1. The Literatures of Marvels

In late medieval Italy, the marvelous was of great interest to authors. By definition, the marvelous concerned that which caused someone “to gaze with wonder,” “to be awestruck,” “to admire” (Latin admirari).Footnote ¹ Peculiar elements of nature, exceptional human actions, divine miracles, and demonic events often engendered wonder. Though all species of the marvelous were conceptually related, late medieval writers sharply distinguished one type from another. Marvels (mirabilia in Latin; maraviglie in Italian; merveilles in French) were conventionally understood to be something that appeared to — but crucially did not — violate the laws of nature, thus stupefying human comprehension.Footnote ² They encompassed elements of the natural world, such as plants, stones, and animals with peculiar properties as well as exceptional geographical and astronomical phenomena. Human-initiated events, displays of magic, and creations such as self-moving machines were also classified as mirabilia.Footnote ³ These varieties of marvelous phenomena were defined by their naturalness insofar as they were contrasted to unnatural (potentially demonic) occurrences and supernatural miracles (miracula).Footnote ⁴ Medieval authors sometimes drew on the interconnected notions of mirabilia and marveling while theorizing the properties and utility of their literary texts. In fact, it was commonly believed that the first poets wondered at the marvels of nature and then composed verses to engender a sense of awe in an audience.Footnote ⁵ Vernacular authors, who were writing in a relatively new language, often recalled ideas about the marvelous to affirm the dignity of their creations.Footnote ⁶

The Livre des Merveilles du Monde (or Devisement du Monde), one of the first vernacular texts in prose, foregrounds its utility by reference to marvels.Footnote ⁷ Originally written (c. 1289) in a Franco-Venetian hybrid, the text was soon translated into other vernaculars including Tuscan.Footnote ⁸ This was the primary language of the less-educated Florentine merchants, bankers, and artisans who were seeking information for their professions and entertainment for their leisure.Footnote ⁹ In the Tuscan version called Il Milione, proemial remarks state that the work will stoke curiosity about the east and thus provide knowledge “without any lie” (sanza niuna menzogna).Footnote ¹⁰ The text promotes its objectives by describing the natural occurrences, human customs, and urban landscapes that caused Marco Polo to marvel during his travels in Asia. Dante also recalled ideas about marvels and wonder to justify the writing of the Comedy (c. 1306–21). He drew on ideas about marvels because literature was sometimes considered a fraudulent mode of discourse that was unnatural (contra naturam), namely contrary to God's signifying in history.Footnote ¹¹ Dante countered such perceptions by swearing on the verses of the Comedy that he saw the “marvelous … figure” (figura … maravigliosa) of Geryon, the guardian of fraud in hell.Footnote ¹² The monster is a hybrid beast: it has the face of a man, serpentine and reptilian elements for a body, and the tail of a scorpion. In affirming the truthfulness of the Comedy by reference to Geryon, Dante implied that the monster is an analogue of the poem. He thereby suggested that the Comedy — with its various styles, linguistic registers, and narrative types — was, like Geryon, a naturally wondrous part of God's creation. These vernacular texts were inspired by debates concerning what marvels reveal about the nature of the world, and discussions of whether they should inspire feelings of curiosity, fear, or delight.Footnote ¹³ In other words, discourses related to the marvelous were bound up with existential questions regarding how one should engage reality.

The research presented here explores how Boccaccio recalled ideas about marvels while reflecting on the dignity of vernacular writing and existential issues. The article proposes that Boccaccio drew on concepts related to the marvelous, especially in the Decameron, to distinguish his views from Dante's ideas about these topics. Boccaccio (1313–1375) wrote about marvels throughout his life and usually did so in texts that engage with Dante's works. In his youthful Comedia delle ninfe fiorentine (1341), the shepherd Ameto repeatedly marvels at seven nymphs. Their stories teach him to interpret their sensuous presence as representations of the divine-human “effigy” (effigie) glimpsed by Dante in the Empyrean.Footnote ¹⁴ In the Decameron (c. 1348–60), forms of the word maraviglia appear repeatedly with meanings ranging from the wonder engendered by novel phenomena to mystifying natural occurrences.Footnote ¹⁵ The Decameron, a collection of one hundred stories full of erotic content and historical detail, recalls the Comedy by having the same number of formal divisions as Dante's poem (one hundred). The narrator also prompts readers to think of the Comedy by specifying that the Decameron has the thematic trajectory, from wretchedness to happiness, typical of comedy.Footnote ¹⁶ In his later years, Boccaccio also commented upon marvels and Dante in his scholarly works. In his compendium of classical myths, Genealogie deorum gentilium (c. 1359–75), Boccaccio evoked ideas about marvels to defend the truthfulness of ancient writers and the vernacular Dante, who wrote with “wonderful demonstration” (mira demonstratione).Footnote ¹⁷ Finally, in the Esposizioni sopra la Comedia di Dante, Boccaccio discussed ideas about marvels in relation to literature and fraudulence, for example, in the poet's encounter with Geryon.Footnote ¹⁸

Though marvels interested many medieval authors, scholars of the Middle Ages have rarely discussed Boccaccio's engagement with the subjects related to them. The lack of scholarship on Boccaccio and these topics might be due to various factors. The fact that the word maraviglia appears over one hundred times in the Decameron may have engendered the superficial impression that Boccaccio misunderstood theoretical ideas about marvels and used the term indiscriminately.Footnote ¹⁹ Dante instead referred to marvels only thirty-nine times in the Comedy, and he foregrounded the import of the concept in one of the poem's key metaliterary passages (Inferno 16).Footnote ²⁰ Moreover, when scholars have studied marvels in Boccaccio's works, they have not done so in relation to contemporary literary or theoretical discourses.Footnote ²¹ This ahistorical assessment may stem from the fact that for years Boccaccio was heralded as a protomodernist — who eschewed tradition — in contrast to the theological poet Dante. Twentieth- and twenty-first-century readers have often characterized Boccaccio as a protodeconstructionist, who questioned whether Dante successfully conveyed ethical or spiritual truths in the Comedy.Footnote ²² Other readers have suggested that Boccaccio was a protorealist, who depicted mundane reality without the symbolism supposedly typical of medieval allegory and Dante's otherworldly poem.Footnote ²³ Subsequent scholars have refined these historiographical notions by assessing Boccaccio's engagement with Dante in relation to medieval ideas about material culture, allegory, hermeneutics, social class, vernacularity, and ethics.Footnote ²⁴ However, his ideas about marvels and wonder have not yet been discussed in relation to medieval discourses. This is an important scholarly omission given that the marvelous was a trait d'union for late medieval writers, who drew on it to highlight the properties, utility, and ideology of their texts.

In the primary self-reflexive passages of the Decameron, Boccaccio signaled that he and Dante drew on different conceptions of marvels by recalling parts of the Comedy that concern marvels and wonder. Section 2 of this article addresses how the opening pages of the Decameron engage with ideas about marvels related to the torments of the Inferno and Purgatorio. For example, in Decameron 1.1, the narrator Panfilo frames his story about the sodomite and notary Ser Ciappelletto with remarks about wonder and storytelling.Footnote ²⁵ In dealing with marvels and sodomy, the story evokes the marveling associated with the notary and writer Brunetto Latini, who is punished with the sodomites (Inferno 15).Footnote ²⁶ Section 3 treats Boccaccio's reflection on notions of the marvelous in Dante's encounter with Geryon (Inferno 16–17). In Decameron 3.8, the narrator Lauretta alludes to the monster before telling a story about an abbot who creates a purgatorial punishment.Footnote ²⁷ Finally, section 4 addresses the import of marvels in the “Introduction” to Day 4, in which the narrator defends his decision to write erotic stories to please women (and names Dante); and in the “Conclusion” to Day 6, in which the female narrators explore the “Valley of Women.” The wondrous topography of the Valley recalls the marvelous natural setting admired by the pilgrim in the Earthly Paradise.Footnote ²⁸

In evoking the marvels associated with suffering, monsters, and prelapsarian spaces in the Comedy, Boccaccio highlighted that his text — set in Florence in 1348 — was informed by different ideas about marvels and wonder. He was contrasting the foreign, otherworldly, and sometimes bizarre marvels of the Comedy to the Mediterranean, local, and domestic marvels described in the Decameron. By making this distinction, Boccaccio was drawing on a recent though widely discussed change in thinking about the marvelous. Whereas early medieval writers often described the faraway wonders of the east, thirteenth-century historians discussed more directly, systematically, and self-consciously those associated with European places. Like these historians, Boccaccio recalled ideas about the wonder engendered by western marvels versus eastern ones to justify an expansion of literature's thematic scope. As these historians were also doing, Boccaccio foregrounded the significance of local wonders to champion the delights associated with domestic, daily life.

