De Mulieribus Claris by Giovanni Boccaccio - Delphi Classics (Illustrated)

By Giovanni Boccaccio

This eBook features the unabridged text of ‘De Mulieribus Claris by Giovanni Boccaccio - Delphi Classics (Illustrated)’ from the bestselling edition of ‘The Collected Works of Giovanni Boccaccio’.

Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. The Delphi Classics edition of Boccaccio includes original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of the author, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Delphi Classics (Parts Edition)
• Release date: Jul 17, 2017
• ISBN: 9781788779043

Giovanni Boccaccio

Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) was born and raised in Florence, Italy where he initially studied business and canon law. During his career, he met many aristocrats and scholars who would later influence his literary works. Some of his earliest texts include La caccia di Diana, Il Filostrato and Teseida. Boccaccio was a compelling writer whose prose was influenced by his background and involvement with Renaissance Humanism. Active during the late Middle Ages, he is best known for writing The Decameron and On Famous Women.

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The Collected Works of

GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO

VOLUME 9 OF 12

De Mulieribus Claris

Parts Edition

By Delphi Classics, 2017

Version 1

COPYRIGHT

‘De Mulieribus Claris’

Giovanni Boccaccio: Parts Edition (in 12 parts)

First published in the United Kingdom in 2017 by Delphi Classics.

© Delphi Classics, 2017.

All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

ISBN: 978 1 78877 904 3

Delphi Classics

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Delphi Publishing Ltd

Hastings, East Sussex

United Kingdom

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Giovanni Boccaccio: Parts Edition

This eBook is Part 9 of the Delphi Classics edition of Giovanni Boccaccio in 12 Parts. It features the unabridged text of De Mulieribus Claris from the bestselling edition of the author’s Collected Works. Having established their name as the leading digital publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produces eBooks that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. Our Parts Editions feature original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of Giovanni Boccaccio, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily.

Visit here to buy the entire Parts Edition of Giovanni Boccaccio or the Collected Works of Giovanni Boccaccio in a single eBook.

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GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO

IN 12 VOLUMES

Parts Edition Contents

The Decameron

1, The Decameron: John Florio, 1620

2, The Decameron: John Payne, 1886

3, The Decameron: J. M. Rigg, 1903

4, The Decameron: Original Italian Text

The Novels

5, The Filocolo

6, The Elegy of Lady Fiammetta

The Verse

7, ‘The Knight’s Tale’ and ‘The Two Noble Kinsmen’

8, Il Filostrato

The Non-Fiction

9, De Mulieribus Claris

10, The Life of Dante

The Biographies

11, Giovanni Boccaccio: A Biographical Study by Edward Hutton

12, Giovanni Boccaccio by Francis Hueffer

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De Mulieribus Claris

Translated by Henry Parker, Lord Morely

De Mulieribus Claris (Latin for ‘Concerning Famous Women’) is a collection of biographies of historical and mythological women, first published in 1374. The book is notable as the first collection devoted exclusively to biographies of women in Western literature, which was compiled by Boccaccio at the same time as he was writing a collection of biographies on famous men, De Casibus Virorum Illustrium (On the Fates of Famous Men).

Boccaccio claimed to have written the 106 biographies for the posterity of the women that were considered renowned, whether good or bad. He believed that recounting the deeds of certain women who may have been wicked would be offset by the exhortations to virtue by the deeds of good women. He argues that hopefully the book would encourage virtue and curb vice.

Boccaccio’s collection of female biographies inspired characters in Christine de Pizan’s The Book of the City of Ladies, Alvaro de Luna’s De las virtuosas y claras mujeres, Thomas Elyot’s Defence of Good Women, Alonso of Cartagena’s De las mujeres ilustres, various works by Edmund Spenser; but, most famously of all, it influenced Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women and The Canterbury Tales.

Boccaccio wrote De Mulieribus Claris probably between the summer of 1361 and the summer of 1362, although it could have been as late as December 1362. He dedicated the book to Andrea Acciaioli, Countess of Altavilla, in Naples at the end of 1362, even though he continued to revise it up until his death in 1375. She was not his first choice however. He first considered dedicating his slim volume to Joanna I of Naples. He ultimately decided that his work as a little book was not worthy a person of such great fame.

The 106 Famous Women biographies are of mythological and historical women, as well as some of Boccaccio’s Renaissance contemporaries. The only sources that Boccaccio specifically admits he used are Saint Paul (no. 42), the Bible (no. 43) and Jerome (no. 86). These brief life stories follow the same general exemplary literature patterns used in various versions of De viris illustribus. The biography pattern starts with the name of the person, then the parents or ancestors, then their rank or social position, and last the general reason for their notoriety or fame with associated details, occasionally interjected with a philosophical or inspirational lesson at the end.

