Eminent literary and scientific men of Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Vol. 1 (of 3)Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft
History
Eminent literary and scientific men of Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Vol. 1 (of 3)
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft
Authors -- Biography; Scientists -- Biography
He found great alterations in this city. King Robert was dead. His
daughter Jane succeeded to him: her dissentions with her husband
produced a violent party spirit among the courtiers, while the pursuit
of pleasure was the order of the day. A Court of Love, in imitation of
those held in Provence, was instituted, over which the lady Mary
presided. The lovers continued fondly attached to each other, though
jealousies and trifling quarrels somewhat diversified the otherwise even
course of their loves. The lady passed several months each summer at
Baiæ, amidst a society given up to amusement, and to the indulgence of
the greatest libertinism. From some unknown cause, Boccaccio did not
accompany her on these occasions, and he was tormented by a thousand
doubts, fearing that the dissolute manners of the court would corrupt
her, whom he calls a mirror of chaste love, and injure her faith towards
him. During one of these absences he wrote his poem of "Filostrato," on
the subject of Troilus and Cressida, which he dedicated as a kind of
peace-offering to his lady. He wrote also the "Amorosa Fiammetta," which
is her fancied complaint, while he was at Florence, and the "Amorosa
Visione," or Vision of Love; which is more poetic in its diction than
any of his previous works in verse, though it labours under the
disadvantage of being an acrostic; the initial letters of each verse
forming a series of sonnets and canzoni, addressed in the same initials
to "Madonna Maria."
[Sidenote: 1345.
Ætat.
35.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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