In the Decameron, Boccaccio engaged authoritative ideas about natural mirabilia to defend a text that could be perceived as controversial. Not only were literary works criticized for being unnatural and untruthful, but texts featuring erotic or mundane material were considered especially provocative. The Decameron did, in fact, engender debate during Boccaccio's lifetime both because it depicts mundane experiences and because it often characterizes them positively.Footnote ²⁹ Moreover, by writing about the wondrous aspects of this world, Boccaccio endeavored to complement Dante's poem about the marvels of hell, purgatory, and paradise.Footnote ³⁰ He recalled ideas about marvels — defined as novel occurrences — to highlight the original nature of his prose text in comparison to the most commented upon vernacular poem in the fourteenth century. Furthermore, he suggested more overtly than Dante that the domestic experiences of this present life are as worthy of our attention as the realities of the afterlife. Boccaccio may have emphasized this point because the Comedy occasionally characterizes earthly existence in terms that could engender confusion about its dignity. For example, in paradise the contemplatives urge the pilgrim to ponder the earth's “vile appearance” (vil sembiante).Footnote ³¹ What follows contributes to scholarship on medieval literature by suggesting that Boccaccio's engagement with Dante was intertwined with a change in views of marvels, one that influenced both Latin historians and vernacular authors. This article also contributes to a growing body of scholarship dedicated to assessing when, where, and why writers began to discuss local wonders in the late medieval period.Footnote ³²

2. Boccaccio's Introduction to Marvels

Boccaccio highlighted the importance of marvels in the Decameron through the title. The title Decameron recalls the genre of hexameral literature, namely commentaries devoted to expositing the account of the six days of creation in Genesis.Footnote ³³ The Greek hexameron etymologically means “six days,” while the Decameron means ten (the one hundred stories are told during ten days of storytelling). In the Middle Ages, hexameral commentaries were dedicated in part to encouraging readers to marvel at God's creation. All of creation was considered a marvel since it was made by God, the Deus artifiex.Footnote ³⁴ In his Hexameron, a collection of sermons, Ambrose (c. 340–397) repeatedly admired the many marvels that appeared both while and after God created the world in six days.Footnote ³⁵ Bede (c. 672–735), in his Libri quattuor in principium Genesis … sive Hexameron, and Bonaventure (c. 1218–1274), in his Collationes in Hexameron (1273), also frequently wondered at a plethora of natural phenomena.Footnote ³⁶ Furthermore, other commentaries on the creation narrative in Genesis foregrounded the importance of wondering at the marvels of nature in overt ways. In his commentary on the Pentateuch, Hugh of St. Victor (c. 1096–1141) reflected on the marvels described in Genesis. He argued that it is “useful to wonder at and venerate God … [and since] he made the world from nothing, we wonder at his power” (utile est Deum admirari et venerari … [atque] id est de nihilo fecit mundum, miramur eius potentiam).Footnote ³⁷ For his part, Boccaccio understood that hexameral texts dealt with marvels. In the Genealogie, he refers to a passage in Ambrose's work to help explicate the “wondrous” (mirabile) birth of the bird Halcyon.Footnote ³⁸ Given the common connotations of hexameral texts, the title Decameron would have encouraged readers to consider Boccaccio's stories in relation to a literature and creative act that were bound up with marvels. It prompts readers to compare the content and formal properties of Boccaccio's text to the marvels created by God in history and nature.

Boccaccio could have learned about the literary resonances of marvels from various sources.Footnote ³⁹ He carefully read and commented upon the Comedy, which was inspired by diverse ideas about marvels. He was also familiar with the works of late medieval historians, who drew on ideas about marvels while inaugurating a new genre of history. Vincent of Beauvais's (1190– c. 1264) Speculum historiale and Speculum naturale, Gervase of Tilbury's (1150–1228) Otia imperialia, and Gerald of Wales's (c. 1146–1223) Topographia Hiberniae feature the deeds of men, the traditional purview of history writing. However, these works also contain a large quantity of material about geography and natural marvels.Footnote ⁴⁰ Though ancient histories and early medieval chronicles also present information about geography and nature, late medieval historians treated these topics much more comprehensively.Footnote ⁴¹ These historians also — and this is key — underscored the novelty of their works by making overt connections between marvels and their texts.Footnote ⁴² Boccaccio probably encountered these historical writings in Naples during his youth, and he cited them repeatedly in his Latin scholarly works.Footnote ⁴³ Gervase and Gerald, for example, highlighted the innovative content and utility of their works by recalling Augustine's view that novelty was one of the defining characteristics of a marvel. In De civitate dei, the bishop gave voice to what would become influential ideas about marvels and marveling while discussing biblical verses about the burning torments of hell. He argued that readers should believe these verses because there are things in nature even more marvelous to behold, but that we do not wonder at them because they have become “familiar” (cotidiana) to us.Footnote ⁴⁴ Augustine thereby suggested that various things, in reality, can be marvelous: what constitutes a marvel partially depends on one's subjective perception.Footnote ⁴⁵ Gervase and Gerald drew on Augustine's ideas about the relative nature of marvels to distinguish their works about western marvels from earlier medieval texts.Footnote ⁴⁶ Gerald explains:

By writing about western wonders, Gervase and Gerald were contrasting the sometimes wondrous and delightful marvels of their histories to the marvels described in previous texts. In Isidore's Etymologiae (c. 600–625) or in the anonymous Liber monstrorum and Tractatus monstrorum (c. 720), the marvels of the east often encompassed exotic landscapes, monsters and monstrous races, deformed human bodies, and strange births.Footnote ⁴⁸ These wonders typically engendered fear and horror because they were considered signs of God's displeasure.Footnote ⁴⁹ Gervase instead asserted that domestic and local things could also be novel marvels, in part because his writings transform “the oldest things … into new, natural things into wondrous, and things familiar to us all, into strange things” (antiquissima … in nova, naturalia in mirabilia, apud plerosque usitata in inaudita).Footnote ⁵⁰

In the Proemio of the Decameron, Boccaccio recalled ideas about novelty while reflecting on the ethics of his text. Though novelty was frequently discussed in literary works, Boccaccio was partially indebted to ideas in history writing about the utility of novitas.Footnote ⁵¹ Boccaccio-narrator characterizes the Decameron as a book that will help readers confront the instabilities of the world, especially those stemming from lovesickness (and, by extension, the plague). The narrator explains that he was suffering from a failed relationship, but then found a “remedy” and “consolation” (tanto rifrigerio; consolazione; conforto) in conversing with a friend.Footnote ⁵² In gratitude, he has decided to write for women who suffer the travails of love more than men do, and whose pain persists unless replaced by “new discourses” (nuovi ragionamenti).Footnote ⁵³ His help and remedy will consist in the telling of one hundred novelle.Footnote ⁵⁴ In early vernacular texts, novella had resonances ranging from novelty and new information to a generic kind of short narrative.Footnote ⁵⁵ The narrator's remarks about “new discourses” evokes the valences of novelty inherent in the word novelle. The subsequent gloss on the types of novelle in the Decameron — “either fables, or parables, or histories” (o favole, o parabole, o istorie) — highlights the term's literary connotations. These remarks also echo passages in the Otia imperialia, in which Gervase discusses the value of novelty in similar terms. In the work's Praefatio, he too explains that the world is full of instability and change, and that “the best remedy for a weary mind is to delight in novelties and to enjoy variety” (optimum nature fatigate remedium est amare novitates et gaudere variis).Footnote ⁵⁶ In the preface to book 3, Gervase repeats that his book of marvels features “novelties” (nova) that will refresh spirits wearied by mundane concerns.Footnote ⁵⁷ Moreover, as Gervase explains that his stories will be both useful and pleasurable, so Boccaccio concludes that his novel stories will instruct and delight readers.Footnote ⁵⁸

In the “Introduction” to Day 1, Boccaccio then recalls the distinction in historical texts between earlier and later medieval ideas about marvels. The narrator evokes the horrible marvels and disfigured bodies typically found in earlier medieval literature when he describes the plague.Footnote ⁵⁹ The narrator specifies that how the plague spread between persons seemed marvelous: “A marvelous thing it is to hear what I must say: which, if it had not been seen by the eyes of many and my own, I would not dare to believe it, let alone write it, even though I had heard it from a trustworthy person” (Maravigliosa cosa è a udire quello che io debbo dire: il che, se dagli occhi di molti e da’ miei non fosse stato veduto, appena che io ardissi di crederlo, non che di scriverlo, quantunque da fededegna udito l'avessi).Footnote ⁶⁰ The narrator then explains that the plague maimed human bodies, engendered fear, and made family members abandon the bodies of the dead in ditches.Footnote ⁶¹ Marvels associated with natural pleasures and delight are subsequently recalled at the end of the “Introduction” to Day 1. When the brigata meets in Santa Maria Novella, Pampinea marvels that they do not take measures against the horrors surrounding them.Footnote ⁶² Consequently, they travel to a place near Florence with meadows and “marvelous gardens” (giardini maravigliosi), where they will delight in telling stories, singing, and dancing.Footnote ⁶³ Other gardens that host their pleasurable storytelling are also described as marvelous. For example, the gardens of Day 3 feature a variety of natural and artistic marvelous elements, which make them seem an earthly paradise.Footnote ⁶⁴ The marvelous setting of Day 3 may be inspired by the fact that God created plant life on the third day of the six days of creation.Footnote ⁶⁵

