Elsa Filosa

Decameron 7: Under the Sign of Venus

1. Licisca and Dioneo: Interpretatio nominis and the Choice of the Theme
While she is still laughing at Brother Cipollas story (Dec. 6.10), Elissa, the
queen of the sixth day, passes the crown to Dioneo and says:

Tempo , Dioneo, che tu alquanto pruovi che carico sia laver donne a reggere e a
guidare: sii adunque re e s fattamente ne reggi, che del tuo reggimento nella fine ci
abbiamo a lodare. Dioneo, presa la corona, ridendo rispose: Assai volte gi ne potete
aver veduti, io dico delli re da scacchi, troppo pi cari che io non sono; per certo, se voi
mubidiste come vero re si dee ubidire, io vi farei goder di quello senza il che per certo
niuna festa compiutamente lieta. Ma lasciamo star queste parole: io regger come io
sapr.
(Dec. 6. Concl. 2-3) 1

Tis time, Dioneo, that thou prove the weight of the burden of having ladies to govern
and guide. Be thou king then; and let thy rule be such that, when tis ended, we may have
cause to commend it. Dioneo took the crown, and laughingly answered: Kings worthier
far than I you may well have seen many a time ere now I speak of the kings in chess;
but if you let me have that obedience which is due to a true king, I will give you some
enjoyment, without which certainly no festivity can be complete. But enough of this: I
will govern as best I may.

This repartee between the outgoing queen and the new king launches the
preamble of the seventh days argument. In effect, Elissa is telling Dioneo, in a
playful manner, that he must rise to the occasion, that is, he must rule and
guide the ladies of the group. Dioneo, for his part, just as playfully, replies
that if the ladies obey him as they would a real king, then he will certainly be
able to amuse them. Having said that, however, he quickly cuts short this flirty
line of talk and says simply that he will do the best he can. 2 This risqu humor,

1 The quotations in Italian are from Decameron, ed. Vittore Branca; English translation
by J. M. Rigg, with some changes to clarify text.
2 The comparison with the king in the game of chess is interesting in this context. In a

note, Branca interprets the term pi cari (worthier) in terms of costliness: molto pi
preziosi: detto scherzosamente, poich gli scacchi potevano esser di materia preziosa,
come lavorio, e assai finemente lavorati Dec. 6. Concl. 1n1). In the dynamics of the
game, however, the king is the most important piece, because his position determines the
outcome: to win at chess, one must entrap, that is, checkmate, the opponents king.
Dioneos statement may thus be interpreted as follows, kings in chess have been seen in
better positions than I am. The most powerful piece in chess is in fact the queen, since
she can move about the board more freely than any other piece. Following the metaphor,
Annali dItalianistica 31 (2013). Boccaccios Decameron. Re-writing the Christian Middle Ages
316 Elsa Filosa

which emerges spontaneously from the cheerful and carefree spirit of the group,
is quite different from the mood hypothesized by Giovanni Getto, a humor full
of sighs and longing (atmosfera sospirosa di ideale vagheggiamento 27), and it
confirms the presence of the erotic within the frame of the Decameron. At the
start of Day Six, already, with the famous altercation between two servants who
appeared first in the introduction to the first day Tindaro and Licisca the
salacious arguments come right into the open, in the midst of the idyllic
environment described in the frame. This episode, in which the servants are
directly named, is unique to the Decameron, in that it has, besides a comic
value, an important structural role; it is precisely this squabble between the two
servants that gives Dioneo, the king of the seventh day, his inspiration for a
topic for the day:

Se donna Licisca non fosse poco avanti qui venuta, la quale con le sue parole mha
trovata materia a futuri ragionamenti di domane, io dubito che io non avessi gran pezza
penato a trovar tema da ragionare. Ella, come voi udiste, disse che vicina non aveva che
pulcella ne fosse andata a marito e sogiunse che ben sapeva quante e quali beffe le
maritate ancora facessero a mariti. Ma lasciando stare la prima parte, che opera
fanciullesca, reputo che la seconda debbia esser piacevole a ragionarne, e perci voglio
che domani si dica, poi che donna Licisca data ce nha cagione, delle beffe le quali o per
amore o per salvamento di loro le donne hanno gi fatte a lor mariti, senza essersene essi
o avveduti o no.
(Dec. 6. Concl. 4-6)
(For the visit that we had a while ago from Madam Licisca, who by what she said has
furnished me with matter of discourse for tomorrow, I fear I would have had trouble
finding a theme. You heard how she said that there was not a woman in her
neighbourhood whose husband had her virginity; adding that well she knew how many
and what manner of tricks they, after marriage, played on their husbands. The first count
we may well leave to the girls whom it concerns; the second should prove a diverting
topic: wherefore I ordain that, taking our cue from Madam Licisca, we discourse to-
morrow of the tricks that, either for love or for their deliverance from peril, ladies have
heretofore played on their husbands, and whether they were by the said husbands
detected or no.)

