocolo, 1336, he is invited to go on vacation with her a group of her friends to her house near her old convent. * And she seems to have given him hope that one day he’d get into her pants. * But not quite yet. * He says it took 135 days. * Not that he was counting. * One day while her husband was away, Boccaccio let himself into her bedroom. * Probably bribed her maid to help him. * He hid himself behind the curtains in the room. * Maria came in with her maid, who undressed her and put her into bed, then left, half laughing, half crying. * He waited until she was asleep. * Then he crawled into bed beside her. * He put his arms around her. * When she woke up and saw him there, she started to cry out, but he says he shut her mouth with kisses. * She tried to escape and get out of bed, but he held her tightly. * But then she told him he was wasting his time – because she wouldn’t give up her pussy. * So he got out of bed, took a dagger out of his belt, and said: * “I come not, O lady, to defile the chastity of thy bed, but as an ardent lover to obtain relief for my burning desires; thou alone canst assuage them, or tell me to die: surely I will only leave thee satisfied or dead not that I seek to gratify my passion by violence or to compel any to raise cruel hands agai...