In evoking two kinds of marvels, Boccaccio was beginning to highlight that one kind of marvel inspires the Decameron and another kind informs the Comedy, especially the canticles of the Inferno and Purgatorio. Boccaccio guides perceptions of the marvels in Dante's poem by recalling the Comedy’s thematic trajectory and Inferno 1 in the narrator's gruesome description of the plague. In the “Introduction” to Day 1, the narrator evokes the general thematics of comedy by explaining that the Decameron will begin sadly and end happily.Footnote ⁶⁶ He then compares the Decameron’s horrible beginning to a harsh mountain that readers must ascend, and its happy conclusion to a beautiful clearing.Footnote ⁶⁷ These images recall the “harsh wood” (selva … aspra) and the “delightful mountain” (dilettoso monte) of Inferno 1, and also the pilgrim's voyage up Mount Purgatory.Footnote ⁶⁸ Moreover, the description of the marvelous spread of the plague recalls the physical torments of the simoniacs (Inferno 19). These sinners are punished by having their feet burned.Footnote ⁶⁹

Boccaccio instead highlights that his own novelle are inspired by the marvelous pleasures of nature. He draws attention to this issue first by having the narrator discuss the delight engendered by his stories in the Proemio, and then by having the brigata tell stories in wondrous natural settings. Comprehensively, therefore, the Proemio and “Introduction” to Day 1 highlight that parts of the Comedy signify by featuring marvelous horrors, monsters, and disfigured bodies, whereas the Decameron signifies by reference to beautiful, pleasurable, and delightful wonders. Years later Boccaccio also clarified his understanding of marvels in parts of the Comedy in his commentary on Inferno 16. In the Esposizioni, he notes that the monster Geryon frightened the pilgrim, a subjective interpretation since the pilgrim's reaction to Geryon is glossed over in the canto: “Then the author … says that this figure was Marvelous to every sure heart. A horrible thing therefore it must have been and was, just as he himself shows in the beginning of the next canto” (Poi l'autore … dice che questa figura era Maravigliosa ad ogni cuor sicuro. Orribil cosa adunque doveva essere ed era, sì come esso medesimo dimostra nel prencipio del seguente canto).Footnote ⁷² Like the “Introduction” to Day 1, the commentary guides perceptions of the kind of marvels inspiring large sections of the Comedy. In the Decameron’s first story, Boccaccio then concludes his introduction to marvels in Dante's poem and his own text.

In Decameron 1.1, Boccaccio recalls an episode from the Comedy that features remarks about marvels and descriptions of maimed figures. However, he rewrites the episode to transform it into something that prompts laughter. The narrator Panfilo begins the story by addressing matters related to novelty, marvels, and storytelling. In accord with contemporary ideas about the utility of marvels, he suggests that the “recounting of … marvels/new things” (novellare … maravigliose cose) can provide a remedy for the instabilities of a changing world: “For, I, being obliged as the first to begin your storytelling, intend to begin with one of His marvelous things, so that, having heard it, our hope in Him, as in an unchangeable thing, might be fixed and His name might always be praised by us” (Per che, dovendo io al vostro novellare, sí come primo, dare cominciamento, intendo da una delle sue [di Colui] maravigliose cose incominciare, acciò che, quella udita, la nostra speranza in Lui, sí come in cosa impermutabile, si fermi e sempre sia da noi il suo nome lodato).Footnote ⁷³ He adds that the story about marvels will encourage the brigata to have faith in something stable in a world full of temporal and transitory things.Footnote ⁷⁴

Boccaccio then foregrounds that the tale concerns marvels in the Inferno by modeling the story's protagonist on a sinner described in Inferno 15, one who is overtly associated with wonder. Diverse scholars have noted that the protagonist of Panfilo's story, Ser Ciappelletto, recalls Dante's teacher, Brunetto Latini (c. 1220–1294/5).Footnote ⁷⁵ The pilgrim encounters Brunetto among the sodomites, who are punished in a fiery landscape. Brunetto immediately shouts “What a marvel” (Qual maraviglia!) upon seeing his former student.Footnote ⁷⁶ In the Esposizioni, Boccaccio explains that Brunetto was a notary, whose “great self-confidence” (grande estima) led him to make a legal mistake.Footnote ⁷⁷ The ensuing accusations prompted Brunetto to travel from Florence to Paris, where he wrote the Tresor, a work in a French vernacular about the liberal arts, philosophy, and metaphysics. Like Dante's Brunetto, Ciappelletto was a notary who accused people falsely, spent time in Paris, and was a sodomite.Footnote ⁷⁸ Other thematic echoes of Inferno 15 also suggest that Ciappelletto is a “new” Brunetto Latini. For example, as Brunetto addresses the pilgrim as “my son” (figliuol mio), so the confessor addresses Ciappelleto repeatedly as “my son” (figliuol mio).Footnote ⁷⁹ The apostrophe has ironic resonances in Inferno 15 since as a sodomite Brunetto did not produce offspring. For this reason, the sodomites’ bodies are perhaps burnt and thus seem charred and infertile. Brunetto's sexual sterility also appears to have metaliterary resonances.Footnote ⁸⁰ As Brunetto did not create other human bodies, so he appears to have produced a kind of writing that was not spiritually fertile, namely, concerned with eternal life. Brunetto betrays the fact that he was focused on engendering worldly fame by recommending to Dante his book “in which [he] still live[s]” (nel qual viv[e] ancora).Footnote ⁸¹ Comprehensively, these evocations of marvels and fame introduce differences between a sinfully sterile and an unnatural kind of writing, symbolized in part by the unnatural appearance of the sodomites’ bodies, versus the naturally marvelous Comedy, symbolized by Geryon's hybrid body in the next canto. In the Esposizioni, Boccaccio also commented on the connection between fama and marvels in the Brunetto episode. However, he discusses Brunetto's writing in positive terms — thus giving a self-reflexive hint for interpreting his engagement with Dante in Decameron 1.1. He characterizes Brunetto's lessons about fame as “holy and good” (santi e buoni), and then defends the value of literature by discussing the concept of wonder. Boccaccio notes that great writers make readers marvel, which creates for them a “praiseworthy reputation” (laudevole ricordazion).Footnote ⁸² And, in Decameron 1.1, the sinner Ciappelletto-Brunetto eventually acquires “the fame of … holiness” (la fama della … santità) through his fictional inventions.Footnote ⁸³

The marvel recounted by Panfilo involves changes to Ciappelletto's and, by extension, to Brunetto's body. By means of a false confession, Ciappelletto transforms his sick and sinful body, which is in danger of being discarded in a ditch, into an object of worship. When Ciappelletto becomes ill, his hosts worry that upon dying his body will be abandoned along the side of a road.Footnote ⁸⁴ Their concern recalls the deformed, plague-ridden bodies in ditches at Florence, which were previously likened to the disfigured sinners of the Inferno. However, unlike the abandoned bodies in Florence, Ciappelletto's body winds up buried in a Christian monastery as a result of Ciappelletto's linguistic artistry. When the confession starts, Ciappelletto immediately begins the process of transforming his body into a holy relic. For example, instead of admitting that his body is tainted by sodomy, he lies that it is pure and virginal: “I am as virginal as when I came out of my mother's body” (io son cosí vergine come io usci’ del corpo della mamma mia).Footnote ⁸⁵ After Ciappelletto similarly lies about his other sins, the priest absolves him, declares him about to be “healed” (sano), and inquires if his religious order can have the notary's body: “Sir Ciappelletto, with the help of God you soon will be healed. … Do you want your body to be buried in our monastery?” (Ser Ciappelletto, con l'aiuto di Dio voi sarete tosto sano. … Piacevi egli che ’l vostro corpo sia sepellito al nostro luogo?)Footnote ⁸⁶

The conclusion of the tale highlights the metaliterary implications of Panfilo's story for creating a marvel. Subsequent references to texts and manuscripts foreground the literary resonances underlying the transformation of Ciappelletto's body. The impression that Ciappelletto's body is a relic stems not only from Ciappelletto's false confession, but also from the priest's “narrating” (narrando) marvelous things about the sinner.Footnote ⁸⁷ His preaching also occurs in a physical space (pergamo: pulpit) that is reminiscent of manuscript parchment (pergamena):Footnote ⁸⁸ “having ascended the pulpit (pergamo), he began about him and his life … to preach marvelous things, among other things narrating that which Sir Ciappelletto … had confessed to him” (salito in sul pergamo di lui cominciò e della sua vita … maravigliose cose a predicare, tra l'altre cose narrando quello che ser Ciappelletto … gli avea confessato).Footnote ⁸⁹ Influenced by this “narrating textual corpus,” people then fight to tear off the veils or “clothes” (panni) covering Ciappelletto's body: “[the priest] so put [Ciappelletto] in their heads and in the devotion of all that were there, that … all his clothes were torn off him … and many swear that God performed many miracles through him” (sì il mise nel capo e nella divozion di tutti coloro che v'erano, che … tutti i panni gli furono indosso stracciati … e affermano molti miracoli Iddio aver mostrati per lui).Footnote ⁹⁰ Not only were texts (textus) related etymologically to textiles in medieval culture, but the “tatters” (stracci) again recall the bodies of the sick abandoned in ditches.Footnote ⁹¹ By evoking images of texts and manuscripts, Boccaccio was suggesting that the author creates marvels in literature. Indeed, the metaphoric terms of the story imply that a writer transforms (textual) bodies into objects of wonder. Finally, these lines underscore that while humans, like God, can create marvelous wonders, only God and Christ are responsible for miracles (supernatural healings, resurrections, etc.).