By means of this explicit intertextual reference, Boccaccio creates a close,

almost filial, connection between Day Six and Seven. The sixth day, whose
theme was sprightly sallies (leggiadri motti), in fact contains a story that
would fit well with the theme of the seventh day: the tale concerning Madonna
Filippa, who manages to defend in court her right to adultery, leaving her

a king opposed by seven queens the number of female narrators in the Decameron,
and the number of women in the group who made the excursion into the Valley of the
Ladies cannot possibly win the game. In Dec. 7.7, also, Anichino reveals his love to
Beatrice during a game of chess, and thus a classic literary topos seems at work here. For
a detailed analysis of Dioneos retort, see Ascoli 42-44.
 Decameron 7: Under the Sign of Venus 317

husband discomfited (confuso 6.7.19). 3 The protagonists of the stories of

the seventh day are just as able as Madonna Filippa when it comes to rhetoric.
Thus, while those of the sixth day use language for the most part to create those
sprightly sallies (Which, being brief, are much more proper for ladies than
for men; li quali, per ci che brievi sono, tanto stanno meglio alle donne che
agli uomini 6.1.2), the women of the seventh day, by means of deceit and a
remarkable talent in storytelling, succeed in creating realities that entrap their
befuddled husbands. Tofano (7.4) and Arriguccio (7.8) fall into traps crafted in
this manner by their wives: Tofano changing in full view of family and
neighbors from betrayed husband to drunkard who frequents prostitutes, and
Arriguccio completely dumbfounded and bewildered by a reality quite different
from the one he thought he knew.
The exchange between Tindaro and Licisca offers not only the theme of the
seventh day but indirectly also that of the eighth. Lauretta, who receives the
crown of laurel from Dioneo, will choose as theme those tricks that, daily,
woman plays on man, or man on woman, or one man on another (quelle beffe
che tutto il giorno o donna a uomo o uomo a donna o luno uomo allaltro si
fanno Dec. 7. Concl. 4), rather than the narrower one of tricks that husbands
play on their wives (beffe che gli uomini fanno alle lor mogli), not wishing to
be of the breed of yelping curs (do schiatta di can botolo 7. Concl. 3).
Who, in effect, is Licisca, this muse who inspires the narratives of the
seventh day? For Boccaccio, nomina sunt consequentia rerum, and throughout
his literary works, names are never accidental. Brian Richardson points to where
the name Licisca might have originated: in Virgil (Ecl. 3.18), and in its comment
by Servius; in Ovids Metamorphoses (3.220); and four times in Boccaccios
Buccolicum carmen (3.9; 5.131; 6.162; 7.76), Licisca is the name of a fast and
faithful hunting dog.
Richardson goes on to mention references in Juvenal but does not give
details. In Juvenals sixth satire Licisca is the pseudonym adopted by the
empress Messalina for her nighttime escapades as a prostitute. As soon as her
husband, the emperor Claudius, falls asleep, she slips out of the palace, wearing
a blond wig, and, accompanied by a single serving woman, makes her way to
the brothels, where all night long she sells her body to whoever asks for it,
returning to the marriage bed at the first light of day, still soiled with the smoke
of oil lamps, sweat, and secretions, tired but still unsatisfied: 4

3For more on the links between the sixth and seventh days, see Ascoli 39-40.
4 There are allusions to Juvenals sixth satire throughout Boccaccios works, e.g., the
Corbaccio; the satire is evoked also in the Decameron, in tales of the seventh and eighth
days. On this subject, see Forni, Parole come fatti 13-14; and my articles Ancora su
Seneca and Modalit di contatto.
318 Elsa Filosa

[]. dormire uirum cum senserat uxor,

sumere nocturnos meretrix Augusta cucullos
ausa Palatino et tegetem praeferre cubili
linquebat comite ancilla non amplius una.
sed nigrum flauo crinem abscondente galero
intrauit calidum ueteri centone lupanar
et cellam uacuam atque suam; tunc nuda papillis
prostitit auratis titulum mentita Lyciscae
ostenditque tuum, generose Britannice, uentrem.
excepit blanda intrantis atque aera poposcit.
[continueque iacens cunctorum absorbuit ictus.]
mox lenone suas iam dimittente puellas
tristis abit, et quod potuit tamen ultima cellam
clausit, adhuc ardens rigidae tentigine uoluae,
et lassata uiris necdum satiata recessit,
obscurisque genis turpis fumoque lucernae
foeda lupanaris tulit ad puluinar odorem.

