Author: Edward Hutton

Publisher:

Published: 2015-07-02

Total Pages: 576

ISBN-13: 9781330560242

Excerpt from Giovanni Boccaccio: A Biographical Study It might seem proper, in England at least, to preface any book dealing frankly with the author of the Decameron with an apology for, and perhaps a defence of, its subject. I shall do nothing of the kind. Indeed, this is not the place, if any be, to undertake the defence of Boccaccio. His life, the facts of his life, his love, his humanity, and his labours, plentifully set forth in this work, will defend him with the simple of heart more eloquently than I could hope to do. And it might seem that one who exhausted his little patrimony in the acquirement of learning, who gave Homer back to us, who founded or certainly fixed Italian prose, who was the friend of Petrarch, the passionate defender of Dante, and who died in the pursuit of knowledge, should need no defence anywhere from any one. This book, on which I have been at work from time to time for some years, is the result of an endeavour to set out quite frankly and in order all that may be known of Boccaccio, his life, his love for Fiammetta, and his work, so splendid in the Tuscan, the fruit of such an enthusiastic and heroic labour in the Latin. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.