There are over 100 surviving manuscripts, demonstrating that it was one of the most popular works in the last age of the manuscript book. Boccaccio worked on this as a labour of love with several versions, editions and rearrangements in the last twenty years of his life, as studies have identified at least nine stages in its composition. The invention of the printing press brought the first Latin version done by Johan Zainer in Ulm about 1473. The only complete sixteenth century printed Latin version to survive is from a Mathias Apiarus, completed in 1539.

Please note: Parker’s text is only a partial translation of De Mulieribus Claris, offering 46 of the 106 biographies.

A page from a fifteenth century manuscript

CONTENTS

DE CLARIS MULIERIBUS

Of Eue, oure fyrste mother.

Of Semiramis, the Quene of the Assyryens.

Of Opis, the wyfe to Saturne.

Of Juno, the goddesse.

Of Seres, the goddesse of corne and Quene of Sicill.

Of Minerua.

Of Venus, Quene of Ciprys.

Of Isidis, Quene and goddesse of the Egyptiens.

Of Europa, Quene of Crete.

Of Libia, the Quene of Libia.

Off Marpesia and Lampedon, quenes.

Off Thisbe, the uirgyne of Babylone.

Off Ipermystra, Quene of the Argyuys.

Off Nyobe, Quene of Thebes.

Off Ysiphile, Quene of Leumi.

Off Medea, Quene of Colchos.

Off Aragne, a woman of Colophone.

Off Orithia and Anthiobe, Quenes of the Amozanes.

Off Erithrea Sibilla.

Off Medusa, the doughter of Phorci.

Off Yole, the doughter of the Kynge of Ethioll.

Off Dianira, Hercules wife.

Of Yocasta, the Quene of Thebes.

Of Almachea Sibilla.

Of Nycostrata, or otherwyse Carmenta, doughter to Kynge Yonius.

Of Procrys, the wyfe to Zephalus.

Of Argia, the wyfe of Polinices, and doughter of the Kynge Adrastus.

Of Mantone, the doughter of Terisia.

Of the wyffes of Mennon.

Of Panthasilea, the Quene of the Amozenes.

Of Polixene, Kynge Priamus doughter.

Of Heccuba, the Quene of the Troyanes.

Of Cassandra, the doughter of Pryamus, Kynge of Troye.

Of Clytemestra, the wyfe to the Kynge Agamenon.

Of Helene, the wyfe of Kynge Menelaus.

Of Circes, the doughter of the sonne.

Of Camylla, the Quene of the Volscus.

Of Penolepe, Vlixes wyfe.

Of Lauina, the Quene of Laurentum.

Of Dido, or otherwyse Elissa, the Quene of Cartage.

Of Nicaula, the Quene of Ethyope.

Of Pamphile, the doughter to Platre.

Of Rehea Ilia, a virgyne of Vesta.

Of Gaya Cirylla, the wyfe to Kynge Tarquinus Priscus.

Of Sapho, a mayden of Lesbia, and a poete.

Of Lucres, the wyfe to Collatyne.

A miniature depicting a queen with four musicians from a c. 1440 illuminated version of the ‘De Claris Mulieribus’, British Museum

DE CLARIS MULIERIBUS

TO THE MOSTE hygh, moste puysaunte, moste exellent and moste Chrysten Kynge, my moste redoubtede souereygne lorde Henry th’Eighte, by the grace of Gode, of Englonde, Fraunce and Irelonde Kynge, Defender of the Feythe, and in erthe, vndre Gode, suppreme heede of the Churche of Englonde and Irelonde, your moste humble subiecte Henry Parcare, knyght, Lorde Morley, desyreth thys Newe Yere, with infynyte of yeres to your imperiall Maieste, helthe, honoure and vyctory.

IN the tyme the hoole worlde was obediente to the Romaynes, moste victoriouse and graciouse souereigne lorde, not onely by armes they were renoumede aboue all other naciones, but also in eloquens and goode lernynge, as it apperethe by thyes oratours and poetes in the greate Augustus days; that is to saye, Varro, Tullius Cicero, Virgill, Orace and Ouyde, with diuers others. And all thoughe that those that ensuyde frome oone emperoure to another were exellently lernede, as bothe the Plynys, Marciall, Quyntilian and Claudian and suche other, yet why it was so that they coulde neuer attayne to thes afore rehersyde, neither in prose nor yet in verse, is to me a greate wonder. For asmuche as they sawe the workes of the other, whiche, as my reasone geuythe me, shulde haue rather causede theym to haue bene in science aboue theym then inferiours to theym. For why? If one that gothe aboute to buylde a palace, if he se another whiche lykethe hym well, it shalbe noo greate mastrie, if he spye a faulte in his examplar, to amende it in hys worke. And why thys shulde not be, truely, I can geue noo reasone to the contrary. For soo it was, that euere as the greate