Reading Angela da Foligno’s steps of penance was very interesting to me. It was very different to our previous readings, as this one felt the closest to god. It was very spiritual, and felt “separated” from being human, if that’s the right way to put it. The language felt different. An example of this would be the sixth step where she talks about acknowledging her sins. She uses very spiritual language when describing her experiences. She called her knowledge of her sins as an “illuminating grace”. Another small detail that was interesting to me was when she described her love as fire, which reminds me of Dante’s inferno, full of fire representative of life, full of strong emotion.
Angela Da Foligno’s story has amazing imagery that came through very strongly. In her story, she talks about the steps it took that made her closer to God. In my opinion, the step that had the best imagery was step number fourteen. Angela talks about how Jesus spoke to her and gave her a greater knowledge of himself. Angela states, “He summoned me and told me to place my mouth at the wound in his side; and it seemed to me that I was seeing and drinking his blood as it was freshly flowing from his side.” This particular quote from Memorial of Angela da Foligno was very significant to me because of how integrated the details were. After she drunk his blood, he told her that it was cleansing her, which is also another detail that was very notable because of how squirmy it made me. I also enjoyed how she told this as a story and explained the step by step process of how this gruesome event happened. It helps me as the reader create a scene and setting for the words on the paper, like a movie in my head.
In Angela da Foligno’s Memorial, she writes about her devoted journey to becoming closer to God and repenting her sins. She writes out her journey into steps. When describing her experience during the fourteenth step, Angela writes graphic details about what God told her to do. In the first paragraph on page 29, Angela says that God is telling her to drink the blood from his side wound. She says that his blood is cleansing her. This is very bloody and graphic imagery. Angela enhances this imagery by describing the blood from his wound as “freshly flowing”. In reality, the image she portrays in her writing is difficult to visualize based on the human experience. In the second paragraph, she tells us about asking God to pour out the blood in her body so that she can “ suffer a death more vile than his”. This demonstrates Angela’s level of devotion to God.
One part of Angela da Foligno’s Memorial that interested me was on page 29, where Angela states that she wishes to die a “vile death”. This took place during the 14th step, where begins to wish that she could be “rightfully killed for faith in Him or love of Him”, as she wants to die for Jesus as he died for humanity. She then elaborates, stating that she wished to be crucified like Jesus was, but to be put in a ditch by her killer since she’s “not worthy to die as saints die”. She closes off this step by repeatedly saying how she wants her death to be horrid and long, and how it pains her that she “could not find a vile death”.
This part in particular interested me because over the course of this text, we see Angela’s self-worth completely diminish as she continues to devote herself to God. It starts off with wanting to give her things to the poor, then escalates to her not eating or drinking, then finally ending with her wishing to die and (literally) give her life to God. It seems as though over the course of cleansing her soul, Angela’s become desensitized to death. We first see this perspective in the beginning of page 27, as she informs the scribe about the deaths of her mother, husband, and children. While this would be tragic to most, she seems unphased by this as she believes “God accomplished these things for me”, which makes it clear that she puts her utmost trust in God and believes that he does everything for a reason. Her apathy towards death progresses and this is where we see Angela wish for a “vile death”, which shows that not even death cannot waver her sense of trust in God or her desire to cleanse her soul.
While reading Angela da Foligno’s Memorial, I noticed a common theme of pain being brought up throughout the thirty steps of cleansing oneself of a sin. As each step continued on, Angela seemed to deal with more and more pain; most steps being filled with shame, bitterness, and no love. As each step increased, so did the pain. For example, in step seven, she reflected alongside the cross and pondered upon the reasons Christ died, and how he died for her sins. As she kept this journey going and reached step nine, her husband, mother, and child died. She was aware of their deaths, and happened to accept it as she knew they were “a great hindrance” to her and her cleansing process. Although she felt “deep consolation following their deaths” and all of the other painful events she had to go through, she kept pushing through and completed all thirty steps of cleansing.
Lady Fortune and Her Wheel: Fortune is often depicted as a woman with a blindfold, spinning a wheel to represent the different outcomes and possibilities being chosen out of chance.