The implications of Panfilo's story for Boccaccio's engagement with Dante and marvels are various. First, the tale shows how a writer re-presents an object in a text or transforms a previous literary corpus — in this case, Brunetto Latini's body and Inferno 15 — to create a marvel. As Ciappelletto transforms impressions of his sick body to create a new object of worship, so Boccaccio transforms the physical and textual bodies related to Brunetto into something new. In accord with Gervase's and Gerald's ideas, Boccaccio thus demonstrates how a writer creates wonder by presenting something old in a new light. At the same time, Boccaccio's tale distinguishes both the kinds and the effects of marvels in his text from the types and effects of diverse marvels in the Comedy. Whereas the horrible marvels of hell engender fear and worry, the marvels of the Decameron prompt laughter. Ciappelletto's first public, his hosts who overhear his confession, feel a “great desire to laugh” (gran voglia di ridere).Footnote ⁹² Their reaction anticipates the female members of the brigata, who also laugh at Panfilo's story about marvels: “The story of Panfilo prompted some laughter and was entirely praised by the women” (La novella di Panfilo fu in parte risa e tutta commendata dalle donne).Footnote ⁹³ Moreover, whereas Dante distinguished his textual marvels from certain kinds of fiction, Boccaccio's story implies that all kinds of texts, even those that are completely fictional, can have positive effects in a world full of suffering and instability. Finally, by evoking different reactions to the Comedy and Decameron, Boccaccio was starting to introduce ideas about what aspects of reality merit our attention. The opening story of the Decameron begins to emphasize that readers should not only worry about the sublime realities of eternity. It encourages readers to think about, engage with, and delight in the wonders of daily life and earthly reality, namely, the kinds of marvels depicted in Decameron. In 3.8, Boccaccio continues to highlight differences between marvels and marveling in the Comedy and in the Decameron.

3. A Well-Said Human Marvel

The rubric of 3.8 explains that the story concerns an abbot who tricks a jealous man named Ferondo into thinking he is in purgatory in order to sleep with his wife. The narrator Lauretta prefaces her story by recalling verses in the Comedy that describe the marvel Geryon. As Dante swore that he saw the “truth that has the face of a lie” (ver c'ha faccia di menzogna) as the monster rose before him, so Lauretta says that there appears before her a truth that has the semblance of a lie: “there appears before me the obligation to recount a truth that has, much more than what it was, the appearance of a lie” (a me si para davanti a doversi far raccontare una verità che ha, troppo piú che di quello che ella fu, di menzogna sembianza).Footnote ⁹⁴ Her next comments put the story in dialogue with Decameron 1.1, a tale that, like hers, concerns marvels and authorial fama:

Lauretta's allusion to the marvelous Geryon intimates that the topics of marvels and marveling are among the story's primary concerns. In fact, words related to maraviglia appear on four occasions in the tale. These occurrences will be treated in this section. Moreover, her preface suggests that how one views the protagonists of the story, and by extension the story about marvels, is relative. Impressions of the story depend on whether one believes the man who supposedly saw purgatory to be a prophetic figure or a liar. Consequently, the following reading of the tale will be twofold.

On the one hand, the story will be considered in light of Dante's presentation of himself as a truthful scriba Dei. By treating matters of truthfulness in relation to Geryon, Boccaccio was engaging with one of the Comedy’s key passages about the prophetic dimension of the poem. In the Esposizioni, Boccaccio glossed the poet's oath by noting that Dante was concerned that he would have a bad reputation if people considered him a “huge liar” (grandissimo bugiardo).Footnote ⁹⁶ Indeed, Dante claimed to have faithfully recorded a visionary experience in the “sacred poem” (poema sacro).Footnote ⁹⁷ In 3.8 Boccaccio clarifies that the Comedy is a human and fictional creation, one that is thus marvelous but not miraculous. In the Trattatello, Boccaccio similarly specified that Dante had composed the poem “by wondrously creating fiction” (mirabilmente fingendo).Footnote ⁹⁸ Far from a negation of Dante's importance, Boccaccio's characterization of Dante as a fully human (that is, not miraculously inspired) author of fiction was central to his championing of the poet.Footnote ⁹⁹ In his scholarship, Boccaccio did not celebrate Dante's significance by classifying him as a miraculous voyager of the otherworld or as a supernatural writer. Rather, he promoted the dignity of a fictional poem that was composed by a man who, like many others, struggled with human desires.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ Boccaccio emphasized that Dante was a non-miraculous author with erotic yearnings for several reasons. First, he could thus ennoble the vernacular by including the Florentine writer in an emerging canon of Tuscan love poets (See section 4 below).Footnote ¹⁰¹ Second, he could thereby promote Dante by reflecting on his dignity in relation to the illustrious, but not miraculous, ancient auctores (See section 5 below).Footnote ¹⁰² Third, by not considering Dante a scriba Dei, Boccaccio was able to justify his reflection on the limitations of Dante's poem (which also does not negate his championing of Dante).Footnote ¹⁰³ In 3.8, he reflected on both the strengths and the ambiguities of the Comedy by reference to discourses about marvels. On the other hand, the story will be read in light of Boccaccio's attempt to promote the significance of his own text, which is presented as a fictional work. The protagonists of 3.8 recall aspects of both Dante's and Boccaccio's authorial identities. Therefore, the story clarifies ideas about the nature of Dante's marvelous creation while also highlighting the properties and significance of Boccaccio's.

Like late medieval historians, both Dante and Boccaccio guided impressions of their marvelous writings by addressing matters related to geography. The geographical setting of Dante's encounter with Geryon is discussed when the pilgrim meets Florentine sodomites.Footnote ¹⁰⁴ Though the Florentines recognize Dante as a fellow citizen due to his dress, the “blackened and burnt appearance” (’l tinto aspetto e brollo) of their bodies makes them seem foreign.Footnote ¹⁰⁵ Subsequent references also underscore differences between the domestic and recognizable and the foreign and unfamiliar. Whereas the girone’s topography reminds the poet of the Apennines, the monster Geryon is introduced as something novel and foreign.Footnote ¹⁰⁶ After Virgil signals Geryon by tossing a cord that Dante was wearing into the abyss, the pilgrim underlines the novelty of Geryon twice: “And now it seems something new answers / … to the new sign / that my master gazes at” (E’ pur convien che novità risponda / … al novo cenno / che ’l maestro con l'occhio sì seconda).Footnote ¹⁰⁷ Geryon does not seem to be a local marvel; rather, his body has shapes and designs of a kind that not even the Tartars or Turks ever made.Footnote ¹⁰⁸ The emphasis on the novelty and foreignness of the monster underscores — given that Geryon is an analogue of the Comedy — the newness of the content and properties of the poem. It is presented as a novel text about familiar and foreign, worldly and otherworldly subjects.

After citing Dante's verses about Geryon, Lauretta too addresses matters related to geography. In Inferno 16, geographical references highlighted the merging of the familiar and unfamiliar, worldly and otherworldly in the Comedy. By contrast, Lauretta's remarks about topography suggest that her tale concerns persons and places near Florence: “There was in Tuscany an abbey, and there still is, of the kind we often see, in a place not often frequented by passersby” (Fu adunque in Toscana una badia, e ancora è, posta, sì come noi ne veggiam molte, in luogo non troppo frequentato dagli uomini).Footnote ¹⁰⁹ Moreover, in contrast to the noble Florentines in Inferno 16, the protagonists of 3.8 are not of noble origin or exceptional. The abbot is generally a “holy person” (santissimo) but with one fault; Ferondo is a rather “material and ignorant” (materiale e grosso) person of the lower classes; and Ferondo's wife is described simply as beautiful.Footnote ¹¹⁰ Therefore, by evoking Inferno 16 but changing key details of the canto in 3.8, Boccaccio encouraged readers to consider his story as a commentary on Dante's text. By “relocating” his Dantean narrative in Tuscany, Boccaccio specified that the Comedy was inspired by everyday reality and not by an otherworldly voyage. The opening of the story thus implies that Dante did not record the wonders of the afterlife. It reminds readers that Dante actually created marvels by transforming something commonly known into something novel.

In the Inferno, Dante's encounter with Geryon highlighted both the properties of the sacred poem and the objective truthfulness of the writer. In 3.8, the analogues of Dante-poet and Dante-pilgrim instead behave in ways that foreground the author's subjective humanity. The abbot is an analogue of Dante in part because he creates, as Dante supposedly did in the Comedy (according to Boccaccio), an otherworldly punishment. Moreover, the abbot echoes the first words spoken by Dante-pilgrim in the Comedy. At the end of the tale, he sings the penitential psalm Miserere, the opening verse of which Dante shouts upon seeing Virgil in Inferno 1.Footnote ¹¹¹ Boccaccio also intimates that the abbot is representative of Dante by having the ecclesiastical figure struggle with erotic desires. As noted, Boccaccio stated in his scholarship that the vernacular author often battled the “most fierce” (fierissima) passion of love.Footnote ¹¹² Ferondo's wife initially expresses surprise that a holy abbot would make amatory advances. He retorts “do not wonder” (non vi maravigliate); like all men, he has erotic impulses, which do not diminish his holiness because “sanctity … dwells in the soul and what [he] ask[s] … is a sin of the body” (la santità … dimora nell'anima e quello che … domand[a] è peccato del corpo).Footnote ¹¹³ By highlighting the abbot's carnal motivations, Boccaccio was recalling Dante-author's supposed struggles with desire as well as depictions of the pilgrim in the Comedy. In the Esposizioni, Boccaccio interpreted Dante's encounter with the “leopard” (lonza) in Inferno 1 as evidence of his excessive yearnings for food, lust, and the “marvelous pleasure” (maraviglioso diletto) of sex.Footnote ¹¹⁴ Boccaccio also noted that the pilgrim's fixation on erotic desires is recalled in Inferno 16, when Geryon was called up with a cord that the pilgrim had considered using to capture the leopard.Footnote ¹¹⁵ And, in Purgatorio 30–31, Beatrice explains that Dante was preparing a “wondrous result” (mirabile prova), but then failed to accomplish it.Footnote ¹¹⁶ She partially attributes his troubles to the fact that he misunderstood the spiritual import of her body, both while she was alive and after she died.

