Childhood and youth, 1313–1330 The details of Boccaccio's birth are uncertain. He was born in
Florence or in a village near
Certaldo where his family was from. He was the son of
Florentine merchant
Boccaccino di Chellino and an unknown woman; he was likely born out of wedlock. Boccaccio's stepmother was called Margherita de' Mardoli. Boccaccio grew up in Florence. His father worked for the
Compagnia dei Bardi and, in the 1320s, married Margherita dei Mardoli, who was of a well-to-do family. Boccaccio may have been tutored by Giovanni Mazzuoli and received from him an early introduction to the works of
Dante. In 1326, his father was appointed head of a bank and moved with his family to
Naples. Boccaccio was an apprentice at the bank, but disliked the banking profession. He persuaded his father to let him study law at the
Studium (the present-day
University of Naples), where he studied
canon law for the next six years. He also pursued his interest in scientific and literary studies. His father introduced him to the Neapolitan nobility and the French-influenced court of
Robert the Wise (the king of Naples) in the 1330s. Boccaccio became a friend of fellow Florentine
Niccolò Acciaioli, and benefited from Acciaioli's influence with
Catherine of Valois-Courtenay, widow of
Philip I of Taranto. Acciaioli later became a counselor to Queen
Joanna I of Naples and, eventually, became her
Grand Seneschal. It seems that Boccaccio enjoyed law no more than banking, but his studies allowed him the opportunity to study widely and make good contacts with fellow scholars. His early influences included Paolo da Perugia (a curator and author of a collection of
myths called the
Collectiones), humanists Barbato da Sulmona and Giovanni Barrili, and theologian
Dionigi di Borgo San Sepolcro.
Adult years in
Uffizi Gallery In Naples, Boccaccio began what he considered his true vocation of poetry. Works produced in this period include
Il Filostrato and
Teseida (the sources for
Chaucer's
Troilus and Criseyde and ''
The Knight's Tale, respectively), The Filocolo (a prose version of an existing French romance), and La caccia di Diana
(a poem in terza rima'' listing Neapolitan women). The period featured considerable formal innovation, including possibly the introduction of the
Sicilian octave, where it influenced
Petrarch. Boccaccio returned to Florence in early 1341, avoiding the
plague of 1340 in that city, but also missing the visit of Petrarch to Naples in 1341. He had left Naples due to tensions between the Angevin king and Florence. His father had returned to Florence in 1338, where he had gone bankrupt. His mother may have died shortly afterward. Boccaccio continued to work, although dissatisfied with his return to Florence, producing
Comedia delle ninfe fiorentine in 1341 (also known as
Ameto), a mix of prose and poems, completing the fifty-
canto allegorical poem
Amorosa visione in 1342, and
The Elegy of Lady Fiammetta in 1343. The pastoral piece "Ninfale fiesolano" probably dates from this time, also. In 1343, Boccaccio's father remarried, to Bice del Bostichi. The other children by his father's first marriage had all died, but his father had another son named Iacopo, who was born in 1344. (c. 1485) In Florence, the overthrow of
Walter of Brienne brought about the government of
popolo minuto ("small people", workers). It diminished the influence of the nobility and the wealthier merchant classes and contributed to the relative decline of Florence. The city was hurt further in 1348 by the
Black Death, which killed some three-quarters of the city population and was later represented in Boccaccio's work
The Decameron. From 1347, Boccaccio spent much time in Ravenna, seeking new patronage and, despite his claims, it is not certain whether he was present in plague-ravaged Florence. His stepmother died during the epidemic and his father was closely associated with the government efforts as minister of supply in the city. His father died in 1349 and Boccaccio was forced into a more active role as head of the family. Boccaccio began work on
The Decameron around 1349. It is probable that the structures of many of the tales date from earlier in his career, but the choice of a hundred tales and the frame-story
lieta brigata of three men and seven women dates from this time. The work was largely complete by 1352. It was Boccaccio's final effort in literature and one of his last works in Tuscan vernacular; the only other substantial work was
Corbaccio (dated to either 1355 or 1365). Boccaccio revised and rewrote
The Decameron in 1370–1371. This manuscript has survived to the present day. From 1350, Boccaccio became closely involved with Italian humanism (although less of a scholar) and also with the Florentine government. His first official mission was to
Romagna in late 1350. He revisited that city-state twice and also was sent to