Reading through the stories of the Decameron, we see many instances in which there are “unlucky” or “unfortunate” situations, causing a bad ending; but we can also see how some people have been blessed with good fortune, resulting in a good ending. What stands out to me and interests me more would be those with “bad fortune”. We can see many cases of bad fortune in day 4, where love ends unhappily.
In day four, stories one and five, with Ghismunda and Lisabetta, they both fall in love with a man, but their family intervenes and kills those men. When I first read these stories, I believed that the family members of Ghismunda and Lisabetta were evil for doing this, but after reading “The Conception of Fortune in the Decameron” by Vincenzo Cioffari, it leads me to believe that it isn’t completely due to their corrupt morals; but that fortune played a big part in these heinous actions done by Tancredi (Ghismunda’s father) and Lisabetta’s three brothers.
To build more on this, let’s talk a little about Tancredi. “Never was daughter more tenderly beloved of father than she of the Prince, for that cause not knowing to part with her, kept her unmarried for many a year…” (Decameron, day 4, first story). Tancredi the prince, was blessed with good fortune to have a beautiful daughter that he loved with all his heart. We can see that because he loved her so much, he didn’t want her to marry. Not knowing how to part with her, he has a strong desire to “protect” her. To keep his “good fortune”. “In the Decameron the primary function of Fortune is to determine the outcome of a course of action: to help toward a successful accomplishment if Fortune is favorable…” (Ciofarri, 130). With Tancredi’s actions, we see how this is true. By keeping Ghismunda unmarried, he wanted to keep his “good fortune”. But when she fell in love, Tancredi felt threatened that his “fortune” would be taken away, causing him to murder Guiscardo, the man Ghismunda loved.
The fifth story of the fourth day presents how bad fortune can affect one’s actions. In the fifth story of the fourth day, Lisabetta falls in love with Lorenzo, a man who works with her three brothers. Unfortunately, her brothers find out and kill him. Eventually, Lisabetta finds out and decides to preserve Lorenzo’s head. She decides to put his head in a pot and plant basil, “Fostered with such constant, unremitting care, and nourished by the richness given to the soil by the decaying head that lay therin, the basil burgeoned out in exceeding great beauty and fragrance.” (Decameron, day 4, fifth story). Here we see Lisabetta faced with bad fortune, having her love killed by her brothers. We can see how this bad fortune caused her to do crazy actions. “Human reason and will do enter into the activity of Fortune, but not to dominate the fortuitous events” (Cioffari, 130). We can see that here, where Lisabetta’s decides not to overcome what happened to Lorenzo, but instead try to stay with Lorenzo, or have him close to her.
This is why fortune in the Decameron interests me, as it can be seen as a big factor playing in the actions of the characters. It was very interesting to read other stories, seeing how the characters reacted in different ways to their fortune, good or bad.
Citations: Cioffari, Vincenzo. “The Conception of Fortune in the Decameron.” Italica, vol. 17, no. 4, American Association of Teachers of Italian, 1940, pp. 129–37, https://doi.org/10.2307/476489.
Decameron web. Decameron Web | Texts. (n.d.). https://www.brown.edu/Departments/Italian_Studies/dweb/texts/DecShowText.php?myID=nov0101&lang=eng.
In Boccaccio’s writing, there are many themes that were brought to light. For me, the most significant was women. I love the way women were portrayed in his writing because I feel like it gave them an edge that they did not really get in Dante’s writing, nor Petrarca’s. Overall, his stories delivered different perspectives on women that I found intriguing to read about. On the third day, ninth story, we learned about Giletta. She is a wealthy young woman and also the daughter of a physician. She was separated from her love, Beltramo at an early age. When Beltramo’s father died, he was instructed to go to Paris and she never had a reason to go there. Even when she reached a marriageable age, she never forgot about Beltramo. Her love for him grew stronger when she found out he turned into the most handsome young man. When the news reached her about the King of France being very ill and not having a physician cure him, she was overjoyed. Now she had a real reason to go to France.