(As soon as his wife perceived that her husband was asleep, this august harlot was
shameless enough to prefer a common mat to the imperial couch. Assuming a night-cowl,
and attended by a single maid, she issued forth; then, having concealed her raven locks
under a light-coloured peruque, she took her place in a brothel reeking with long-used
coverlets. Entering an empty cell reserved for herself, she there took her stand, under the
feigned name of Lycisca, her nipples bare and gilded, and exposed to view the womb that
bore thee, O nobly-born Britannicus! Here she graciously received all comers, asking
from each his fee; and when at length the keeper dismissed the rest, she remained to the
very last before closing her cell, and with passion still raging hot within her went
sorrowfully away. Then exhausted but unsatisfied, with soiled cheeks, and begrimed with
the smoke of lamps, she took back to the imperial pillow all the odors of the stews.)
(Sat. VI 116-32)

Juvenal paints a vivid portrait of Messalina-Licisca. Through his description,

Messalina has passed into history as the greatest betrayer of all time, the epitome
of lasciviousness, the model to repudiate par excellence, the antithesis of
chastity. The words of the Decameronian Licisca (in Juvenal, Messalina in
disguise) prompt Dioneo, he says (Dec. 6. Concl. 4), to choose the theme of the
seventh day. Given the literary pre-history of Boccaccios character, it certainly
is not a coincidence that the theme of the day should be the tricks (beffe) that
women play on their husbands, in which the term tricks indicates adulterous
betrayal. 5

5 In Juvenals sixth satire, the name that Messalina chooses as a prostitute, Licisca, is
highly evocative. Bellandi, in his edition of this satire, writes: The empress takes a
perverse pleasure in playing the role of a low-grade harlot, and [] even her choice of
pseudonym, written on the sign hung outside her cubicle, betrays a form of smugness (the
 Decameron 7: Under the Sign of Venus 319

In this connection, we may recall that in De casibus virum illustrium (7.3),

Boccaccio grants Messalina a notable dignity (the only instance of such a
gesture in all literature of any period), starting from the first verbal exchange in
the chapter entitled: Tristes quidem et Tyberii Cesaris atque Gai Caligule
iurgium com Valeria Messalina. He has Messalina defend herself against the
accusations of debauchery leveled at her by Tiberius and Caligula; her face, as
she defends herself, is resolute, and her argument sound (firmiori voltu et
oratione integriori), worthy of a lawyer in court. After a captatio benevolentiae,
admitting that she is guilty of being lasciva luxuriosa adultera et concubitu
plurimo semper avida, she gives the exonerating circumstances excusing her
conduct. The first of these excuses is ontological, based on the nature of her
person, on the inclinations impressed on her by the particular conjunction of
stars at the time of her birth. An astrologer had given her father, Barbatus
Messala, an account of astral alignments in which the entire celestial framework
seemed to be falling into the sign of Venus (omnis etherea compago ruere
videbatur in Venerem). 6 Messalina thus asserts that she was born to
lasciviousness, driven to it by the constellations (Celo igitur urgente in hoc nata
sum).
Licisca thus provides Dioneo with his theme for the seventh day, and
Dioneo could not be a better king for this theme. Licisca, in fact, has brought
back into play an argument already discussed within the group, about the fidelity
of married women. An example is the first debate among the groups members
on wifely chastity, which is sparked by the wager between Bernab Lomellin
and Ambrogiulo (Dec. 2.9). Filomena, the narrator of the tale, supports the
theories of Bernab Lomellin that argue in favor of the fidelity and chastity of

Greek diminutive Lycisca derives from lupa, that is, meretrix) (Bellandi 124 n121-24).
The implication would not have escaped Boccaccio: bitch, she-wolf.
6 De casibus (7.3.14) reads: Memini et meminisse iuvat percontanti Barbato de nativitate

mea mathematicum respondisse: Dum hec tibi, Messala, nata est, gemina Latone proles
in vestrum orbem chelibus detenta surgebat ab infero, quam hostem tenens Orionis
Athlantiades sequebatur celique medium hiulco Draconis capiti Martique suo iuncta
Cytherea tenebat et suis in Piscibus Iovem atque infelicem cum Ganimede senem celi
vertigo in noctem profundissimam rapiebat, quibus, agentibus, omnis etherea compago
ruere videbatur in Venerem (I remember and it pleases me to remember that an
astrologer replied thus to my father Barbatus, who had asked him about my birth: When
this child was born, oh Messala, the twin sons of Latona were rising over your world,
under the constellation of Libra, from the southern hemisphere, and Mercury was
following them, occupying the sign of Scorpio; Cytherea was joined to the head of Draco
of the open mouth, and Mars in his place in the middle of the heavens; and the revolution
of the heavens dragged Jove down with Pisces into the profoundest night, the unhappy
old man, with Ganymede; in these movements, the entire celestial framework seemed to
be falling into the sign of Venus). The astral chart is highly detailed; nothing like it
exists in classical literature, and it was in all probability invented by Boccaccio.
320 Elsa Filosa