Brandenburg, Milan, and
Avignon. He also pushed for the study of Greek, housing
Leontius Pilatus, and encouraging his tentative translations of works by
Homer,
Euripides, and
Aristotle. In these years, he also took
minor orders. In October 1350, he was delegated to greet Francesco Petrarch as he entered Florence and also to have Petrarch as a guest at Boccaccio's home, during his stay. The meeting between the two was extremely fruitful and they were friends from then on, Boccaccio calling Petrarch his teacher and
magister. Petrarch at that time encouraged Boccaccio to study classical Greek and Latin literature. They met again in
Padua in 1351, Boccaccio on an official mission to invite Petrarch to take a chair at the university in Florence. Although unsuccessful, the discussions between the two were instrumental in Boccaccio writing the
Genealogia deorum gentilium; the first edition was completed in 1360 and this remained one of the key reference works on classical mythology for more than 400 years. It served as an extended defence for the studies of ancient literature and thought. Despite the Pagan beliefs at its core, Boccaccio believed that much could be learned from antiquity. Thus, he challenged the arguments of clerical intellectuals who wanted to limit access to classical sources to prevent any moral harm to Christian readers. The revival of classical antiquity became a foundation of the Renaissance, and his defence of the importance of ancient literature was an essential requirement for its development. The discussions also formalized Boccaccio's poetic ideas. Certain sources also see a conversion of Boccaccio by Petrarch from the open humanist of the
Decameron to a more ascetic style, closer to the dominant fourteenth-century ethos. For example, he followed Petrarch (and Dante) in the unsuccessful championing of an archaic and deeply allusive form of Latin poetry. In 1359, following a meeting with
Pope Innocent VI and further meetings with Petrarch, it is probable that Boccaccio took some kind of religious mantle. There is a persistent (but unsupported) tale that he repudiated his earlier works as profane in 1362, including
The Decameron. s: illustration of one of the women featured in the 1374 biographies of 106 famous women,
De Claris Mulieribus, by Boccaccio – from a German translation of 1541 In 1360, Boccaccio began work on
De mulieribus claris ("On famous women"), a book offering biographies of 106 famous women, that he completed in 1374. This publication was illustrated and included depictions of women he featured, some as they were performing their renown skills in his contemporary community, such as fine art painting. A number of Boccaccio's close friends and other acquaintances were executed or exiled in the purge following a failed coup in 1361; although not directly linked to the conspiracy, in that year Boccaccio left Florence to reside in
Certaldo, where he became less involved in government affairs. He did not undertake further missions for Florence until 1365, and he travelled to Naples and then on to Padua and
Venice, where he met up with Petrarch in grand style at
Palazzo Molina, Petrarch's residence as well as the location of
Petrarch's library. Boccaccio later returned to Certaldo; he met Petrarch only one more time, in 1368, again in Padua. Upon hearing of the death of Petrarch (19 July 1374), he wrote a commemorative poem, including it in his collection of lyric poems, the
Rime. He returned to work for the Florentine government in 1365, undertaking a mission to
Pope Urban V. The papacy returned to Rome from
Avignon in 1367, and Boccaccio was again sent to Urban, offering congratulations. He also undertook diplomatic missions to Venice and Naples. Of his later works, the moralistic biographies gathered as
De casibus virorum illustrium (1355–74) and
De mulieribus claris (1361–1375) were the most significant. Other works include a dictionary of geographical allusions in classical literature,
De montibus, silvis, fontibus, lacubus, fluminibus, stagnis seu paludibus, et de nominibus maris liber. He gave a series of lectures on Dante at the Santo Stefano church in 1373 and these resulted in his final major work, the detailed
Esposizioni sopra la Commedia di Dante. Boccaccio and Petrarch were also two of the most educated people in early Renaissance regarding the field of
archaeology. Petrarch had offered to purchase Boccaccio's library, so that it would become part of
Petrarch's library. However, upon Boccaccio's death, his entire collection was given to the monastery of
Santo Spirito, in Florence, where it still resides. Boccaccio's final years were troubled by illnesses, some relating to obesity and what often is described as
dropsy, severe edema that would be described today as
congestive heart failure. He died on 21 December 1375 in Certaldo, where he is buried. == Works ==