Boccaccio, Giovanni 113and lips of a Parisian for such a sin. By the 14th century,
Scholastic theologians had defined more precisely the cir-
cumstances that should be taken into consideration for
punishing the sin. These covered blasphemy of mouth, of
the heart, blasphemy accompanied or not accompanied
by hatred of God, blasphemy spoken directly against God
or merely dishonoring his works, and blasphemy
expressed in the heat of passion.
Further reading: Gilles Berceuille, “Blasphemy”
EMA,1.183; David A. Lawton, Blasphemy(Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993); Leonard W.
Levy, Blasphemy: Verbal Offense against the Sacred, from
Moses to Salman Rushdie(New York: Knopf, 1993).
Blood Libel To the minds of some Christians, the con-
tinued existence of Jews and Judaism in Europe was a
reminder of Christ’s Passion and the still incomplete mis-
sion of conversion. Several fantastic ideas about the Jews
were constructed from remnants of pagan blood supersti-
tions and paralleled accusations once leveled against the
early Christians. One was that a Christian child was sac-
rificed by Jews annually, supposedly as an insult to the
Incarnation of Jesus; from 1235, it was thought to be
done to provide blood for ritual or medicinal use. The
Blood Libel seems first to have appeared in a description
of events in Norwich in England in 1144, though its ori-
gins certainly preceded this. The idea of the financially
lucrative production of a supposed new martyr for Chris-
tianity spread rapidly, bolstered in the eyes of the clergy
by the possibility of creating new shrines to supposed
martyrs. This idea also led to attacks on thousands of
innocent Jews. Many died because of these false and
ridiculous allegations that were frequently believed even
by better educated Christians. In reality they would have
contradicted basic Jewish religious beliefs about blood
and concepts of purity. These ideas and allegations sur-
vived into modern times and became basic tenets of mod-
ern ANTI-SEMITISM.
Further reading:Alan Dundes, ed., The Blood Libel
Legend: A Casebook in Anti-Semitic Folklore (Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1991); Gavin I. Langmuir,
Toward a Definition of Antisemitism(Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1990); Joshua Trachtenberg, The Devil
and the Jews: The Medieval Conception of the Jew and Its
Relation to Modern Anti-Semiticism (Philadelphia: The
Jewish Publication Society of America, 1943).
Boccaccio, Giovanni(1313–1375)Italian author
Boccaccio was born in either Certaldo, near Florence, or
PARISin June or July 1313 (into a Florentine merchant
family). After Giovanni’s mother’s death, his father
returned to FLORENCE, married, and took him home.
There Boccaccio claimed to have been maltreated by his
new stepmother. Boccaccio’s earliest stories praised his
own mother and described his own sufferings as a child.
His father intended him to be a merchant, but he pre-
ferred literature and studied LATIN. In 1328 he was sent
to NAPLESto study law and work in business for the com-
pany of the Bardi. There Boccaccio spent most of his time
around scholars and writers and was probably in contact
with the poet Cino of Pistoia (ca. 1270–1336/37), who
was a friend of Dante ALIGHIERIand PETRARCH. In 1336
he severed his ties with his father and devoted himself to
a literary career. His supposed love affair with Maria
d’Aquino, an illegitimate daughter of King Robert of
Anjou (r. 1039–43), king of Naples, was later cited as
inspiring his poetry. At the same time, Boccaccio fre-
quented the court, whose activities he claimed he later
described in the Decameron.In 1340 he reconciled with
his father and returned to Florence.TRAVELS AND COMMUNAL DIPLOMACY
Back in Florence he served on the city council and was
sent on diplomatic missions. He went to Naples to nego-
tiate with Queen Joan I (1343–82). He traveled to the
Tyrol, to conclude a military alliance with a duke of
BAVARIA. At RAVENNA, he gave DANTE’s daughter a present
from a repentant commune of Florence. At PADUAhe was
sent to offer PETRARCHa position at the new University of
Florence. He also visited the papal court first at AVIGNON
and later at ROME.OPERA AND LATER WRITING
In the mid-14th century he started his most important
work, the Decameron.It was completed in 1353. Besides
the famous Decameron,he wrote interpretations of the
important books of his age, such as Dante’s Divine Com-
edy.The Decameronwas a collection of 100 tales told by a
group hiding from the Black Death in 1348 and written
in the vernacular. It was created to entertain but also to
teach, through the adventures of the protagonists, lessons
about human wisdom, lust, folly, greed, and stupidity. He
particularly criticized the clergy.
Soon after that his character and behavior under-
went a profound conversion. He became preoccupied
with religion, his own sins, salvation, and gave up
poetry and profane writing. In an autobiographical and
misogynist story, Corbaccio,written in 1354, he wrote
disparagingly about the secular life and the women he
had once loved. These feelings became stronger after a
near-fatal illness and exposure to a monk who terrified
him with the fear of death. He gave up his humanist
works and set out to burn all of his sinful writings but
was only prevented from doing so by Petrarch. From
1363 he never wrote in the vernacular. In his later years
he settled in the little town of Certaldo, near Florence,
where he lived in solitude. He died on December 21,
1375.
Further reading:Giovanni Boccaccio, The Corbaccio,
trans. Anthony K. Cassell (Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 1975); Decameron,rev. trans. Charles S. Singleton