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Petrarch's Laelius, Chaucer's Lollius?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
While learned investigation of Chaucer's text and background has illumined our knowledge of his sources and literary methods, one major mystery has remained unsolved: Who is the Lollius cited by Chaucer in three passages, and why did Chaucer refer to him?
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References
1 Citations from Chaucer are to The Complete Works, ed. F. N. Robinson (Cambridge, Mass. : Houghton Mifflin, 1933). . K. Rand, “Chaucer in Error,” Speculum, i (1926), 224, suggests that by Tytus Chaucer meant not Dictys but Livy.
2 Thomas Speght, ed. Works of Chaucer (London, 1598), was the first critic to attempt to identify Lollius with a classical historical personage—“an Italian Historiographer,” apparently of the third century. A bibliography of subsequent guesses and errors about a classical Lollius provides an imposing but on the whole sterile list of references: see Geo. L. Hamilton, The Indebtedness of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde to Guido dette Colonne's Historia Trojana (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1903), pp. 15–50. Hans J. Epstein, “The Identity of Chaucer's ‘Lollius’,” MLQ, iii (1942), 391–400, suggested that Chaucer was indulging in “wilful mystication” of his contemporaries by citing one Bassus Lollius (ca. 19 A.D.), who Epstein concedes was not known in England in Chaucer's day and whose name is associated with only two short epigrams in Greek (a language Chaucer could not read), which do not mention Troilus or Cressida.
3 An estimated 2583 out of 8239 lines. Chaucer's Troylus and Cryseyde... Compared with Boccaccio's Filostrato, translated by Wm. M. Rossetti (Chaucer Soc, 1873), 1st Ser., nos. 44 and 65 (see the Prefatory Remarks) ; Karl Young, The Origin and Development of the Story of Troilus and Criseyde (Chaucer Soc, 1908 [for 1904]), 2nd Ser., no. 40, p. 106. Chaucer indicates in Canto ii, line 14, that the translation is being made from the Latin.
4 G. L. Kittredge, “Chaucer's Lollius,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, xxvii1 (1917), 47–109, following the suggestion of V. R. G. Latham, in the Athenaeum, 3 October 1868, p. 433.
5 From Book i, Epistle 2:
Troiani belli scriptorem, Maxime Lolli,
Dum tu declamas Romae, Praeneste relegi.
These lines read: “While you, Maximus Lollius [the full name of the addressee], declaim at Rome, I have been rereading at Praeneste the writer of the Trojan war [Homer].” Kittredge surmised that Chaucer misunderstood the lines to mean: “Lollius, the great friend of Horace, declaimed in Rome concerning the Trojan War.” The lines had appeared in the Polycraticus of John of Salisbury; see Harriet Seibert, “Chaucer and Horace,” MLN, xxxi (1916), 304–307.
6 But see Rossetti (Chaucer Soc, 1873), Prefatory Remarks, p. vii; also Athenaeum, 26 September 1868, pp. 401–402, and 10 October 1868, p. 465. Rossetti concluded that even if Chaucer took Petrarch to be the author of the Filostrato, “this does not bring us nearer to an explanation of the name Lollius.”
7 Catherine Carswell, The Tranquil Heart: Portrait of Giovanni Boccaccio (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1937), pp. 327–329.
8 Marcus Landau, Giovanni Boccaccio: sein Leben und seine Werke (Stuttgart, 1877), pp. 92–94.
9 Attilio Hortis, Studj sulle Opere Latine del Boccaccio (Trieste, 1879), p. 581.
10 Kittredge, pp. 56, 61, 62, 72.
11 Pierre de Nolhac, “Pétrarque et L'Humanisme,” Bibliotèque de l'École des Hautes Études, xci (1892), republished with revisions and additions in Bibliothèque Littéraire de la Renaissance (Paris, 1907); J. H. Whitfield, Petrarch and the Renascence (Oxford, 1943), pp. 26-93; Ernest H. Wilkins, “The Coronation of Petrarch,” Speculum, xviii (April, 1943), 155–197.
12 Fam., iii, 18; Sen., i, 4, xvi, 1 (see note 17 below for explanation of abbreviations); Nolhac (1907 ed.), i, 3–74. By 1362 Petrarch had acquired a library of such substance that he and the burghers of the City of Venice deemed it worthy of being the nucleus of a great public library—a gift valuable enough to inspire other donors and benefactors. Var., 43; Nolhac (1892 ed.), pp. 80 ff., and 1907 ed., 75 ff., and Chap, ii: “Les Livres de Pétrarque après sa mort.”
13 Henry Cochin, ed. Un Ami de Pétrarque: Lettres de Francesco Nelli a Pétrarque (Paris, 1892), Lettres ii, p. 164, xiv, p. 212, and Introduction, pp. 18, 46, 80–82. Nelli speaks of this circle of Petrarchists as a legio deuota. Cochin calls these friends the first Academy. See also Cochin, “Pétrarque et Jacques Colonna: Un Cour Épiscopale en Gascogne au xive Siècle,” Société de l'Histoire de France, Annuaire-Bulletin, LIX (1922), 109–112; Edward H. R. Tatham, Francesco Petrarch: The First Modem Man of Letters (London, 1925), i, 422.
