In consequence of this interview, Boccacio aban doned the study of poetry and the profane authors, and, in opposition to the expostulations of Petrarch, he determined even to dispose of his library. Under these serious impressions, he assumed the clerical ha bit, and became more regular and circumspect in his conduct. He revisited Naples in 1362 or 1363, and he soon afterwards went to Venice to see Petrarch. In 1365, he was chosen ambassador to Pope Urban V. at Avignon, and in 1367 he attended that pontiff at Rome in the same .capacity. He was appointed to thd public lecture on the Comedia of Dante, which was then instituted at Florence, and began his labours in October 1373. The bustle of active life, how ever, was too oppressive for his advanced age, so that he felt it necessary to retire to Certaldo, where he died of a disease in his stomach, on the 21st of De cember 1375, in the 62d year of his age, and was buried in the church of St James and St Philip.
Boccacio was the author of numerous works, both in poetry and prose. Though he was ranked in the poetical triumvirate next to Dante and Petrarch, his poetical compositions are feeble and languid. His Theseide is remarkable chiefly for the new kind of measure in which it is written. Boccacio seems to have been sensible of his inferiority as a poet. After having perused the sonnets and songs of Petrarch, lie resolved to commit his own to the fames; and in spite of the remonstrance of Petrarch, he actually burnt all his Italian verses.
The elegance and purity of the stile, however, in which his prose compositions are written, amply atone for the defects of his poetry. The most celebrated of his productions is his Decamerone, or a collection of an hundred stories, supposed to have been recited in ten days, by a party of ladies and gentlemen, who had retired from the plague at Florence in 1318. This work met with universal applause. It passed through numerous editions. It was translated into many foreign languages; and even Petrarch himself was so delighted with it, as to translate it into Latin, and dedicate the work to Boceacio. The stories of
the Decamerone are only partly fictitious. The man ners of various daces of society are accurately pour trayed ; the tricks of the priests are severely ex posed ; and the absurd doctrines of the Catho lic faith are lashed with the same severity. Hence the Roman Catholic writers charged Boccacio with impiety and immorality, and his Decamerone has been put into the list of prohibited books. Nor is this charge altogether without foundation. The stories are often of such a lascivious and obscene nature, that the French translator, in the 1697, " has taken particular care to regulate the expressions, and ' to wrap up things in such a manner that the fair sex may laugh at them without blushing." Bayle calls it " a work of gallantry, wherein ace to be seen very diverting•love adventures, and a great many roguish tricks.played husbands." The other works of Boccacio arch 1. his treatise De Genealogia Deorum, fol. Basil, 1532, with the notes of J. Mycillns; and containing also a Treatise on Mountains, Rivers, Seas, and Lakes. 2. An Abridgment of the Roman History from Romulus to A. U. 72-1.. Cologn. 1534, 8vo. 3. De Casibus Vi rorum illustriuni, beginning with Adam and ending with John King of France. Augs. 1544. This work was translated into Italian, Spanish, English, and French. His Italian works are, his I! Philo calo ; La Fiameitta ; L' Ameto ; It Labirinto d' A more ; La Vita di Dante ; which are all written in prose, and, excepting the last, are all romances of an amorous kind, interspersed with poetry, See Fa bricii, Biblioth. Latin Med. teri, torn. i. p. 218. Tiraboschi, Storia della Leiteratura Tialiana, torn. v. p. 83, 439. &c. Dobson's Life of Petrucch, passim. Roscoe's Life and Pontificate Leo. X. chap. xv. vol. iii. p. 198. • Roscoe's Life y'Lorenzo de Medici, chap. v. vol. i. p. 320. Gibbon's Hist. chap. lxvi. vol. xii. p. 103. (sr) - •