women, and uses as her example the case of the highly virtuous Madonna
Zinevra. Dioneo, in contrast, sustains the opposite thesis, as he begins narrating
his tale (2.10.3) and as he concludes it with the statement, Messer Bernab in
his altercation with Ambrogiuolo rode the goat downhill (Per la qual cosa,
donne mie care, mi pare che ser Bernab disputando con Abruogiuolo
cavalcasse la capra inverso il chino 10.43). The women of the group all burst
out laughing and stated that Dioneo spoke truthfully (Dioneo diceva vero 2.
Concl. 1).
We see from all this that Dioneo is the champion of the naturalness and
exuberance of feminine eros; and not only this, for he also has particular
connections with the author-Boccaccio and with Venus. Alessandro Duranti has
commented on this special relationship: Dioneo, when he first appears in
Boccaccios writings, does so in lowercase. We find him in an early letter to an
unidentified person (Petrarch?), where Boccaccio, in part to make a rhetorical
flourish and in part to make a joke, attributes his inclinations of spurcissimum
dyoneum to Dione, the father [in reality the mother] of Venus, among other
flaws attributed to the influence of numerous mischievous divinities (Duranti
3). 7 We should note, therefore, that Dioneo, related as he is to Venus, is of
all the members of the group the most appropriate choice as king in the
Valley of the Ladies, and that his very spurcitia is perfectly consonant with the
theme he proposes for the day. 8 Thus, Dioneo, when narrating the tales of the

7 Duranti refers to this section of the letter: Quapropter cum per spectabilem tantum

virum, qui ut phenix ultra montes obtinet monarciam, possim Fortune miserias et amoris
angustias debellare, ac exui a qualibet ruditate, cum me miserum rudem inermem inertem
crudum pariter et informem cognoscam, et a patre Iovis factum deformem, ab Yperione
inopem, a Gradivo rixosum, a Delyo pusillanimem, a Dyona spurcissimum dyoneum
(Oh that I might, by means of so venerable a person, so as phoenix which has his
kingdom beyond the mountains, arrive to lessen the miseries of Fortune, the anguish of
love, and give myself over completely to rustic ways, know myself wretched, coarse,
weak and inert, unfinished and unformed; by Joves father deformed, by Hyperion made
poor, argumentative by Gradivus, weak by Delius, and by Dione, the most degraded
dionean) (Ep. II 11). Dione was not in fact the father of Venus, but the mother. As
Robert Graves comments: She [Aphrodite] is called daughter of Dione, because Dione
was the goddess of the oak-tree, where the amorous dove nested []. Doves and
sparrows are noted for their lechery. See also Genealogie 11.4.1.
8 It is he, too, who narrates the first of the erotic tales (1.4) of the Decameron. Dioneo

does not appear in Boccaccio only in the Decameron; we see him first in Ameto, where
he already displays the characteristics that make him so distinctive. He is described there
as a young man of extraordinary beauty, whose face has been expertly shaved, who,
adorned almost as a woman is, and very sleepy from a rich meal, . . . his movements
lascivious, his speech careless, vulgar, disconnected, stretched himself out in the cool
shade (un giovane di maravigliosa bellezza, dal cui viso con maestra mano la barba era
stata levata, ornato quasi come una donna, pieno di sonno per soperchi cibi [] in atto
lascivo con parlare rotto, sozzo e non continuo disteso stava a fresche ombre 26.72-73).
 Decameron 7: Under the Sign of Venus 321