14 C. F., ii, 190–205; F. Corazzini, Lettere edite e inedite di Messer G. Boccaccio (Florence, 1877), p. 47; Hortis, pp. 37 ff.; Tatham, i, 422.
15 In May 1355 Zanobi was crowned Poet Laureate in Pisa by Emperor Charles IV (Mat. Villani, Cronica [=Biblioleca Classica Italiana, No. 21, Trieste, 1857], Lib. v, cap. 26, ii, 167), much to the annoyance of Petrarch's friends (Fam., xviii, 15; xi, 1), and probably Petrarch as well (but see Fam., xx, 14). See Hortis, p. 267; Cochin, ed. Un Ami de Pétrarque, Lettre xvii, pp. 234–235; cf. Paola Guidotti, “Un amico del Petrarca e del Boccaccio,” Archivio storico italiano, Ser. vii, vol. xiii (1930), 249–293.
16 Cochin, ed. Un Ami de Pétrarque, p. 5; repeated by J. H. Robinson, Petrarch: The First Modern Scholar (New York: Putnam's, 1898), p. 158. Cochin himself has since produced a thoroughly documented study, “Sur le ‘Socrate’ de Pétrarque: le musicien flamand Ludo-vicus Sanctus de Beeringhen,” Mélanges d'archéologie et d'histoire, xxxvii, nos. 1–3 (1918–19), 1–32.
17 A complete edition of Petrarch's works has been undertaken under the editorship of the Commissione Reale per l'Edizione Critica délie Opère di F. Petrarca. Published so far are only six volumes: Africa, ed. N. Festa (=Edizione nazionale dette opere di Francesco Petrarca, i, Florence: Sansoni, 1926); Le familiari, ed. Vittorio Rossi, vol. I, Introduzione e libri i-iv; vol. ii, libri v-xi; vol. iii, libri XII-XIX; vol. iv, libri xx-xxiv (=Edizione, x-xiii, Florence, 1933, 1934, 1937, 1942); Rerum Memorandarum Libri, ed. Giuseppe Billanovich (=Edizione, xiv, Florence, 1943). Le familiari are referred to in this paper as Fam. This edition when completed will supersede an earlier important edition of the letters, Epistolae de rebus familiaribus et variae, ed. Iosephi [Giuseppe] Fracassetti, 3 vols. (Florence : Le Monnier, 1859–63). An Italian translation of this edition with valuable notes was made by Fracassetti, entitled Lettere di Francesco Petrarca delle cosefamiliari..., 5 vols. (Florence : Le Monnier, 1892) referred to in this paper as C.F. The Lettere senili di Francesco Petrarca, ed. and transi, by Fracassetti (Florence: Le Monnier, 1892) are referred to in this paper as Sen. In references to the Fam. and Sen., roman numbers refer to the Book, and Arabic numerals to the Letter. In references to the notes of C. F., volume and page are indicated by roman and Arabic numbers. The Variae follow the C. F. in the editions printed by Fracassetti and are referred to in this paper as Var., with the number of the letter. For the dates of the letters, I have accepted throughout the conclusions of E. H. Wilkins, A Tentative Chronological List of Petrarch's Prose Letters (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1929) and Modern Discussions of the Dates of Petrarch's Prose Letters (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1929).
18 Fam., iii, 19–22; iv, 13; vii, 5; ix, 10; xv, 1,8–9; xvi, 8; xix, 3; xx, 12–14. See C. F., I, 477–480 (note to iii, 20).
19 Sen., ii, 4–5.
20 Epistolae Metricae, I, 8 (Contigit extinctum), written in 1339; see Wilkins, “The Coronation of Petrarch,” p. 169; H. Cochin, “Les ‘Epistolae Metricae’ de Pétrarque,” Giornale Storico della Letteratura Italiana, LXXIV (1919), 12–13,27.
21 Paul Piur, Petrarcas “Buch ohne amen” und die Papstliche Kurie ( = vol. vi of the Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Lit. und Geistesgeschichte, Halle, Saale: Max Niemayer, 1925), editing Petrarch's Liber Sine Nomine (nineteen letters), concludes, pp. 386 ff., that Letter 16 (dated by Piur between 1354–56) was addressed to Lellus; see also pp. 351 ff., for a discussion of Letters 9 and 10, and pp. 403 ff. for discussion of Letter 19, which may have been sent to Lellus. See also J. F. P. A. De Sade, Mémoires pour la Vie de François Pétrarque (Amsterdam, 1764–67), iii, 92, for a possible additional letter to Lellus.
22 See Fam., i, 6 (C. F., I,289);IV, 12; v, 1,12 (C.F., ii, 55–60); vii, 7,ix, 2; xix, 4, 6, 7, 12 (C. F., iv, 203–205); xx, 1, 2, 15; xxi, 15 (C. F., iv, 399–411); XXII, 8; Var., 30, 49, 52 (C. F., v, 427 f.); Sen., i, 3; iii, 1, 2; see Sen., xvi, 1; Liber Sine Nomine, 17.
