The best critical edition is Mestica’s, founded mainly upon scrupulous examination of a manuscript partly written by Petrarch himself, partly by an amanuensis under his direction. It may almost be wished that Mestica had not such good authority for some of his disturbances of time-hallowed readings. By much the best exegetical commentary is Leopardi’s, a model of pregnant conciseness, and invaluable for clearing up difficulties, although frequently proffering explanation where explanation seems needless. The late Henry Reeve’s English biography, though condensed, is fully adequate. The appreciation of the Petrarchan sonnet-forms, never to be tampered with without detriment, has been mainly promoted in England by the late Charles Tomlinson. FOOTNOTES: [7] Koerting distinctly affirms that it is not. The history of Carlyle and the Squire Papers evinces the extreme danger of touching, tasting, or handling in similar cases. CHAPTER VII BOCCACCIO If the works of the third great Italian writer cannot be compared to Dante’s for sublimity, or to Petrarch’s for perfection of style, the most important of them is of even greater significance in the history of culture. By his _Decameron_ GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO[8] endowed his country with a classic prose, and won for himself a unique place as the first modern novelist. Boccaccio always speaks of himself as “of Certaldo,” a small Tuscan town under Florentine dominion, where he possessed some properly. It would seem, however, from his own expressions, not to have been his birthplace. This was most probably Florence. The early legend of his birth at Paris rests upon a too absolute identification of himself with a character in his _Ameto_. His birth probably took place in 1313; and, if not early orphaned of his mother, he must have been an illegitimate child. His father, a Florentine merchant of the prudent and thrifty type, had him taught grammar and arithmetic, sent him into a counting-house at thirteen, and four years afterwards placed him with a mercantile firm at Naples. When, after two years, the youth’s distaste to trade proved insuperable, the father made him study law at the Neapolitan University. It is not likely that he gave much attention to so dry a subject amid the distractions of the lively city, where he was insensibly receiving the inspiration of his future poetry and fiction.