In 3.8, Ferondo also has tendencies that recall Boccaccio's views about Dante's fascination with bodily matters. Ferondo too is an analogue of Dante insofar as he, like the pilgrim in Inferno 1, feels a “sleepiness” (sonno) and has “lost” (smarrita) his way.Footnote ¹¹⁷ As Dante-poet did, he also recounts a narrative about the otherworld: “he was making by himself the most beautiful fables in the world about the facts of Purgatory” (faceva da se medesimo le piú belle favole del mondo de’ fatti del Purgatoro).Footnote ¹¹⁸ And crucially, like the pilgrim, Ferondo has passions that impede his ability to comprehend fully the spirituality of his beloved.Footnote ¹¹⁹ Instead, he thinks about his wife primarily in carnal and gastronomic terms: “Ferondo said, ‘[My wife is] the sweetest: she was more full of honey than candy, but I did not know that the Lord God did not want man to be jealous, for then I wouldn't have been” (Disse Ferondo, “[Mia moglie è] la piú dolce: ella era piú melata che ’l confetto, ma io non sapeva che Domenedio avesse per male che l'uomo fosse geloso, ché io non sarei stato”).Footnote ¹²⁰ For these carnal transgressions, Ferondo-pilgrim appears to be punished as the panders are in Inferno 18. As devils “beat” (battien) the panders’ shade-bodies “with great whips” (con gran ferze), so Ferondo is beaten with similar instruments by the abbot's accomplice: “The monk from Bologna … with certain whips in hand … gave him a great beating” (Il monaco Bolognese … con certe verghe in mano … gli diede una gran battitura).Footnote ¹²¹ By recalling the pilgrim's carnal fixations in a tale about truth and Geryon, Boccaccio was reminding readers that Dante was not a supernatural or an omniscient writer. These characterizations of Dante suggest that he was a human author who created a poem with many factual — but also with ambiguous — elements.

After underlining the subjective nature of Dante's Christian vision, Boccaccio emphasized that the poem features fictional material. He addresses the issue by associating the Dantean-abbot with necromancers, illicit magicians, and diviners. In the Middle Ages, these figures were condemned because they supposedly manipulated nature or attempted to understand reality in deceptive ways.Footnote ¹²² Passages of Inferno 20 may have inspired Boccaccio to consider the Comedy’s narrative properties in this manner.Footnote ¹²³ In this canto, Dante underscored the truthfulness of the poem by distinguishing it from the fraudulence of necromancers and magicians. Whereas Dante wondered at Geryon's marvelous body, so he also wonders — but then cries — at the disfigured bodies of these sinners: “wondrously each appeared twisted / between the chin and the beginning of the chest” (mirabilmente apparve esser travolto / ciascun tra ’l mento e ’l principio del casso).Footnote ¹²⁴ The metaliterary relevance of the episode emerges when Virgil subsequently corrects a passage of the Aeneid, which is categorized as a “high … tragedy” (alta … tragedìa).Footnote ¹²⁵ Virgil explains that his native Mantua was founded by the witch Manto. His remarks contradict a passage of the Aeneid that describes how Mantua was founded by Ocnus, the warrior son of the same witch.Footnote ¹²⁶ The Roman poet then commands Dante not to believe any other account.Footnote ¹²⁷ Thus, whereas the symbol of Dante's poem was classified as a truthful “marvelous … figure” (figura … maravigliosa), Virgil's poem is associated with a witch and fraudulence.

In 3.8, Boccaccio signals that Dante engaged in a fictional creative act by having the Dantean-abbot put Ferondo in purgatory with the help of “a powder of marvelous power” (una polvere di maravigliosa virtú).Footnote ¹²⁸ In medieval culture, substances like herbs and potions could be employed either in medicinal, natural healings or in acts of black magic and necromancy. The distinction depended on their provenance and on how they were employed.Footnote ¹²⁹ At first blush, the abbot appears to be acting like a doctor (Dante himself belonged to the guild of apothecaries and physicians).Footnote ¹³⁰ After administering Ferondo the powder, the abbot checks his “stomach humors” (fumosità di stomaco) and pulse.Footnote ¹³¹ However, the marvelous powder has a compromised pedigree. Lauretta explains that the “Old Man of the Mountain” (Veglio della Montagna) used this powder to make others believe they were in paradise.Footnote ¹³² Her remarks refer to a passage of the Milione about how the Old Man employed this substance to trick people into creating deceptions for him.Footnote ¹³³ The abbot makes Ferondo initially sleep for three days by adding the powder to Ferondo's wine; he then puts Ferondo into a so-called purgatory located in the basement of a monastery; and finally, he employs the powder to call Ferondo “back to life” (rivocato a vita; riscuscitato).Footnote ¹³⁴ The abbot's actions evoke spiritual healings and the resuscitation of the dead, which were generally considered necromantic unless effected through or by God.Footnote ¹³⁵ Therefore, whereas Dante differentiated his poem from types of fraudulence, Boccaccio implies that Dante wrote a text with several deceptive (namely, fictional) elements. In other words, the story emphasizes that Dante, like Virgil or other writers, manipulated the presentation of reality and featured creative illusions in his poem.

Boccaccio also reflected on aspects of Dante's “sacred poem” (poema sacro) in relationship to God's marvelous and miraculous signifying.Footnote ¹³⁶ With respect to poetics, 3.8 highlights that Dante's marvelous poem has imperfections by virtue of being a human work. In 3.8, the symbolic analogue of Dante's poem evoked from below is not the monster Geryon, the creation of God or of God and a human author (depending on how one understands Dante's truth claims). Instead, the analogue is an illegitimate baby born from an adulterous relationship. The baby's name is Benedetto, son of Ferondo. The anagram of the father's name is either frodone (huge fraud) or on frode (a fraud). Therefore, Benedetto Frode means either a blessed (benedetto) or a well-said (bene-detto) fraud. The compromised pedigree of this stand-in for Dante's text is further underscored when the abbot marvels with “a great admiration” (una grande ammirazione) at his resuscitation of Ferondo.Footnote ¹³⁷ The Dantean abbot then implicitly asks for forgiveness when he intones the Miserere. The psalm was thought to have been written by David after sinning with Bathsheba.Footnote ¹³⁸ In the penitential psalm, the author laments that he has sinned. He acknowledges that he himself was “conceived in iniquity” (in iniquitate conceptus) — just as the little creation Benedetto Frode was conceived in a sinful act.Footnote ¹³⁹ The Comedy, 3.8 further clarifies, does not necessarily and always approximate God's “writing” in and through the Incarnation. Rather, 3.8 specifies that the poem at times imperfectly imitates God's carnal signifying. Differences between God's and Dante's writings are highlighted when the abbot announces to Ferondo that he will have a son. His words recall the Annunciation, Christ's virgin birth, and the Incarnation: “you will have a son from your lady, whom you will call Benedetto” (tu avrai un figliuolo della tua donna, il quale farai che tu nomini Benedetto).Footnote ¹⁴⁰ Moreover, the pilgrim analogue Ferondo subsequently declares that he has received revelation from “Ragnolo Braghiello,” a jumbled pronunciation of the Arcangelo Gabriele who announced the birth of Christ to Mary.Footnote ¹⁴¹ Comprehensively, the allusions to the Miserere and the Incarnation encourage readers to ponder a crucial distinction. God had “chaste intercourse” with Mary to create the Word-made-flesh (virgin birth, Incarnation). By contrast, the abbot's unchaste intercourse with Ferondo's wife engenders an illegitimate (literary) body. In the Comedy, Dante never claimed to be able to imitate or record God's signifying perfectly. Boccaccio's story clarifies that Dante's approximation of God's marvelous “writing” is, in some instances, limited in its scope and success. Boccaccio thereby highlighted that Dante imitated, depicted, and reflected upon a part — and not the entirety — of God's marvelous creation.