23 Var., 49; Konrad Burdach, Aus Petrarcas altesten deutschen Schiuerkreise (=Vom Mittelalter zur Reformation, rv, Berlin, 1929), p. 237 (no. 47), prints the following poem from MS. 509 in the Olmutzer Metropolitankapitel (Domkapitel) collection:
Lelio amico suo.
Lusimus atque noui flores concorditer anni
Carpsimus et primo vere simul fuimus,
Egimus et calide tempus simul omne iuuente
Estiuosque dies ancipitesque vias.
Fac, precor, autumpnum, gelide fac tempora brume.
Quodque prope est senium fac precor ire simul.
[De] reliquis eui seros quid scindimus'annos?
Mors et uita simul sintque sepulchra simul.
24 This intimacy was known to their wide circle of friends. Even though Petrarch had a permanent home at Vaucluse, he apparently made his Avignon residence at the home of Lellus, and it is there that visitors expected to find him. C. F., ii, 437 ff.; Var., 13, 30; De Sade, i, 131; ii, 361.
25 Epislola ad Posteros [Franciscus Petrarca Posteritati salutem], printed by Fracassetti, in Epistolae, i, 1–11; Preface to Fam., i, 1, dedicating the collection to Socrates, and C. F., i, 251–253, 287–289; Fam., I, 4, iv, 15, x, 2; Sen., xvi, 1; in Sen., iii, 1 (7 September 1363, to Boccaccio), Petrarch says it is thirty-four years since he met Lelius.
26 Epistola and Preface cited in preceding note; also Fam., x, 2; C. F., i, 277.
27 Carlo Calcaterra, ed. Trionfi (Torino, 1923), p. xxiv, places the date of composition at 1352, during Petrarch's last sojourn in Provence; cf. Murray Potter, Four Essays, Harvard Studies in Romance Languages, in (Cambridge, Mass., 1917), p. 86.
28 Francesco Petrarca, Le rime sparse e i trionfi, ed. Ezio Chiòrbòli (=Scrittori d'Italia, cxxv, Bari, 1930), p. 322; Calcaterra, ed. Trionfi, pp. 56-57, and note p. 56; Del trionfo d'amore, cap. iv, lines 67-81, ed. P. F. Soave, in Le rime di M. Francesco Petrarca (Milan, 1805), ii, 101, and note p. 244. For ‘Socrate,‘ see the studyof Cochin, cited above, note 16.
29 Cicero, De Amicitia, I, 5: “Nunc Laelius et sapiens, sic enim est habitus, et amicitiae gloria excellens de amicitia loquitur.” Laelius–A Dialogue on Friendship, ed. E. S. Shuck-burgh (New York: Macmillan, 1901), p. 3; Fam., xix, 4: “Nomen viro Lelius, quid apud veteres, ut Cicero ait, et sapiens et amicitie gloria excellens fuit. Hic apud nos utrunque preconium est adeptus. Ille Scipionem habuit amicum; ego non sum Scipio, sed amicus sum....” C. F., ii, 366.
30 Var., 49; C. F., v, 418.
31 Giov. Villain, Cronica (=Biblioteca Classica Italiana, no. 21, Trieste, 1857), Lib. x, cap. 55, 70, vol. I, pp. 317, 323; C. P., I, 288; F. Gregorovius, Geschichte der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter (8 vols., Stuttgart, 1859–72), Bk. xi, ch. 3, trans, by Annie Hamilton, 2nd revised ed. (London, 1900–12), vi, 156–157. Lewis had been crowned on 17 January 1328. The publication of the Papal bull of excommunication was an important factor in weakening his power, and his departure on 4 August marked the triumph of the Papal party and of the Colonnas, who became the most influential Roman family at the French Papal court, with connections extending over England, France, Flanders, Belgium, and Sicily; E. Martin-Chabot, “Contribution à l'Histoire de la Famille Colonna de Rome dans ses rapports avec la France,” Société de l'Histoire de France, Annuaire-Bulletin (1920), Second Partie, pp. 137–181.
32 De Sade, i, 159.
33 They travelled together to Rome in 1333; Fam., i, 5–6; C. F., i, 277 ff., 289 ff., 478; Sen. ii, 5.
34 Fam., I, 4, IV, 12–13, v, 7; Sen., xvi, 1, 4; C. F., i, 551 ff., 278 ff.; a sonnet (Se le parti del corpo mio) by Giacomo to Petrarch appears in Il Codice Vaticano Lai. 3196 Autografo del Petrarca, Edizione Speciale per la Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1941, Carta 1 recto; for a study of Giacomo, see Cochin, “Pétrarque et Jacques Colonna: Un Cour Épiscopale en Gascogne au XIVe, Siècle,” (supra note 13), pp. 96–140, and see especially pp. 100, 113–115, 125–129.