Using her father’s techniques, she made a powder from particular herbs that she believed helped with the illness that the King suffered from, and she rode her horse to Paris. She used her looks and age to convey the King and show her the fistula from the badly treated tumor on his chest. As soon as she saw it, she immediately knew how to cure him. She told him that she will have him cured in eight days, but he did not believe her. He said it made no sense that this girl would do something that professional doctors couldn’t do. When he was about to dismiss her, she told him, “My lord, you despise my art because I am young and a woman, but let me remind you that I practice medicine not only with my own knowledge of Master Gerado of Narbonne, who was my father and a famous physician in his day.” The King said fine. She told him that if she does not cure him, he can have her burned. However, if she cures him, the King offers her a husband. When the King was cured, he stuck to his word and let her have Beltramo. This proves that Giletta was able to use her young beauty and skill to get what she wanted from the King.
Additionally, on the fourth day, first story, the daughter of the Prince of Salerno, Tancredi, also did something similar. She was also a beautiful young lady who was very loved by everyone, especially her father. She secretly fell in love with a man named Guiscardo, her fathers valet, and wanted to find a way to meet him in secret. She wrote him a letter and gave him instructions on how to get to an abandoned cave. She put the letter in the hollow of a reed plant. When she gave him the letter, she stated, “Make a bellows of this tonight for your serving girl to keep the fire burning.” Once he read the letter, he felt like the luckiest man on Earth. The cave was hollowed out of a hill for a long time and it was lit by a small opening in the side of the hill. The cave had been abandoned for so long so it was covered by brambles and weeds. The cave can be reached by a stairway that is blocked by a strong door that no one knew how to open, so it was forgotten about. After days of the young lady trying to open the secret door in the cave, she finally opened it with the right tools. She was finally able to walk down the cave and see the outer entrance. She used the ladies-in-waiting to tell Guiscardo how to get there, and without hesitation and without anyone knowing, he made a rope with loops to climb into the cave, and he wrapped himself in leather skin to protect himself from the brambles, and waited down there for the lady to show up. This proves that in the Decameron, women prevailed and exploited men with graciousness when needed, which is not how women are typically portrayed. For instance, “The Ethical Dimension of the ‘Decameron’ states, “Many contemporary readers, believing that the right to secual freedom is inviolable and that control of one’s personal circumstances is supremely desirable, prefer seeing women like Ghita as “victims” or “heroes” and men like Tofano as “villians.” Moreover, many people now seem predisposed to side with a winner even when that winner is a clever manipulator of appearances.” This quote from Marilyn Migiel proves the stories written by Boccaccio portrayed women in a more prevailing manner, as they were able to use their personal skill or tendencies to get what they wanted.
Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, Paris Illustration from a French edition of The Decameron, fifteenth century
Desiderio, inganno e fortuna sono tre temi ricorrenti nel Decameron di Giovanni Boccaccio. Questi tre temi diventano sempre più evidenti quando compaiono in storie improbabili sui monaci in I-4. L’articolo di Marga Cottino-Jones, Desire and the Fantastic in the Decameron: The Third Day, pubblicato nel 1993 dall’American Association of Teachers of Italian, spiega che Boccaccio intende sfidare il modo moralmente imposto in cui vengono viste determinate figure della società. Come bussole morali, ci si aspetta che i monaci diano l’esempio di purezza; proprio per questo Boccaccio li usa come soggetti perfetti per mostrare che le persone soccomberanno alla loro natura umana quando i loro desideri saranno spinti a limiti straordinari. Il primo giorno di narrazione, Dioneo intrattiene il gruppo con la quarta storia di un monaco e un abate che vivevano in un monastero appartato. Qui Boccaccio allude ai dettagli specifici della posizione del monastero, creando una cornice per rendere possibile un evento improbabile. Un giorno un monaco, giovane e virile, nota una giovane ragazza che raccoglieva delle erbe nei loro campi, ed è subito colpito da una passione sensuale e desiderio carnale per la ragazza. Qui si può apprezzare come i suoi impulsi curiosi e naturali confrontano la castità del monaco. Dopo un po’ di conversazione, rendendosi conto che la ragazza era ben disposta alle sue avances, il monaco la porta di nascosto nella sua camera mentre gli altri dormivano. Ad un certo punto un abate si sveglia e si rende conto di ciò che sta succedendo all’interno della camera del giovane monaco. Allo stesso tempo, Il monaco è consapevole che l’abate lo aveva scoperto e lascia la ragazza nella sua stanza con la scusa che deve finire il suo lavoro e la rinchiude nella sua stanza per non essere scoperti. Poi dà la chiave all’abate che li aveva trovati. Quando l’abate entra nella stanza del monaco e vede la giovane, anche lui è tentato dalla giovane. Dopo aver preparato la sua trappola, il giovane monaco attende che l’abate cada vittima dei suoi desideri carnali. Una volta che l’abate esce dalla stanza del monaco, il monaco decide di tornare. A quel punto torna, l’abate lo affronta su ciò che ha trovato nella sua stanza. Il monaco risponde che è nel monastero da poco tempo e che non ha ancora appreso tutti gli insegnamenti. Tuttavia, ora che ha visto esattamente come l’abate gestisce una situazione del genere, sa come agirci se dovesse accadere di nuovo. Rendendosi conto che il monaco era consapevole della sua perversità con la donna, l’abate ritiene inopportuno castigare il monaco per lo stesso errore che lui stesso ha commesso. Lo perdona, e insieme scortano la giovane donna fuori dal monastero ma continuerà a visitarli. Alla fine della storia, la fortuna premia le malefatte del monaco e del suo complice (l’abate) permettendoli di continuare con i suoi impulsi naturali.