Finally, by writing about marvels and divine punishment, Boccaccio was encouraging readers to recall Augustine's hugely influential, often cited, and well-known discussion of marvels. Augustine had discussed marvels and marveling to defend the truthfulness of biblical passages about how the damned experience physical torment yet do not perish. The bishop also reflected upon the extent to which such passages should be interpreted literally or figuratively. He concluded that these verses should, to a degree, be read literally: “let each person decide, and either attribute [the punishment of] fire to the body and the worm to the soul, the former literally and the latter figuratively, or attribute each to the body” (eligat quisque quod placet, aut ignem tribuere corpori, animo vermem, hoc proprie, illud tropice, aut utrumque corpori).Footnote ¹⁴² Still, Augustine hastens to add that humans should not be afraid. He specifies that humans undergo punishments in this world to make us fit for salvation, and that thus even the “wondrous punishment” (malum mirabile) of earthly purgation should promote an appreciation of life.Footnote ¹⁴³ In 3.8, Boccaccio clarifies ideas about Dante's vision of the afterlife in relation to these common Augustinian concepts. Ferondo himself expresses skepticism about the carnal nature of purgatory while receiving beatings and also food and drink: “the monk brought something to eat and drink; upon seeing this, Ferondo asked: ‘O the dead eat?’” (il monaco portò alquanto da mangiare e da bere: il che veggendo Ferondo disse: “O mangiano i morti?”).Footnote ¹⁴⁴ The characterization of this carnal purgatory as absurd reminds readers that the extreme physical punishments of the contrapasso are an approximate, indeed a highly symbolic, depiction of the eternal realities. Moreover, Ferondo's subsequent “fables” (favole) about his experience in purgatory create fear. Those who initially encounter him express concern about his reappearance and narrative; and, upon returning home, even his wife flees from him.Footnote ¹⁴⁵ Ferondo's subjective understanding and account of the afterlife also signal that readers do not de facto need to fear the otherworldly marvels — which are textual creations — depicted in the Comedy. Instead, the tale encourages readers to consider critically what Dante's poem might teach about personal conduct and the afterlife.

While Decameron 3.8 addresses ideas about the poetics and ethics of the Comedy, it also sheds light on the properties and utility of the Decameron. First, by setting 3.8 in Tuscany, Boccaccio was continuing to underscore his own debts to the near, local, and quotidian. Like Gervase and Gerald, Boccaccio was implying that marvels occur not only in foreign and exotic places but also in familiar spaces. Moreover, Lauretta's tale does not feature famous persons, monsters, or maimed bodies, but normal people. Finally, Boccaccio clarifies that his own dispositions — though as flawed as Dante's — do not compromise his ability to write about marvels. Boccaccio makes the point by associating his authorial persona with the abbot. As the abbot pandered to Ferondo's wife, so Boccaccio overtly characterizes his text as a “Go-between” (Galeotto).Footnote ¹⁴⁶ The title and subtitle of the short stories highlight that Boccaccio's text about marvels (title: Decameron) will bring people together (subtitle: Galeotto). The narrator also noted that he wanted to write stories to help women who were confined to their rooms by their parents, brothers, and husbands.Footnote ¹⁴⁷ In 3.8, the abbot similarly tries to help the lady fulfill her desires by correcting her husband's jealousy, the result of which is immediate “delight and pleasure” (delitto e piacere) for her and, later, a better marriage for the family.Footnote ¹⁴⁸ The parallels between the Proemio and 3.8 recall the literary resonances of pimping and eroticism in the Decameron. They highlight that Boccaccio-abbot draws on and creates marvels of a carnal nature for ethical ends. Boccaccio thus clarifies that even erotic marvels can have moral benefits, provided they are understood properly.

Moreover, while Dante distinguished the marvelous Comedy from the frauds of magicians and diviners, Boccaccio suggests that magical illusions inspire his text. Boccaccio appears to celebrate the abbot's (and his own) ability to create illusionary lies, namely, a conventional fiction like other fictions. As noted, the authorial persona eventually self-reflexively admires with “a great wonder” (una grande ammirazione) his ability to manipulate Ferondo.Footnote ¹⁴⁹ Indeed, though the story evokes the possibility that the abbot acts with the help of magic, the brigata knows that the events were done naturally and humanly. (Even if the abbot were a magician — the story is ultimately a fiction.) The abbot created spaces, tricks, and illusions, and by implication, we too should wonder at his cleverness and artistry. In comparison to Dante, Boccaccio thus more overtly defends his writing by highlighting that humans too create wondrous phenomena. Indeed, Boccaccio revels in blurring the lines between kinds of fraud while creating tales not characterized as prophetic or historical. Dioneo overtly specifies that the brigata is just telling stories, namely, creating “words” (parole) and not doing “facts” (fatti).Footnote ¹⁵⁰

Finally, Boccaccio highlighted that though his marvelous story is a fiction, it nevertheless encourages ethical behaviors. As noted, the nature of the literary corpus is elucidated by comparison to God's perfect signifying in the virgin birth and Incarnation. With respect to God's carnal signifying, Boccaccio's human creation is necessarily distorted and confused. His Benedetto Frode is an imperfect but not a totally disfigured approximation of God's signifying. Whereas the analogue of the Comedy is a monster conjured from the deep, the analogue of Boccaccio-abbot's creation is a healthy human baby. In fact, in comparison to Geryon, the baby Benedetto more fully resembles the human figure of Christ. Finally, unlike Augustine or Dante, Boccaccio does not draw on marvels to interrogate the nature of the punishments of the other world. Instead, Boccaccio writes about wonders and wondering to reflect upon matters like repentance and healing in daily life.Footnote ¹⁵¹ Boccaccio's story depicts the human capacity to sin, repent, and reform, which results in everyone enjoying a happy ending. After the abbot and Ferondo sinned, they both repent and then, together with the wife, are fully satisfied.Footnote ¹⁵² Indeed, a new (fictional) family has been formed no matter how unconventional or imperfect in comparison to the Holy Family. Thus, unlike those who fear Dante-Ferondo's fables due to ignorance, the brigata understands the metaphoric resonances of the abbot's marvelous fraud and has fun. They experience pleasure because “few … of the other [stories] would have pleased [them]” (poche … dell'altre [novelle gli] sarebbon piaciute) like Lauretta's.Footnote ¹⁵³ In harmony with Hugh's and Gerald's ideas, Boccaccio thus implies that the utility of his marvelous story consists in teaching and delighting readers.Footnote ¹⁵⁴ The “Introduction” to Day 4 continues to address the utility of wondering at the pleasures associated with domestic and human marvels.

4. The Female Gender of Maraviglie

In the “Introduction” to Day 4, Boccaccio-narrator addresses criticisms that women delight him excessively, and that he is too old to please women.Footnote ¹⁵⁵ Others are concerned about his reputation and declare that he should stay with the Muses on Parnassus rather than write trifles for women.Footnote ¹⁵⁶ In response, Boccaccio tells a story about Filippo Balducci that draws on ideas about marvels. After Balducci's wife dies, he and his son withdraw from Florence to Mount Asinaio, where they never speak about anything “earthly” (temporal), but only discuss spiritual matters.Footnote ¹⁵⁷ Necessity eventually obliges them to travel to Florence, and the son marvels continually at the novelties around him:

However, when his son encounters women, Balducci tries to deflect his interest by calling them goslings.Footnote ¹⁵⁹ His son still marvels at them more than at anything else: “A marvelous thing to hear! He who had not seen anything before, no longer paying attention to the palaces, ox, horse, ass, money, or anything he had encountered, suddenly said, ‘Father, I beg you to give me one of those goslings’” (Maravigliosa cosa a udire! Colui che mai più alcuna veduta non avea, non curatosi de’ palagi, non del bue, non del cavallo, non dell'asino, non de’ denari né d'altra cosa che veduta avesse, subitamente disse, “Padre mio, io vi priego che voi facciate che io abbia una di quelle papere”).Footnote ¹⁶⁰ He even considers them to be more pleasing and beautiful than the angels depicted in paintings.Footnote ¹⁶¹ Balducci denies his son's wishes by replying “you don't know how they are fed” (tu non sai donde elle s'imbeccano), but nevertheless feels that nature has defeated him.Footnote ¹⁶²

Scholars have often suggested that Boccaccio's story implies that human desires cannot, or should not, be suppressed.Footnote ¹⁶³ Other readers have considered the literary implications of the tale, especially as it relates to the representation of vulgar topics, the symbolic potential of metaphoric language, and ideas about turpiloquium (immodest speech).Footnote ¹⁶⁴ Less attention has been dedicated to the ideological underpinnings of the story's implied defense of erotic desires and literatures. Boccaccio justifies his ideas about these subjects, in part, by reference to marvels. This topic was his unique addition to previous versions of a popular story.Footnote ¹⁶⁵ By including remarks about geography and marvels, Boccaccio again encouraged readers to recall theological and historical notions about the relativity of marvels, namely, that various things can be marvelous if viewed properly. In accord with Augustinian thought, the hermit's marveling at Florence is explicitly likened to the wonder a person feels who encounters anew a once familiar place: “like one who no longer had a memory of things seen before, the adolescent began to marvel strongly” (sí come colui che mai piú per ricordanza vedute no’ n'avea, si cominciò forte a maravigliare).Footnote ¹⁶⁶ The implication is that if we too look anew at our daily realities with childlike eyes we will feel wonder and pleasure at our surroundings.