35 Fam., iv, 13; see Fam., v, 1; iv, 15; C. P., ii, 3. 36 Fam., xix, 4.
37 Sen., iii, 1.
38 For a description of the powers of a Syndic, see E. Rodocanachi, Les Institutiones Communales de Rome (Paris, 1901), pp. 63–64, 117–118.
39 Pope Benedict XII died on 25 April 1342, and was succeeded on 7 May 1342 by Clement VI. The election of a new pope inspired the hopes of patriotic Romans that the Papacy would be moved back to the Eternal City.
40 Stephanus Baluzius, Vitae Paparum Avenionensium, ed. G. Mollat (Paris, 1914), I, 279 and 279 fn. 3 from IIIa Vita Clementis VI; see also Fam., vii, 7 and C. F., ii, 194.
41 So Petrarch describes Lellus in a letter to Charles IV. Fam., xix, 4 (1355).
42 C. C. Bayley, “Petrarch, Charles IV, and the ‘Renovatio Imperii’,” Speculum, XVII (1942), 323–326.
43 Entitled “Scribunt ambassiatores Senatui et populo Romano, qualiter est collata eis gracia, quod Centesimus [sc. annus] indulgencie reductus est ad quinquagesimum,” sent in January 1343, printed by Konrad Burdach and Paul Piur, Briefwechsel des Cola di Rienzo, (= Vom Mittelalter zur Reformation, vol. n, pt. 3, Berlin, 1912), pp. 1 ff., no. 1. The opening words are : “Exultet in gloria virtus Altissimi.”
44 Pietro Fedele, “Rassegna Bibliografica,” Giornale Storico delta Letteratura Italiana, LXIV (1914), 392, says that Lellus achieved his position “per la sua cultura e per la sua eloquenza”; ibid., pp. 388–397; on p. 391 Fedele observes that the letter is composed according to all the rules of the epistolary art; it contains Vergilian reminiscences, is elegant and eloquent. Cf. Burdach, Aus Petrarcas dltesten deutschen Schülerkreise, p. 137.
45 Epist. ad Post.; Fam., in, 21, xv, 1, xvi, 8; C. F., in, 446; see C. F., ii, 194; for Petrarch's relations with Cardinal Giovanni Colonna, see Arnaldo della Torre, “Aneddoti petrarch-eschi,” Ciornale dantesco, xvi (1908), 69 ff.,
46 Fam., xiii, 6; Nolhac (1892 ed.), p. 234 and p. 428 ii.
47 Fam., iii, 21; see Fam., iii, 22.
48 Codex Diplomatics: Domini Temporalis S. Sadis (Extraits des Archives du Vatican), ed. Augustin Theiner (Rome: Vatican, 1862), ii, 181, no. clxxviii, [5] October 1347; see Mario E. Cosenza, Francesco Petrarca and the Revolution of Cola di Rienzo (Chicago : Univ. of Chicago Press, 1913), p. 189.
49 Burdach and Piur, Briefwechsel des Cola di Rienzo, vol. ii, pt. 3, pp. 128 ff., no. 35, and vol. ii, pt. 5, p. 217.
50 Ibid., vol. ii, pt. 3, pp. 175–180, no. 46 (Cola's own report to the Pope); see also vol. ii, pt. 5, pp. 25,265–270, no. 7; Giov. Villani, Lib. xii, cap. 105, vol. I, p. 501.
51 Fam., vii, 5, 7, 18; C. F., ii, 180-182, 280. 52 Fam., ix, 2 (dated 1350); C. F., ii, 366–367.
53 Martin-Chabot, pp. 167-169, and p. 168, . 1, citing Arch. Nat. J J 80, fol. 113v 0. It is interesting to note that part of the proceeds (2000 florins) of the sale went by specific bequest of the will to one of the English benefices attached to Lichfield Cathedral, of which Pietro de Colonna had held the dignity of precentor for almost thirty years—John Le Neve, Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae, ed. T. D. Hardy (Oxford Univ. Press, 1854), I, 579.
54 Fam., xv, 1–3; xvi, 8; C. F., ii, 366 f.; iii, 340, 371, 379, 446.
55 Mat. Villani, Lib. 3, cap. 57, vol. ii, p. 103, and see Lib. 3, cap. 78, vol. ii, p. 109. 56 Supra, note 54.
57 Paul Piur, Petrarcas Briefwechsel mit deutschen Zeitgenossen (=Vom Mittdalter zur Reformation, vn, Berlin, 1933), p. 46. Cf. Burdach and Piur, Briefwechsel des Cola di Rienzo, vol. ii, pt. 1, p. 113 f.
58 Henri Hauvette, Boccacce (Paris, 1914), pp. 327–328.
59 Fam., xxi, 15; see Corazzini, p. 362; Hauvette, p. 198.
60 C. F., v, 418, Hauvette, p. 198, n. 3, and Tatham, ii, 378 n., date the letter 1347; but cf. G. A. Cesareo, “Poesie volgari” del Petrarca nuove ricerche (Rocca S. Casciano, Capelli, 1898), pp. 91,97,98, who believes the letter was written in 1352-53.