Desire and the Fantastic in the Decameron: The Third Day
Throughout the Decameron, Giovanni Boccacio shares a number of tales that each hold a hidden message. There are a total of 100 stories excluding the prologue, ten stories for ten days. One theme that I found to show up a few times throughout the stories is men deceiving women.
On the tenth day and tenth story, we were introduced to a man named Gualtiero. Gualtiero was the Marquess of Saluzzo, and with such a title came responsibility. His people were worried about the future of the estate is that he still wasn’t married, so he made a pact to them that he would get married to the woman of his choosing. He chose to marry a village girl named Griselda. They were happy for the first few years of their marriage, Gualtiero’s people loved her and thought of her to be compassionate and kind. It wasn’t until Griselda and Gualtiero started having children that Gualtiero began his tests/tricks. Once their daughter was born Gualtiero’s entire demeanor change, he began to treat Griselda poorly and claimed that his vassals disliked the fact that the next of kin was a child of one of a lower class. He convinced Griselda that the soldiers took the baby and murdered her when in reality he sent her to Bologna. Griselda was compliant the entire time, for all that women in those times knew about being a wife is being submissive and compliant to everything the husband wishes. He continues his tricks and tests when Griselda gave birth to there son. Although pleased by Griselda’s submissiveness he decided to further deceive her. He sent the boy to bologna and told griselda that he was murdered and that his subjects resented being ruled by a child whose grandfather is a farmer. Not only this but he starts to tell her that the pope allowed for them to divorce. Gualtiero asks to tell Griselda about the divorce in front of all his people and that he wishes for her to be of assistance with the wedding, of course, she obeys and does as he asks. Gualtiero tricks Griselda once more by bringing his daughter back from Bologna and telling Griselda that she was his next wife. He expected her to be jealous and rude towards the girl but in reality, Griselda was nice, welcoming and even advised Gualtiero to “spare her those tribulations” and treat her differently than how she was treated. This is when Gualtiero took the opportunity to reveal his schemes and tricks. Griselda was pleased to know that it was all a trick and that her kids were in fact not dead, she stayed with Gualtiero.
Mary Eliza Haweis (1848-1898), Griselda’s Sorrow (1882), illustration in ‘Chaucer for Children’, further details not known. Wikimedia Commons.
Griselda’s story wasn’t the only one that housed men deceiving women. On the Third Day Sixth story, we are introduced to the story of Ricciardo and how he tricked a woman named Catella to be with him. Catella was found to be the most beautiful in the town and when Ricciardo tried to pursue Catella he was unsuccessful because she is deeply in love with her husband, Filleppo. It has been made a known fact that Catella was extremely jealous when it came to her husband which allowed for Ricciardo’s tricks to conjure themselves. Ricciardo told Catella that her husband was having an affair with his wife (Ricciardo’s wife) and that they were going to meet up at a restaurant. Being the jealous wife she is, she believed every word. Later that day she went to the restaurant to pretend to be Ricciardo’s wife in hopes of tricking her husband and getting the opportunity to call him out. What she didn’t know was that Ricciardo set the whole thing up so that they were in a dark room and she would believe he was Filleppo. It wasn’t until they slept together that she tried to expose “her husband” of cheating when he revealed himself. He held her so tight she couldn’t get loose and convinced her to be with him “Sweet my soul, be not wroth: that which, while artlessly I loved, I might not have, Love has taught me to compass by guile: know that I am thy Ricciardo. ” instead of her husband Filleppo.
