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Filostrato, nine books of the loves and woes of Troilus and Cressida. Both
these poems are in ottava rima, a metre which, if Boccaccio did not invent
it, he was the first to apply to such a purpose. Both works were dedicated
to Fiammetta. A graceful idyll in the same metre, Ninfale Fiesolano, was
written later, probably at Naples in 1345. King Robert was then dead, but
Boccaccio enjoyed the favour of Queen Joan, of somewhat doubtful memory, at
whose instance he hints in one of his later letters that he wrote the
Decameron. Without impugning Boccaccio's veracity we can hardly but think
that the Decameron would have seen the light, though Queen Joan had withheld
her encouragement. He had probably been long meditating it, and gathering
materials for it, and we may well suppose that the outbreak of the plague in
1348, by furnishing him with a sombre background to heighten the effect of
his motley pageant, had far more to do with accelerating the composition
than aught that Queen Joan may have said.

That Boccaccio was not at Florence during the pestilence is certain; but we
need not therefore doubt the substantial accuracy of his marvellous
description of the state of the stricken city, for the course and
consequences of the terrible visitation must have been much the same in all
parts of Italy, and as to Florence in particular, Boccaccio could have no
difficulty in obtaining detailed and abundant information from credible
eye-witnesses. The introduction of Fiammetta, who was in all probability at
Naples at the time, and in any case was not a Florentine, shews, however,
that he is by no means to be taken literally, and renders it extremely
probable that the facetious, irrepressible, and privileged Dioneo is no
other than himself. At the same time we cannot deem it either impossible,
or very unlikely, that in the general relaxation of morale, which the plague
brought in its train, refuge from care and fear was sought in the diversions
which he describes by some of those who had country-seats to which to
withdraw, and whether the "contado" was that of Florence or that of Naples
is a matter of no considerable importance. (1) It is probable that
Boccaccio's father was one of the victims of the pestilence; for he was dead
in 1350, when his son returned to Florence to live thenceforth on the modest
patrimony which he inherited. It must have been about this time that he
formed an intimacy with Petrarch, which, notwithstanding marked diversity
of temperament, character and pursuits, was destined to be broken only by
death. Despite his complaints of the malevolence of his critics in the Proem
to the Fourth Day of the Decameron, he had no lack of appreciation on the
part of his fellow-citizens, and was employed by the Republic on several
missions; to Bologna, probably with the view of averting the submission of
that city to the Visconti in 1350; to Petrarch at Padua in March 1351, with
a letter from the Priors announcing his restitution to citizenship, and

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