61 Var., 49; C. F., v, 418. A poem about Lellus which was appended to this letter has already been quoted in this paper, supra page 69. The copy in Boccaccio's handwriting has been reproduced in facsimile by Guido Biago, Lo Zibaldone Boccaccesco Mediceo Laurenziano, Plut. XXIX-8 (Florence, 1915), p. 76.
62 C. F., v, 418; Hauvette, p. 39; Hortis, p. 515, quotes Boccaccio's reference, in De Gen. Dear., xiv, cap. 19, to Barrili as “uomo di grande animo.” N. F. Faraglia, “Barbato di Sulmona e gli uomini di lettere della corte di Roberto d'Angiô,” Archivio Storico Italiano, Ser. v (1889), iii, 335–336; F. Torraca, “Giovanni Boccaccio a Napoli (1326–1339),” Archivi Storico per le province napoletane, xxxix (1914), 59–67.
63 Mat. Villani, Lib. 4, cap. 44, vol. II, p. 140.
64 MFam., xix, 2–3; C. F., iv, 169–172. In Petrarch's first extant letter to Charles IV, Fam., x, 1 (24 February 1351, C. F., ii, 452–454), Petrarch exhorts the Emperor to come to Italy; when he arrived, Petrarch sent him an enthusiastic letter of welcome, Fam., xix, 1; C. F., iv, 152–154, see Fam., xix, 12.
65 Fam., XIX, 4; C. F., iv, 167. The letter was written on 25 February 1355. Cf. Arnaldo Foresti, Aneddoti della vita di Francesco Petrarca (Brescia, 1928), p. 75.
66 Johannis Porta de Annoniaco, Liber de coronalïone Karoli IV Imperatoris, ed. R. Salomon, Script. Rer. Germ. (Hanover, Leipzig, 1913), 52–64, 71 f., 86; C. F., iv, 169–172.
67 Fam., XX, 2, 14; C. F., iv, 255; Johannis Porta de Annoniaco, at p. 55: the Cardinal says in a letter to Charles, “... et nobilem virum Lellum Petri Stephani de Tosectis de Urbe servientem armorum domini regis Francie nostrumque carissimum domicellum, imperialis culminis devotissimos et fideles, ad serenitatis vestre presentiam propterea specialiter destinamus, quibus credere placeat tamquam mihi.”
68 Ibid., pp. 71, 81–83, 85. Johannis himself was an eyewitness at the coronation (p. viii).
69 Ibid., p. 71; Burdach, Aus Petrarcas ällesten deutschen Schülerkreise, p. 263.
70 One letter is printed by Emil Schieche, “Ein Schweidnitzer Formularbuch Johanns von Neumarkt,” Verein für die Geschichte Schlesiens, Zeitschrift, LXI (1927), 354–355; see pp. 339–340, 348–349. Charles started back for Germany on 14 June 1355.
71 Ibid., pp. 312–360; Piur, Petrarcas Briefwechsel mit d. Zeitgenossen, vii, lviii-lxii, 49, notes a letter of March, 1355, from Johannes to Petrarch, stating that Charles will look with favor on the requests of the nobilis viri domini whom Petrarch has recommended–probably a reference to Lellus.
72 In 1358 a quarrel between Petrarch's two dearest friends, Lellus (Laelius) and Ludovicus (Socrates), called for his mediation. Lellus wrote of rumors that Socrates had been disparaging him to Petrarch. Petrarch sent an impassioned reply: he recalled their friendship of twenty-eight years, denied that any accusations had been made, told of innumerable letters from Socrates in which he had lauded Laelius as Petrarch's single and greatest friend at the Curia; he pointed to Laelius' name as a symbol of friendship; he argued, cajoled, pleaded. The intensity, the fervor of these letters could not be resisted. The friends were reconciled, and Petrarch with well-deserved pride and pleasure wrote to them both congratulating them on their renewal of friendship. Fam., xx, 12–15; C. F., iv, 318.
73 Cochin, ed. Un Ami de Pétrarque, Lettre xviii, p. 243, written from Avignon 8 September 1357; also see pp. 118 ff. Nelli wrote concerning “Lelius”:
Rapit me preterea Lelius nunc noster in quo tantum elucet prisce indolis specimen. Sed ne ego uolendo addere sue decerpam glorie, reprimam me, qui eius partem laudum gestio, si alium cui tantum uirum obicerem inuenirem.
74 Ibid., Letter xxv, p. 273, written in February, either in 1360 or 1361; also see pp. 125 ff. Nelli wrote concerning “Lelius”:
Sed adueniens Lelius noster, hey michi, suauissimus hominum, in quo illud uerissimum cernitur exoculatam scilicet esse fortunam que semper opes suas ad indignos conferat, dignis autem eneas ostentet aures, celerius comuniusque quam uelim, scribere compulit. Verum, ut uerbo tuo utar, et si non impresentiarum, scribam tamen profecto prope diem, ne michi ipsi hanc uite mee oblectationem unicam diutine subtraham. Venit ille in quo tu ipse uenisti.