Decameron, speaks casually and employs vulgarity (to use the terms of Ameto in
a more general sense), but sings a courtly ballad in impeccable form at the end
of the fifth day, and at the end of his own reign sings of Arcita and Palemone,
the heroes of Teseida, in a duet with Fiammetta. In other words, notwithstanding
the licentious theme of the seventh day and his inclinations toward pleasure,
Dioneo performs his role as ruler of the group very seriously. And, in fact, at the
beginning of his rule, he responds to the ladies objections to his proposed topic
stating categorically that the entire group has behaved very honestly
(onestissima 6. Concl. 11) and, given the extraordinary circumstances of the
plague, they are permitted more freedom in narrating stories (se alquanto
sallarga la vostra onest nel favellare 6. Concl. 10).
When Dioneo proposes the theme for the seventh day, the women ask him
to change it, as deemed improper for them (che male a lor si convenisse)
(Dec. 6. Concl. 7). The king, however, not only does not change the theme but
defends his position, referring them to the present times, as the plague rages, and
reminding them that word and deed are two different things; he underlines the
honesty with which they have always conducted themselves and which they will
continue to uphold. In all this, Dioneo echoes words already heard in the
introduction to the first day, which seem nonetheless worth dusting off and re-
presenting, given the argument he has proposed. It is a time of plague, the
judges have abandoned the courts; laws, both human and divine, are silent (there
is a reference here to (Dec. 1. Intro. 23): The venerable authority of laws,
human and divine, was abased and all but totally dissolved (Era la reverenda
auttorit delle leggi, cos divine come umane, quasi caduta e dissoluta). We are,
therefore, in a period of history in which judgment is suspended: The times are
such that [] tis allowable to them to discourse of what they please (il tempo
tale che [] ogni ragionare conceduto 6. Concl. 8). This, naturally, does
not mean that this virtuous group is any the less virtuous for all that, even
though it could, if it wished, loosen the strictest of its standards. What Dioneo,
in fact, asks of the women narrators is to loosen up (allargare) in their
storytelling (nel favellare 6. Concl. 10) the boundaries appropriate to their the
honesty for a vital principle: Ample license to preserve his life as best he may
is accorded to each and all (Ampia licenza per conservar la vita conceduta a
ciascuno 6. Concl. 9). Pampinea herself had expressed her intention to relax
somewhat, in the introduction to the first day:

Io giudicherei ottimamente fatto che noi, s come noi siamo, s come molti innanzi a noi
hanno fatto e fanno, di questa terra uscissimo, e fuggendo come la morte i disonesti
essempli degli altri onestamente a nostri luoghi in contado, de quali a ciascuna di noi

And despite this aura of lassitude and sensuality, he is quite capable of reverting to the
haughty manner (altiera maniera 26.88) proper to one born of divinity.
322 Elsa Filosa

gran copia, ce ne andassimo a stare, e quivi quella festa, quella allegrezza, quello piacere
che noi potessimo, senza trapassare in alcuno atto il segno della ragione, prendessimo.
(1. Intro. 65)
(I should deem it most wise in us, our case being what it is, if, as many others have done
before us, and are still doing, we were to quit this place, and, shunning like death the evil
example of others, go to the country, and there live as honorable women on one of the
estates, of which none of us has any lack, with all cheer of festal gathering and other
delights, so long as in no particular we overstep the bounds of reason.)

In this statement, Pampinea shows that she follows the counsel of the most
authoritative contemporary Florentine medical doctor, Tommaso del Garbo. The
first advice he gives in his Consigli contro a pistolenza is to flee to where there
is no plague (fuggire ove non sia la pistolenza), while the twenty-fifth
concerns happiness of mind. In this counsel, he explains clearly what one
should do to obtain it:

Ora da vedere del modo del prendere letizia e piacer in questo tal tempo di pistolenza e
nellanimo e nella mente tua. E sappi che una delle pi perfette cose in questo caso con
ordine prendere allegrezza, nella quale si osservi questo ordine, cio prima non pensare
della morte, overo passione dalcuno, overo di cosa tabi a contristare, overo a dolere, ma
i pensieri sieno sopra cose dilettevoli e piacevoli. Lusanze sieno con persone liete e
gioconde, e fugasi ogni maninconia, e lusanza sia co non molta gente nella casa ove tu ai
a stare e abitare; e in giardini a tempo loro ove siene erbe odorifere, e come sono vite e
salci, e quando le vite fioriscono e simile cose []. E usare canzone e giullerie e altre
novelle piacevole sanza fatica di corpo, e tutte cose dilettevoli che confortino altrui.
(Del Garbo 40-41)
(Now we must look into the way to find happiness and pleasure in this time of pestilence,
in both your spirit and your mind. Know that one of the most perfect things in these
circumstances is to find an orderly way to take pleasure, and to follow this order, that is,
first of all, do not think of death, or of the suffering of someone, or of pain, but let your
thoughts be of things delightful and pleasurable. Make it a practice to keep company with
happy, cheerful people, and flee all melancholy; and a practice not to stay with many of
the people in the house you live in; and in gardens where in their own seasons scented
plants grow, where there are vines and willows, when the vines flower and other things of
this sort []. And make use of songs and jests and other novelties without exhausting the
body, and all the delightful things that may be a comfort to others.)
To make use of songs and jests and other novelties to save his own life is also
the intention of Dioneo. Hence everyone should aim to tell a tale in line with the
argument proposed by the reigning king, and tell it well (6. Concl. 15).
Besides, words are one thing, and deeds another: the distinction between fact
and fiction is quite clear:

Se alquanto sallarga la vostra onest nel favellare, non per dover con lopere mai alcuna
cosa sconcia seguire ma per dar diletto a voi e a altrui, non veggio con che argomento da
concedere vi possa nello avvenire riprendere alcuno.
(6. Concl. 10)
 Decameron 7: Under the Sign of Venus 323

(If you are somewhat less strict of speech than is your custom, not that anything
unseemly in act may follow, but that you may afford solace to yourselves and others, I
see not how you can be open to reasonable censure on the part of any.)