In drawing on these concepts, Boccaccio was distinguishing the content of his text from that of other vernacular, classical, and humanist writings about foreign and/or ancient marvels. For example, the vernacular Milione documents the urban, architectural, and natural marvels of the east, and the Comedy features a mixture of monstrous, otherworldly, and celestial wonders. Boccaccio himself reflected on classical marvels in his youthful Filocolo, a vernacular romance about Florio's and Biancifiore's journeys to find each other. While wandering around the Italian peninsula, the couple wonders at the marvels of the ancient world, which were made famous by great (classical) writers: “They go about looking now and then at the ancient marvels, and in their souls [they ponder] how the authors of them become great” (Essi tal volta guardando l'antiche maraviglie vanno e negli animi come gli autori di quelle diventano magni).Footnote ¹⁶⁷ In the Genealogie, Boccaccio also discussed the marvels of antiquity located around the Mediterranean. At one point, the narrator pauses to admire that Italy has more famous monuments than Greece does.Footnote ¹⁶⁸ Instead, in the Decameron, a child finds things and places worthy of wonder near his home in Florence. Therefore, Boccaccio was creating a (vernacular) literature that complemented travel writing about eastern places and humanist texts about antiquity. In comparison to the authors of these texts, he was asserting more directly that the familiar and quotidian could be serious and appropriate topics for literature. By recalling theological notions, Boccaccio was also — and this is key — defending his decision to promote the dignity and significance of experiences associated with daily reality and domestic life.

Moreover, Boccaccio evoked ideas about natural wonders to introduce the idea that women and human sexuality should be considered marvelous. In the Decameron, Boccaccio does not write about famous women like Helen of Troy who, as noted in the Esposizioni, inspired the ancient world with a “marvelous beauty … beyond [that of] any other woman” (belleza … oltre [quella] ad ogni altra maravigliosa).Footnote ¹⁶⁹ Nor does he reflect upon the types of mythical nymphs of the Comedia delle ninfe fiorentine who made Ameto wonder. Instead, Boccaccio highlighted that women explicitly associated with domestic life, those around contemporary Florence and those confined to their homes, are marvelous. Consequently, the hermit's natural reaction to seeing Florentine women for the first time is to wonder at them, even more than at the paintings of angels.Footnote ¹⁷⁰ In proposing that Florentine women and human sexuality are wondrous, the story about Balducci's son engages an idea first introduced in Day 3. In 3.10, the monk Rustico and the young girl Alibech wonder at each other's bodies and at the phenomenon of desire. Rustico “marvels” (maravigliandosi) when he unexpectedly finds Alibech on his doorstep, and she in turn wonders while discovering the pleasures of sexuality: “And thus situated, Rustico more than ever excited in his desire for having seen such female beauty, there came the resurrection of the flesh; which when Alibech saw it marveled and said: ‘Rustico, what is that thing?’” (E cosí stando, essendo Rustico piú che mai nel suo disidero acceso per lo vederla cosí bella, venne la resurrezion della carne; la quale riguardando Alibech e maravigliatasi disse: “Rustico, quella che cosa è?”)Footnote ¹⁷¹ In the “Introduction” to Day 4, the metaliterary implications of wondering at women are then evoked when the narrator defends his decision to write to please women: “I most openly confess it, namely that you please and that I try to please you: and I ask them [my critics] if they marvel at this” (io apertissimamente confesso, cioè che voi mi piacete e che io m'ingegno di piacere a voi: e domandogli [ai miei riprensori] se di questo essi si maravigliano).Footnote ¹⁷² The narrator later adds that, in writing about women, he is simply obeying the laws of nature.Footnote ¹⁷³

By characterizing women as natural and pleasurable marvels, Boccaccio was again drawing on a nexus of common medieval ideas. However, he was also expanding upon remarks by writers who argued that humankind and the human body are the ultimate, supreme wonders. Like Augustine, Gervase wondered at humankind because we are a microcosm of the universal megacosm, namely, comprised of both carnal and spiritual elements.Footnote ¹⁷⁴ Ambrose and Hugh also wondered at the disposition, harmony, and beauty of the individual parts of the human body.Footnote ¹⁷⁵ Hugh specified that the marvel of humankind was made for (divine) pleasure; we were not created for utilitarian reasons but “so that [God] himself might delight us” (ut homini … seipsum fruendum daret [Deus]).Footnote ¹⁷⁶ Of course, implicit in these remarks is the notion that women are wonderful and pleasurable too. Still, though defending his ideas by reference to theological concepts, Boccaccio was more overtly characterizing women and erotic pleasures as marvels of divine creation. He explicated this point, first and foremost, to promote the status of women and feminine cultures broadly speaking. He also foregrounded this idea in order to defend the controversial fact that women and feminine pleasures figure among the primary subjects of the Decameron.

Boccaccio also drew on notions pertaining to marvels to highlight the signifying properties of his text. The relevance of the story about marvels for this aspect of Boccaccio's poetics appears in a subsequent passage about Dante. When addressing the criticism that he is too old to please women, Boccaccio says that Dante and the poets Guido Cavalcanti and Cino da Pistoia also tried to please women in their old age.Footnote ¹⁷⁷ Boccaccio adds that no one can actually dwell with the Muses on Parnassus, so he takes pleasure in something that resembles them: “I agree that it is good advice that I should stay with the Muses on Parnassus, but we cannot dwell with the Muses nor they with us. If therefore when a man leaves them he delights in seeing something that resembles them, this is not something to reproach” (Che io con le Muse in Parnaso mi debbia stare, affermo che è buon consiglio, ma tuttavia né noi possiamo dimorar con le Muse né esse con essonoi. Se quando avviene che l'uomo da lor si parte, dilettarsi di veder cosa che le somigli, questo non è cosa da biasimare).Footnote ¹⁷⁸ Consequently, he concludes that not the Muses but women showed him how to write.Footnote ¹⁷⁹

Other readers have noted that these remarks highlight that Boccaccio and Dante belong to a similar, emerging vernacular literary tradition.Footnote ¹⁸⁰ The comments imply that the two authors are part of a group of individuals who have written or are writing about love in Tuscan. As stated previously, Boccaccio also underscored Dante's relationship to eros in his scholarly works. At the same time, the passage foregrounds differences between the signifying properties and content of Boccaccio's and Dante's writings. Fourteenth-century readers would have been sensitive to such differences because these differences had already been introduced and partially treated in 3.8. In the “Introduction” to Day 4, the phrase “he began to marvel strongly” (si cominciò forte a maravigliare) recalls a highly significant female marvel in Dante's writings that is different from the female marvels in the Decameron. In the Decameron, the young hermit “began to marvel strongly” at the sensuous, erotic, earthly women met by chance at Florence. In the Vita nova, a young Dante-lover instead “began to marvel greatly” (si cominciò a maravigliare molto) when he first met the chaste, sublime Beatrice.Footnote ¹⁸¹ Moreover, Dante's encounter with Beatrice was not, like the hermit's, a chance encounter at Florence; rather it was an event with universal import. In fact, it was not located with any geographical precision, but was dated by reference to the turnings of the stars and planets.Footnote ¹⁸² Dante subsequently marvels at the “very young angel” (angiola giovanissima), and others, too, consider Beatrice a marvelous wonder created by God: “And others were saying: ‘This is a marvel; blessed be the Lord, who so wondrously knows how to work!’” (E altri diceano: “Questa è una maraviglia; che benedetto sia lo Segnore, che sì mirabilemente sae adoperare!”).Footnote ¹⁸³ On more than one occasion, Dante-narrator discusses her divine, angelic, and miraculous (supernatural) attributes. He notes twice that she did not appear to be born from a mortal man but from God, and he writes that she “came from heaven to reveal a miracle on earth” (da cielo in terra a miracol mostrare).Footnote ¹⁸⁴ When discussing why events in her life were associated with the number nine, he also boldly classifies her as a divine miracle: “she was a nine, namely a miracle, whose root, that is of the miracle, is only the wondrous Trinity” (ella era uno nove, cioè uno miracolo, la cui radice, cioè del miracolo, è solamente la mirabile Trinitade).Footnote ¹⁸⁵ In the Earthly Paradise, Beatrice then criticized Dante for misunderstanding her spiritual import — she whose beauty surpassed everything presented to him by “nature or art” (natura o arte).Footnote ¹⁸⁶

Moreover, the phrase “A marvelous thing to hear” (Maravligiosa cosa a udire) in the “Introduction” to Day 4 recalls the horrible bodies of the “Introduction” to Day 1. This type of phenomenon was also described as a “marvelous thing … to hear about” (maravigliosa cosa … a udire). These figures were, Boccaccio suggested, inspired by the disfigured and monstrous bodies of the Inferno and Purgatorio. Boccaccio's evocation of certain types of marvels in Dante's works seems to highlight the following. Whereas Dante's texts signify by reference to angelic, celestial, and chaste marvels (Beatrice, angels, Muses), Boccaccio's signify by reference to human, earthly, and erotic marvels (Florentine and Mediterranean women). Whereas Dante's texts signify by featuring monstrous wonders and disfigured bodies, Boccaccio's novelle signify by featuring the normal and imperfect human body.

