Histoire littéraire d'Italie (3/9)

This volume offers a concise yet richly detailed survey of Italian letters in the fourteenth century, weaving biography, manuscript study, and cultural context into a readable narrative. The author maps the extraordinary emergence of three towering writers, showing how each followed a distinct path to literary fame without ever crossing or eclipsing the others. Readers gain a clear picture of the scholarly climate that shaped the era’s poetry, prose, and mythography.

The chapter on Boccaccio traces his birth in a modest merchant family and his early schooling under a skilled grammarian in Florence. Even as a child he astonished peers with spontaneous verses, earning the nickname “the poet” before formal training could begin. A pivotal journey to Naples, where he stood before Virgil’s tomb, ignited a lifelong devotion to the classical masters and to Dante, steering the young man away from commerce toward a remarkable literary destiny.