That Dioneo amuses himself by telling tales that might be considered obscene is
something clear: from the first one he narrates, the fourth tale of Dec. 1 (which
is also the first in this work to have an erotic theme), to all the others narrated by
him to this point with the exception of Dec. 6.10, the story of Brother Cipolla
all have eros as their theme. Now he is king, and he wants the group to
respond in line with his tastes. From the start of Dioneos encounter with the
group, he had made clear to them all that he wanted to have fun, laugh, and
dance (a sollazzare e a ridere e a cantare 1. Intro. 93-94)
Thus, this gallant young man, who had hardly his match for courtesy and
wit, wishes everyone to laugh and joke (always within the limits of honesty),
either to save himself or because, as the king of the seventh day, he must now be
obeyed by all. The ladies, assured that their honor will remain intact, give him
their consent to proceed.

2. The Valley of the Ladies: The Sanctuary of Venus

The sun still being very high, Elissa queen of the sixth day proposes to her
female companions that they go to the Valley of the Ladies (Valle delle
donne), and all agree to do so. So, saying nothing to the three young men, they
summoned one of their maids and set forth; nor had they gone much more than a
mile, when they arrived at the Valley of the Ladies (Dec. 6 Concl. 19). In these
two briefly reported actions, Boccaccio introduces the groups narrators and the
reader to a new narrative setting. The space is described in minute detail, as a
true locus amoenus, uncontaminated and secret, perfectly enclosed within itself,
and reached by a narrow roadway; it is beautiful, full of delights, a perfectly
circular area of level ground set among six hills, each crowned by a castle, and
through it runs a stream that broadens out in the center of the valley into a pond
full of fish.
The Valley of the Ladies has received much attention from critics, who
have concentrated their analysis on the valley as locus amoenus, or as a
particular element within the frame of the whole work. 9 The indispensable

9 For a study of the valley as an element within the frame, see especially the work of
Getto and Barberi-Squarotti; for a summary of the different approaches to the frame
itself, up to the year 1975, see Cerisola. Petrini and Stillinger have analyzed the valley as
locus amoenus; Stillinger, in particular, has gathered the references in the literary
tradition to this topos. For a study of the garden in the Italian-language works of
Boccaccio, see Blanco Jimenz and, more recently, the more complete study by Raja.
Some critics have also identified the Valley of the Ladies with real Italian landscapes in
the vicinity of Florence: for the different places see Gennari and Lazzerini (122-26). New
324 Elsa Filosa

studies by Edith Kern and, following hers, that of Lucia Marino propose a
deeper, allegorical interpretation, reconstructing in detail the connections with
classical and medieval literature. For both these scholars, the description of the
garden, with its lush vegetation and flowering trees, the water, and fish, are
expressions of femininity tout court. Kern suggests that Venus herself is present,
in other words, mythological femininity par excellence:

[Venus] was known as the goddess of gardens gardens were dedicated to her, and she
was venerated in them. She was also the goddess of the humid element and thus became
since the water in ancient time was considered one of the first principles of life a
personification of production and reproduction in Nature, the mother of all life.
(515)
The whole setting of the Valle delle donne, with its pond teeming with fish, moreover,
strongly brings to mind concepts of classical mythology. Venus was above all the
goddess of women and was mainly adored by them. Ponds or lakes teeming with fish
were often sacred to her []. The fish was considered the symbol of highest fertility, the
water the principle of all life, and Venus the mother of all living things.
(518)

Lucia Marino is of a similar opinion:

In the Decameron all three cornice gardens are lush; the latter two especially boast a
luxuriant fertility (an aspect of Eros) and a remarkable order. Our suspicion of the
underlying metaphorical dimension, frequent in medieval literary gardens, is
strengthened when we see that the first cornice garden is just a little distant from infernal
plague-swept Florence; that the second is an other worldly paradise, somehow abstracted
from historical time, and qualitatively intermediate between the first and the Valle; and
that the Valle, the most remote, the most secluded, and the most exquisite of the three
gardens, has a numinous and primal erotic quality suggested by its unique form and
number, viz., the quadratured circle and six. All these factors, the allusive detail and their
graduated presentation in the cornice narrative, converge to hint at the Valles symbolic
meaning as the hidden sanctuary of Venus and as metonym for art itself.
(86-87)

critical approaches are also evident: Gntert sees in this valley the ideological and
structural center of the Decameron; and Bevilacqua detects in the garden the
Decamerons formal-ideological structure. Recently, Foster Gittes has identified in the
Valley of the Ladies three places typically associated with rape in classical literature
the theater, the pond, and the garden by means of which Boccaccio evokes sexual
violence, but in a new, sublimated form. Two other works should also be noted: those of
Brown and Mazzotta, who have pinpointed, albeit tangentially, the relationship between
the tales of the seventh day and this Valley of the Ladies. Of particular interest in this
context is Mazzottas description of the valley as an idyllic landscape where on the
seventh day, ironically, [the story-tellers] discuss the deceits within the structure of
marriage; the ordered idyllic background is a mockery of marriage, because marriage,
ever since St. Paul and the patristic interpretation of the Song of Songs, is the sacramental
figure of an immanent experience of edenic unity (67).
 Decameron 7: Under the Sign of Venus 325

Starting from this last interpretation, it is interesting to see what Boccaccio has
to say about Venus in his Genealogie deorum gentilium. Simply looking through
the pages of the analytic index of the Mondadori edition, one sees that
Boccaccio identified no fewer than four different Venuses, who of course in the
classical tradition blend together and become mistaken one for the other. Setting
aside the better known Great Venus, sixth daughter of Celus, as well as the
second Venus, seventh daughter of Celus (Gen. III 23), the one that interests us
most is Venus, the daughter of Jove and Dione, who is herself the mother of
Love: De Venere, Iovis XI filia, que peperit Amorem (11.4). Dione, the mother
of this Venus, is the source of the name of our Dioneo, as noted earlier.
Boccaccio, in this chapter of the Genealogie, following Homer, tells us the
goddesss parentage as soon as he names her, and goes on to state that she was
married to Vulcan a detail that is particularly interesting in this context. It
was this Venus who loved Adonis and who founded the first brothel. At this
point, Boccaccio writes something very pertinent to this discussion, speaking of
the garden of Venus situated in Cyprus, the home country of Ugo, king of
Cyprus and Jerusalem, to whom the Genealogie is dedicated:

Huic preterea Claudianus ubi De laudibus Stylichonis [properly, Epithalamium de nuptis

Honorii] apud tuam Cyprum, rex optime, deliciosissimum describit viridarium, in quo
omnia facile possint enumerari spectantia ad suadendam lasciviam. Incipit enim sic:
Mons latus Yonium Cypree rupis obumbrat etc. et perseverat infra per quadraginta sex
versus, quos quia prolixum nimis erat, non scripsi. Et hic idem viridario descripto quam
grandis sit Veneri cura circa cultum et ornatum opponit dicens: Cesariem tum forte
Venus subnixa corusco et infra decem versus.
(Claudian in the De consolatu Stilichonis [properly, Epithalamium de nuptis Honorii]
describes a most delightful garden in your Cyprus, oh excellent king, of which one may
enumerate all the delights that prompt one to indulgence. He begins, in fact, thus: An
extensive mountain range in the rocky island of Cyprus casts its shadow on the Ionian
Sea, etc., and continues for forty-six lines that I will not write out because it would make
for too long a quotation. In the same passage, having described the garden, he adds that
Venus took great care to cultivate and ornament it, saying: Venus then arranged the
foliage leaning up against the shining [throne], and so on for ten more lines.)
(Gen. 11.4.2)

Although Edith Kern has pointed out that the Valley of the Ladies was largely
modeled on the description of Paradise in the Roman de la Rose by Jean de
Meun, it seems appropriate to relate the garden described by Claudian to that of
the valley. A close analysis yields some interesting analogies. Here are the first
twenty lines of the forty-six mentioned by Boccaccio:

Mons latus Ionium Cypri praeruptus obumbrat,

invius humano gressu, Phariumque cubile
Proteos et septem despectat cornua Nili.
326 Elsa Filosa