Gualtiero used tricks and deceived Griselda to put her loyalty to the test. He wanted to see whether or not Griselda would remain submissive and compliant to his every wish; he was happy to find that she passed. As a woman all Griselda knew about being a wife was that they were supposed to do and follow everything told by the husband. This is why she never put up a fight or disagreed/disobeyed his orders. I also believe that she stayed with him not only because she was taught to stand by her husband no matter what but because she was no longer a virgin. Back in the day, it was known that if a woman wasn’t a virgin she was found undesirable, it was found that if you weren’t a virgin and were older in age it would be a struggle to remarry. I think that played a small role in her taking Gualtiero back in the end. Ricciardo used tricks to ultimately use Catella’s emotions and love towards her husband against her. He was so fixated on wanting her that he had to trick her into believing that her husband Fileppo was cheating on her. “However you may say that I lured you hither by guile, I shall deny it, and affirm, on the contrary, that I induced you to come hither by promises of money and gifts, and that ’tis but because you are vexed that what I gave you did not altogether come up to your expectations, that you make such a cry and clamour; and you know that folk are more prone to believe evil than good, and therefore I am no less likely to be believed than you.” Once she recognized Ricciardo’s voice, he gaslighted her and threatened the fact that no one was going to believe that, he tricked her into bed with her, to be with him. When she asked him to “let her go” he refrained at first but then allowed for a kiss. That kiss is what changed it all for her, “Indeed the lady, finding her lover’s kisses smack much better than those of her husband, converted her asperity into sweetness, and from that day forth cherished a most tender love for Ricciardo.” His tricks and deceit ultimately worked in his favor, the same as Gualtiero.
As discussed multiple times in class, women were to be seen not heard in the time when Boccaccio wrote The Decameron, but Boccaccio really dismissed that idea in the stories of the Decameron. Women are included as main characters in a lot of his stories, and one of the topics most spoken of is that of romance and lust. Throughout the stories, he writes a lot about the drama that often comes when women engage in romance, especially in day 4 story 5 and day 10 story 10.
On day 4 story 5, Filomena tells the story of Lisabetta, the sister of 3 merchants who fell in love with one of their employees. The 3 brothers do not approve and end up murdering him but Lisabetta keeps the head of her dead lover inside a flower pot. This story was very farfetched and crazy and I think Boccaccio did this on purpose to show the reader the grasp that love has on people. especially on women who are sometimes deprived( as Lisabetta was) of who they want to be with. This story in particular showcases how women can go insane from a lack of romance, in my opinion. I infer that Boccaccio views romance as something beautiful yet crazy.
In addition, the Decameron also shows women who are in very tumultuous relationships, as shown in the telling of Griselda’s story on day 10 story 10. Griselda’s husband, Marquis of Saluzzo, tests her to see how “worthy” she was to be his wife, even going as far as to pretend to kill her children; Griselda is still submissive and tolerates all his tests and still loves him. I think this story is a hyperbole to show the extreme lengths women would go to please their husband. I definitely think Bocaccio included this story to mock how submissive some women are when they shouldn’t be. I also think he thinks that women are more able to handle tough situations than men are, in day 4 story 5 Lisabetta’s brothers couldn’t even handle their sister being in love with their client, while Griselda could tolerate the cruelty her husband showed her. According to Sujay Kulshrestha in her article, Giovanni Boccaccio’s “The Decameron” and the Roles of Men and Women, Griselda’s story demonstrates that Boccacio believes “that women tolerate more adversity than men do.” Both Griselda and Lisabetta are examples of the power that love has on people but especially women in a society where they are either stripped of their lover or face cruelty from their husbands.
Citation:
Kulshrestha, Sujay. “Giovanni Boccaccio’s ‘The Decameron’ and the Roles of Men and Women.” Inquires Journal, vol. 2, no. 12, 2010, www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/344/giovanni-boccaccios-the-decameron-and-the-roles-of-men-and-women.
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