List of Illustrations and Tables
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part One: Power and Politics in Boccaccio’s Times
1. An Apprenticeship in Politics, 1341–43
From Naples to Florence: Santa Felicita in Oltrarno
The Bardi Conspiracy of 1340
“Endeavour to make one or more friends”
The Call and the Fall of the Duke of Athens
2. Boccaccio and Politics, 1348–55
The Plague and Its Aftermath
Boccaccio’s Political Years, 1348–55
“Petrarch’s War” and the War against the Visconti
Boccaccio’s Last Offices and Disappearance
3. The 1360 Conspiracy, 1359–61
The Guelf Party and Terror of the Ammonizioni
The Ringleaders
The Dynamics of the Conspiracy
The Informants
The Death Sentence
The Other Conspirators
4. Consequences, 1361–65
Defamatory Portraits
The Executed: Niccolò di Bartolo del Buono and Domenico Bandini
The Exiles: The Case of Luca di Feo Ugolini
Boccaccio’s Withdrawal to Certaldo
Part Two: At the Intersections of Literature and Politics
5. Anti-tyrannical Motives in De mulieribus claris
Friendship in Time of Conspiracy
Florence: The Prostitutes Venus and Flora and the Seduced Hercules
Anti-tyrannical Motives
The Stoic Suicide: Escape toward Freedom
6. The Consolatoria a Pino de’ Rossi: A Manifesto on Innocence
Who Was Pino de’ Rossi?
Boccaccio's Letter: A Manifesto on Innocence
Against Judges: Milex Ludovicus Juvinalis Cardolis de Narnia
The Corruption of the Florentines
Pino de’ Rossi and Friends
The Consolations of Giovanni Boccaccio
The Questionable Innocence of Pino de’ Rossi
Summary of Boccaccio’s Consolatoria a Pino de’ Rossi
7. The Lives of Dante
The Life of Dante: First Version
Self-Censorship in the Second Version
The Deletion of Monarchia
A Change of Audience
Lapo da Castiglionchio
Tensions with Petrarch: On the Solitary Life
Boccaccio’s Enduring Fidelity to Dante
8. Conspirators in the Decameron
What’s in a Name: Donati and Monna Nonna
Decameron VI: The Florentine Day
Fortune and Nature: A Philosophical Debate
Noble Blood versus Noble Soul: A Political Debate
Founding the Utopian City
Afterword