76 The death is reported also by Neri Morando in a letter to Moggio da Parma, reproduced in Collezione Fiorentina di Facsimili Paleografici Greet e Latini, Illustrati da Girolamo Vitelli e Cesare Paoli (for the R. Instituto di Studi Superiori Practici e di Perfezionamento in Firenze, Florence, 1897), vol. I, Tavoli 12–codici Latini. The letter is found in Cod. Laurent. Plut. 53,35, the famous codex of Petrarch letters, which Burdach and Piur, in their edition of Briefwechsel des Cola di Rienzo, vol. II, pt. 2, p. 332 f., think is the work of Moggio. See C. F., i, 525–533; ii, 256 ff.; iv, 176–177, for discussion of Moggio and his family; De Sade, iii, 392, for a summary of Morando's activities.
76 Sen., iii, 2 (to Boccaccio). Petrarch apparently did not preserve his last letter to Lellus. We know from Fam., xx, 12–13, that Petrarch mislaid and destroyed many letters, and from Fam., i, 1, and xviii, 7, xxiii, 19, that Petrarch edited and excluded many others; E. Hutton, Giov. Boccaccio (London, 1910), p, 207.
77 Sen., iii, 1 (Fracassetti transl.).
78 Karl Young, “Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde' as Romance,” PMLA, liii (1938), 41.
79 E. H. Wilkins, “The Enamorment of Boccaccio,” Modern Philology, xi (1913), 1–17; Vincenzo Pernicone, “Il ‘Filostrato’ di Giovanni Boccaccio,” Studi di Filologia, ii (1929), 84, 106.
80 Fam., x, 3, xxi, 15; C. F., iv, 399–411; Sen., v, 2; Corazzini, p. 54. Hauvette, p. 325, refers also to Boccaccio's Eclogue XII (Sappho). An exception must be noted for Dante, whom Boccaccio did admire and of whose Divine Comedy he wrote out an exquisite copy which he sent to Petrarch.
81 See Sen., i, 5; Nolhac (1892 ed.), Excursus vii, pp. 418–119. Boccaccio's contemporaries considered his Italian works of minor importance. Filippo Villani in Vita di Giovanni Boccaccio (in his Vite d'Illustri Fiorentini), printed following the Croniche de... Villani, (=Biblioteca Classica Italiana, vol. 21, Trieste, 1858), ii, 424, n. 3, lauds Boccaccio's Latin works but dismisses the Italian ones in one sentence without mention of any titles. Many of Boccaccio's contemporaries had the same attitude; Petrarch did not see the Decameron until twenty-five years after it was written, although he and Boccaccio were intimate (Sen., xvii, 3, letter accompanying Petrarch's Latin translation of the Griselda story). To give Boccaccio's Griselda story an international audience, Petrarch translated it into Latin (Sen., xvii, 3), with the ironic result that Boccaccio was seldom credited with the authorship. See Willard Farnham, “England's Discovery of the Decameron,” PMLA, xxxix (1924), 123–139.
82 Sen., i, 4–5, v, 3, all to Boccaccio.
83 G. Boccaccio, Il Filostrato, ed. Vincenzo Pernicone (=Scrittori d'Italia, vol. 165, Bari, 1937), pp. 353–359. Pernicone confined this study to manuscripts available in Italian libraries. Unfortunately, he does not give a full description of the manuscripts in which the Filostrato texts are found, so that it is impossible on the basis of this edition to reason with complete accuracy concerning manuscript attribution to Boccaccio. We can gather that at least eleven texts lack opening or closing leaves; for an additional group of manuscripts (nineteen), Pernicone does not indicate that the text has ended, but neither does he indicate that it is incomplete. A careful analysis of the Filostrato texts into family groups is a major desideratum for Chaucerians. Some other facts of significance can be gleaned from Pernicone's summary. Many of the texts lack the dedicatory preface (although without it the poem ceases to be the passionately purposeful autobiographic document which it appears to biographers of Boccaccio) ; many have dropped out or interpolated stanzas; in short, many of the manuscripts are very corrupt. We must remember that Chaucer may have seen some such manuscript and not a carefully edited, reconstructed “ideal” text.
84 Ibid., p. 354 (MS. no. 3). One other manuscript (no. 5) contains a picture of aman writing at his desk, whom Pernicone believes to be Boccaccio. It should be noted that a late corrupt manuscript (no. 6, dated 1472), without the name of the author and without the dedicatory preface ends: “Finis finite il libro di Ketro Macabruni di ser Francesco Nelli 1472 addi 1° di Moggio amen.”
85 “I Manoscritti del ‘Filostrato’ di G. Boccaccio,” Studi di Filologia Italiana, v (1938), 59, n. 1.
86 Wellesley, Plimpton MS. 101. Margaret H. Jackson, Catalogue of the... Plimpton Collection of Italian Books and Manuscripts in the Library of Wellesley College (Harvard Univ. Press, 1929), p. 401, item 101; Seymour de Ricci, Census of Mediœval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada (New York: H. W. Wilson, 1935), I, 1072; letter from Hannah D. French, Research Librarian, Wellesley College Library.
