Boccaccio’s Neapolitan Letter and Multilingualism in Angevin Naples

In Decameron 3.6.4, Boccaccio describes Naples as a “citta antichissima e forse cosi dilettevole, o piu, come ne sia alcuna altra in Italia [ancient city... which is perhaps as delectable a city as any to be found in Italy],” thus expressing his admiration for the city he lived in as a young man. His years in Naples (1327–1340/41) were to influence most of his work from the Caccia di Diana (1334–37) to De casi­ bus virorum illustrium, which was dedicated to Mainardo Cavalcanti, military commander of the Duchy of Amalfi, and, on his final visit to Naples in 1370–71, he gave a copy of the Genealogie deorum gen­ tilium, a work in part based on texts he had consulted in Robert’s library, to his Neapolitan friend Pietro Piccolo da Monteforte, who read it and made suggestions that were included in the following version. Moreover, for much of his life after his return to Florence in 1340/41, Boccaccio attempted to obtain a position at the court in Naples, though when he was finally offered that of court poet by Joanna I and her third husband, James of Majorca, in 1370, he turned it down. So, Boccaccio’s works show that he had assimilated Neapolitan culture, but none more so than his so-called Neapolitan letter (Epistola napoletana), sometimes given the title La Machinta in the manuscripts. Written around 1339 and addressed to Francesco de’ Bardi, who is said to have been living in Gaeta at the time, the letter celebrates the birth of a baby to a woman called Machinti, the father of whom is purported to be Bardi himself. It is made up of two parts, a first “letter of presentation” in a formal style in Tuscan, and a second “che noi per diporto di noi medesimi ti scriviamo [which we are writing to you for our own amusement]” (437), written in the Neapolitan vernacular. The letter is transmitted by thirty-nine manuscripts. On the whole, it has been studied by scholars of the history of Italian,