Finally, in the “Introduction” to Day 4, Boccaccio draws on marvels to highlight both the existential significance and the pedagogical utility of marveling at daily, mundane reality. In particular, he engages the primary discourses about marvels to defend the delight that domestic life in Florence and women provide him. When reflecting on how one should respond to marvels, with belief, fear, or awe, writers also debated the extent to which they should engender pleasure. Pleasure, in fact, was considered fundamental for stimulating curiosity about God's creation (see Hugh's remarks cited previously). In accord with this notion, the young Alibech and the hermit want to engage the world because they find it to be a delightful and fun place. Their delight prompts them to inquire about what things are called, about what the properties of things are, and about how things function. Given the foregoing, Boccaccio's point seems to be that what will give readers the most pleasure — and thus stimulate learning — are the things present in daily reality. In the Decameron, the female bodies and nearby spaces around Florence engender more wonder and curiosity than the bodies and far-away spaces that interest Balducci. Therefore, the collection of short stories deliberately and consistently promotes the utility of earthly reality and common daily experiences.

By championing the utility of pleasures associated with marvels, Boccaccio was drawing a final distinction between his and Dante's works. In the “Conclusion” to Day 6, Boccaccio more overtly clarifies what is implicit in the “Introduction” to Day 4, namely, that his worldly marvels will be as pleasurable — and thus useful — for readers as Dante's otherworldly ones. In the “Conclusion,” the female members of the brigata enjoy a marvelous terrestrial paradise called the “Valley of Women” (Valle delle Donne). After Dioneo remarks that the brigata has every right to enjoy themselves given the crisis at Florence, the women travel to a place overtly specified as being “very nearby” (assai vicina).Footnote ¹⁸⁷ After passing through a narrow passageway, they glimpse a valley that is an “artifice of nature and not of human hand” (artificio della natura e non manual), that is surrounded by little mountains that remind one of theaters, and that is populated by such verdant vegetation that it seems created by the best artist.Footnote ¹⁸⁸ From a nearby hill, a delightful river falls with dulcet sounds and waters a little pond populated by fish — which “beyond being a delight was also a marvel” (oltre al diletto era una maraviglia).Footnote ¹⁸⁹ The women then enter into the pond to play, which suggests that the valley is symbolic of women's bodies. As a natural, textual, and bodily space, the valley recalls antithetically the masculine Mount Asinaio of Balducci, which was void of all temporal delights.

The female valley also antithetically recalls the Earthly Paradise located on the other side of the planet at the top of Mount Purgatory (Purgatorio 28). Like the women, the pilgrim enters through a narrow opening (of a thick forest), encounters art of various natural kinds, and enjoys the view of a body of water (the river Lethe).Footnote ¹⁹⁰ As that river is not stained by “any imperfection” (mistura alcuna), so the water in the Valley is not tainted by “any imperfection” (mistura alcuna), nor does it obscure the bodies of the women when they enter: “[the little lake] did not hide their white bodies other than how a thin piece of glass would a pink rose” ([il paleghetto] non altramenti li lor corpi candidi nascondeva che farebbe una vermiglia rosa un sottil vetro).Footnote ¹⁹¹ Once in the garden, the pilgrim wonders repeatedly: at the celestial Matelda, at the verdant topography, and at Matelda's account of the origins of the Earthly Paradise and the river.Footnote ¹⁹² By drawing on notions related to the gender of marvels at the conclusion of Day 6, Boccaccio was perhaps again inspired by the Bible and hexameral literature. As plant life was made by God on the third day, so men and women were created on the sixth.Footnote ¹⁹³

The allusions to Purgatorio 28 in the “Conclusion” to Day 6 invite readers to consider differences between the marvels witnessed by Dante and those viewed by the female brigata. Whereas the pilgrim ascends to contemplate prelapsarian marvels, the brigata descends to a valley to gaze upon postlapsarian ones. As opposed to that masculine space (mountain) characterized by masculine and classical textual traditions (along with Dante, the epic poets Virgil and Statius wonder), Boccaccio's female narrators take delight in a female geographical and textual space.Footnote ¹⁹⁴ Dante wonders at a space created at the origins of time; the women instead have fun in a space located in the present-day world. Whereas Dante hears about original sin and why humankind lost the Earthly Paradise, the description of women frolicking in water recalls the virgin birth/Incarnation, an event that began the healing of humankind's sinfulness and redeemed nature.Footnote ¹⁹⁵ Dante wonders at and about a reality that is no longer accessible to humans before ascending to heaven; by contrast, the women delight in their present marvelous surroundings. Indeed, instead of interrogating the ultimate theological meaning of marvels, they revel in finding joy and pleasure in a wondrous world that was nearly destroyed by the horrible plague.

5. The Pleasure and Novelty of Marvels

This article has explored how Boccaccio addressed issues related to the marvelous, especially in the most overt metaliterary sections of the first six days of the Decameron. His decision to reflect on theoretical topics concerning marvels in these sections of the text was probably not an occasional one. It was likely inspired by the fact that God originally made the marvels of creation in six days (hexameron). By reflecting on marvels in Days 1–6, Boccaccio was encouraging readers to view the stories told in all ten days of the Decameron as an approximation of the marvels made by God. In other words, he was suggesting that the properties of his erotic literary creation are not contra naturam. By proposing analogies between his tales and marvels, he implied that his fictional text has traits that resemble the properties inherent in God's creation. That is to say, Boccaccio affirmed that his controversial novelle about carnal experiences signify in and through the things of the present world in a manner that approximates how God signifies though history. For his part, Dante, too, defended the Comedy by likening the poem to a natural marvel, thereby distinguishing it from other fictions. Instead, Boccaccio engaged concepts related to marvels to suggest that even conventional fictions can be a wondrous part of God's creation, provided they signify by reference to humanity's embodied, physical experience.Footnote ¹⁹⁶

In reflecting on marvels and Dante, Boccaccio was also interested in existential questions concerning what, in reality, deserved to be considered marvelous. Like his peers, he was reflecting on what should be deemed worthy of our attention and wonder. In the Comedy, Dante-pilgrim marvels at the eternal punishments of hell, the process of spiritual cleansing in purgatory, and the experience of beatitude in paradise. He also frequently, and of course correctly, reacts to many of the wondrous and miraculous things witnessed in hell and purgatory with fear, dread, and horror. By responding in this way, the pilgrim's reactions recall classical, late antique, and early medieval ideas about the didactic utility of marvels. Boccaccio complemented Dante's poem by writing a work that overtly, deliberately, and systematically foregrounds the marvelous nature of earthly and local phenomena. Moreover, the brigata and other implied readerships in the Decameron respond to the local and domestic marvels depicted in the novelle with delight, pleasure, and joy. They also respond to such wonders with laughter, especially a chortling eruption of amusement at a humorous situation. In the Comedy, the word ridere appears in various contexts: five times in Purgatorio 1–27 and about eighteen times from Purgatorio 28 (Earthly Paradise) to the end of the Paradiso, and often with the connotations of smiling or shining.Footnote ¹⁹⁷ By promoting the marvels associated with earthly delight and overt humor, Boccaccio was (re)claiming as fit for literature aspects of human experience and emotion that were not — in his view — clearly addressed in the Comedy.Footnote ¹⁹⁸ He was also reminding readers of the importance of engaging with the quotidian, temporal, and earthly. Therefore, the Decameron proposes that Dante was indebted to an older tradition that characterized marvels, portents, and monsters as signs of God's displeasure. Boccaccio, in contrast, signaled that he was drawing on newer views about marvels, views that celebrated the marvels of this world as things to delight in and laugh at. Indeed, medieval theologians such as Hugh of St. Victor explained that God did not make marvels and creation to scare people but to delight them.

Boccaccio did not emphasize that Dante was part of an older tradition of marvel-writing to raise questions about the Comedy’s cultural relevance or import. Although Boccaccio at times engaged critically with Dante's poem, he did not downplay the significance of Dante's writings and achievement. Rather, Boccaccio's reflection on Dante and marvels was informed by a calculated twofold strategy. On the one hand, Boccaccio foregrounded Dante's debts to earlier views of marvels in order to champion the poet as a classical auctoritas. He highlighted that Dante's engagement with marvels was not innovative but was part of an earlier literary tradition that stretched back to antiquity. Boccaccio's reflection on Dante and marvels thereby complemented his classicizing characterization of the poet in his manuscript anthologies. His autographs of Dante's texts feature elements that were typically present in the manuscripts of ancient Latin works, such as wide margins for glosses and ornate rubrics.Footnote ¹⁹⁹ On the other hand, Boccaccio was pointing out that he was part of a literary and historical movement that engaged the new marvelous, the wonders associated with domestic life and pleasure. Bolstered by recent historical and theological ideas, Boccaccio was highlighting the highly novel and innovative — indeed modern (as opposed to classicizing) — character of his writings. By drawing on marvels to foreground his own cultural achievement, Boccaccio demonstrated a great deal of self-awareness and cultural sensitivity. The defining feature of a marvel in medieval culture was its novelty. While Boccaccio acknowledged Dante's originality throughout his writings, he also asserted in the Decameron that parts of Dante's otherworldly poem are unoriginal in their appropriation of horrible wonders. At the same time, he was suggesting that his novelle are highly novel in their engagement with and systematic promotion of the delightful marvels of daily life. Viewed anew with childlike wonder, Boccaccio thus seems to say, our quotidian experience can be an endless source of meaningful entertainment and pleasure.