87 Another manuscript of the Filostrato, from the Pavian library of Galeazzo , Viscount of Milan (d. 1378), and apparently without designation of authorship, is described by G. d'Adda, Indagini storiche, artisticke e bibliografiche sulla Libreria Visconteo-Sforzesca del Castello di Pavia... per Cura di un Bibliofilo. Parte prima (Milan, 1875), pp. 70–71, item 800.
88 Even in the efficiently managed Papal library, Guido's already famous History of Troy was catalogued as late as 1369 without an author. Maurice Faucon, “La Librairie des Papes d'Avignon...,” Bibliothèque des Écoles Françaises d'Athènes et de Rome, xliii (Paris, 1886), xviii, pp. 12, 194 (item 1210), 74; L (Paris, 1887), 42, 145 (item 1015). It is important to remember that not a single manuscript regarded today as in Boccaccio's autograph contains the name Boccaccio. See Henri Hauvette, “Manuscripts Autographes de Boccace à la Laurentienne,” Mélanges d'archéologie et d'histoire, Ecole française de Rome, xiv (1894), 93–94.
88 R. K. Root, The Poetry of Chaucer, rev. ed. (1922), p. 101 : “It is not at all impossible that Chaucer did not know who was the author of Filostrato.” L. Moland and C. d'Héricault, Nouvelles Francoises en Prose du XIVe Siècle (Paris, 1858), pp. xcix ff., accept the conclusion that Chaucer saw a manuscript with a false title or false name of the author. See J. S. P. Tatlock, The Development and Chronology of Chaucer's Works (Chaucer Soc, 1907), 2nd Ser., no. 37, p. 160 and note 3; John Koch, in Essays on Chaucer (Chaucer Soc, 1878), 2nd Ser., No. 18, Part iv, Item 12, pp. 412–413. Farnham, pp. 130-131, 134, 136; cf. Young, supra note 3, p. 195. In the Knight's Tale, in part derived from Boccaccio's Teseide, Chaucer does not name the Italian poet. In Anelida and Arcite, likewise in part derived from the Teseide, Chaucer makes no mention of the Italian poet but introduces (line 21) as one of his authorities a mysterious Corinne. There has been acceptance of the idea that Chaucer was deliberately misleading his readers by a false attribution to this supposed ancient author. Whatever his motive in mentioning Corinne, it seems to the present writer probable that Chaucer did not know Boccaccio's authorship of Teseide or Filostrato.
90 See F. J. Mather, “An Inedited Document Concerning Chaucer's First Italian Journey,” MLN, xi (1896), 419–425, and his “On the Asserted Meeting of Chaucer and Petrarch,” MLN, xii (1897), 1-21; Tatlock, pp. 160–161.
91 See Catalogue des Manuscripts de la Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, ed. Henry Martin (Paris, 1887), iii, 324–325, item 3326 (253 B. F.): “Recueil..., ‘Fillostrato, composé par ung poethe florentin nommé Pétrarque’ ou ‘comment Troïle, filz au roy Priant, s'enamora de laquelle (sic pour la belle) Brisaida’, roman 'translaté' par moy Beau vau, seneschal d'Aujou.'—Commencement : 'Sans départir, tant que seray en vie, a vous, mesdames, me suis entier donné...' —Fin: '... jusques a la mort sans departir. Cy fine le livre de Troilus et de Brisaida'.” This French translation of the Filostrato appears in a manuscript containing two other Troy items—the first being “Le livre de la destruction de Troies, que composa maistre Guy de Corompnes,....” An incomplete “Fillostracto,” attributed to Petrarch, also a translation by Beauvau, is listed ibid., pp. 447–448, item 3638 (252 B. F.). Other incorrect MS attributions (by Beauvau) of the Filostrato to Petrarch are recorded by Moland and d'Héricault, p. cxxxiv. Beauvau adds that he found the manuscript in the library of his lord, the King of Sicily.
92 For example, even Guido's name in the Legend of Good Women, line 1396, was read as Ovid until 1889. See Hamilton, Indebtedness of Chaucer, pp. 51–52, n. 3; R. K. Root, The Book of Troilus and Criseyde (Princeton Univ. Press, 1926), pp. xxxvii (n. 69), lxii–lxiii. Wynkyn de Worde's 1517 edition of Troilus spells the name of “myn auctour” as Lellyus.
93 Maurice Prou, Manuel de paléographie latine et française, 4th ed. (Paris, 1924), pp. 154–155, 345.
94 Sen., iii, 1, 2.
95 Sen., ii, 4.
96 Faucon, “La Librairie des Papes d'Avignon..., ” XLIII (Paris, 1886), 23.
97 Chaucer may possibly have regarded both men as members of the Columpna family. Guido's name is variously spelled de Columpna or de Columpnis (the plural form of de Columpna), de Columnis, and delle Colonne. The Colonnas were not only one of the most celebrated families of Italy, but their ties extended to Sicily, the home of Guido. Their name too is frequently spelled Columpna (in the documents) or Columna (by Petrarch). The later scribes believed that Guido was a member of the Colonna family—Guido de Columnis, Historia Destructionis Troiae, ed. . E. Griffin (Cambridge, Mass., 1936), Introduction xvi. In the letter to Charles IV recommending Lellus, Petrarch's description of an attachment almost familial between his friend and the Colonnas is confirmed by the historical records. If De Sade is correct (iii, 91–92) in making Lellus the addressee of Sine Nomine (Sine Titulo), No. 14, then Lellus was related to the Colonnas by blood. A papal list of expenditures for the year 1342 records a payment to “Lello de Columpna” as “custodibus secunde porte” and payments for the same service in subsequent years to “Petro Lelli Stephani” and “Bello Petri Stephani” (K. H. Schäfer, Die Ausgaben der Apostolischen Kammer unter Benedikt XII, Klemens VI und Innocenz VI, 1335–1362, =Valikanische Quellen, zur Geschichte der Papstlichen Hof- und Finanzverwaltung 1316–1378... herausge-geben von der Gorres-Gesellsckaft, Paderborn, 1914, Vol. in, pp. 201, 233, 324, 360. I am indebted to Professor William E. Lunt for this reference.) It seems clear that these Papal payments were made to Petrarch's Lellus, for it was in 1342 that Lellus Petri Stephani Tosettis started service at Avignon under the sponsorship of the Cardinal Giovanni Colonna.
98 G. B. Baldelli, Del Petrarca (Florence, 1797), p. 247 f. Efforts to find some reference to Lellus in the published works of Ammirato available in this country have so far been unsuccessful; Baldelli's reference is confirmed by Fracassetti, who reports that manuscripts by this descendant recording these facts have been preserved in the Riccardiana collection of Florence and the Ambrosiana collection of Milan, C. P., 1,479. Lydgate, in the Prologue to the Fall of Princes (lines 283-287) says:
In youthe he [Chaucer] made a translacioun
Off a boke which calld is Trophe
In Lumbard tongue,...
And in our vulgare...
Gave it the name of Troylus and Cresseide.
Hamilton, Indebtedness of Chaucer, pp. 150-151, suggests that Trophe is a pun on the name of Guido de Columpnis because a column of Heracles (which was and still is, it should be noted, also the symbol of the Colonna family), was set up as a trophaeum or trophée of victory. Reluctant as I am to predicate a title for a lost work, I suggest that Lydgate may have heard of a history of the Colonna family by Lellus, possibly known it only by the title Trophee, and confused the author's two works. Cf. G. L. Kittredge, “The Pillars of Hercules and Chaucer's Trophee,” Putnam Anniversary Volume (New York: Stechert, 1909), pp. 545–566; answered by Frederick Tupper, “Chaucer and Trophee,” MLN, xxxi (1916) 11–14; and O. F. Emerson, “Seith Trophee,” MLN, xxxi (1916), 142–146. 99 Filippo Villani, Vita di Giovanni Boccaccio, ii, 423, and n. 1 ; Sen., v, 1.
100 See Sen., xvi, 2; A. Barbeu du Rocher, “Ambassade de Pétrarque auprès du Roi Jean Le Bon,” Memoires présentés par divers savantes à L'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 2e ser., iii (Paris, 1854), 214, for Petrarch's address to King John (13 January 1361). Petrarch visited Prague in 1356 to urge Charles to return to Italy.
101 For example, Life-Records of Chaucer, Pt. iv, The Documents, ed. R. E. G. Kirk (Chaucer Soc, 1900), 2nd Series, No. 32, Doc. Nos. 68,70, 72, 75, 97–105, 118, 120–123, 143; Thomas Rymer, Foedera (London, 1869), iv, 60; Calendar of Patent Rolls, preserved in the Public Record Office, 1374–1377, 51 Edw. III, Memb. 14, p. 462.
102 Charles IV's second wife was Blanca (d. 1348) a sister of Philip VI of France (1328–50) and daughter of Charles of Valois; Charles IV's sister Bona married John, son and heir (1350–64) of Philip.
103 When Anne was born, her mother (Charles' third wife) personally sent Petrarch a letter. For Petrarch's response, see Fam., xxi, 8. Anne's importance in the exchange of cultural and literary ideas between Germany and England is discussed in Alois Bernt and K. Burdach, Der Ackermann aus Böhmen (=Vom Mittelalter zur Reformation, Vol. iii, pt. 2, Berlin, 1926), pp. 152–157.
104 Kittredge, p. 72; but Kittredge continues: “a supposed ancient writer on the subject, whose work Chaucer pretended to have before him. The fiction consists not in ascribing to Lollius a work on Troy (for that was merely an error) but in claiming to have this work in hand and to translate it faithfully.”
105 I wish to express my gratitude to Professors Margaret Schlauch and Robert A. Pratt for reading this paper in manuscript; to Professors F. H. McCloskey, R. G. Monges, Giuseppe Prezzolini, Dr. Curt F. Bühler, and Mrs. Elkán Silberman for courteous helpfulness. My husband, George D. Hornstein, has contributed so much to the development of this article that he may almost be said to be a collaborator.