Hunc neque canentes audent vestire pruinae,

hunc venti pulsare timent, hunc laedere nimbi.
Luxuriae Venerique vacat, pars acrior anni
Exulat; aeterni patet indulgentia veris.
In campum se fundit apex; hunc aurea saepes
circuit et fulvo defendit prata metallo.
Mulciber, ut perhibent, his oscula coniugis emit
Moenibus et tales uxoris obtulit acres.
Intus rura micant, manibus quae subdita nullis
Perpetuum florent, Zephyro contenta colono,
umbrosumque nemus, quo non admittitur ales,
ni probet ante suos diva sub iudice cantus:
quae placuit, fruitur ramis; quae victa, recedit.
Vivunt in Venerem frondes omnisque vicissim
Felix arbor amat: nutant ad mutua palmae
Foedera, populeo suspirat populus ictu
Et platano platanus alnoque adsibilat alnus.
Labuntur gemini fontes, hic dulcis, amarus
alter, et infusis corrumpunt mella venenis,
unde Cupidineas armari fama sagittas.
(Where Cyprus looks out over the Ionian main a craggy mountain overshadows it.
Unapproachable by human foot it faces the isle of Pharos, the home of Proteus and the
seven mouths of the Nile. The hoar frost dares not clothe its sides, nor the rude winds
buffet it nor clouds obscure. It is consecrated to pleasure and to Venus. The years less
clement seasons are strangers to it, over which ever brood the blessings of eternal spring.
The mountains height slopes down into plain; that a golden hedge encircles, guarding its
meadows with yellow metal. This demesne, men say, was the price paid by Mulciber for
the kisses of his wife; these towers were the gift of a loving husband. Fair is the enclosed
country, ever bright with flowers though touched with no laboring hand, for Zephyr is
husbandman enough therefor. Into its shady groves no bird may enter save such as has
first won the goddess approval for its song. Those which please her may flit among the
branches; they must quit who cannot pass the test. The very leaves live for love and in his
season every happy tree experiences loves power: palm bends down to mate with palm,
poplar sighs its passion for poplar, plane whispers to plane, alder to alder. Here spring
two fountains, the one of sweet water, the other of bitter, honey is mingled with the first,
poison with the second, and in these streams tis said that Cupid dips his arrows.)
(Epith. 49-71)

In comparing this garden and the Valley of the Ladies, we may begin with a
look at how the valley is represented by Boccaccio. First, we notice that the
Valley is reached by a narrow roadway (per una via assai stretta Dec. 6.
Concl. 19), difficult for human beings to access; Claudians Garden of Venus,
likewise, is invius humano gressu. One of the distinctive features of the Valley
is the circular, level area, il piano, whose perfect geometry looks entirely
natural (cos ritondo come se a sesta fosse stato fatto, quantunque artificio della
 Decameron 7: Under the Sign of Venus 327

natura e non manual paresse 6. Concl. 20). 10 The Garden of Venus, too, is
circular and somewhat level, as implied by the verb circuit, the grammatical
subject of which is the hedge that runs in a circle around the garden. And just as
Boccaccio notes that the design of his piano is entirely natural, Claudian
observes that the perfect geometry of the garden is an artifice, not human in
origin, but divine. Mulciber that is, Vulcan has created this garden for his
beloved Venus, who repays him with kisses. In the Valley of the Ladies, the
descending terraces of the surrounding hills create a setting like a theater: The
slopes of the hills were graduated from summit to base after the manner of the
successive tiers, ever abridging their circle, that we see in our theatres (Le
piagge delle quali montagnette cos digradando giuso verso il pian
discendevano, come ne teatri veggiamo dalla lor sommit i gradi infino
allinfimo venire successivamente ordinati, sempre restrignendo il cerchio loro
6. Concl. 21). This description, albeit fuller and more detailed, echoes the in
campum se fundit apex of Claudian, which suggests a gradual downward slope,
from a higher level to a lower one. Boccaccio goes on to give a very detailed
description of all the trees growing on the series of terraces surrounding the
piano: the south-facing slopes, which receive sun all day, are planted with fruit
trees and vines that need plenty of light (he lists olive, almond, cherry, and fig
trees, among others); on the north-facing slopes, which the sun never reaches,
are the woodland trees (small oaks, ash trees, and other unnamed trees described
as growing straight and very green: altri alberi verdissimi e ritti), and above
them the evergreens (firs, cypress, pines), so well formed and spaced that they
look as if they had been planted with great skill, and so tall that little sunlight
reached the ground below, which is covered in low-growing grass and colorful
flowers

s ben composti e s bene ordinati, come se qualunque di ci il miglior artefice gli

avesse piantati: e fra essi poco sole o niente, allora che egli era alto, entrava infino al
suolo, il quale era tutto un prato derba minutissima e piena di fiori porporini e daltri
(6. Concl. 24)
(in order and symmetry so well arranged and excellent as if they had been planted by the
best landscape artist that might be found; even when the sun was in the zenith, scarcely a
ray of light reached the ground, which was all one lawn of the finest turf, dotted with
hyacinth and divers other flowers.)

Colorful flowers are notable, too, in Claudians ombrosum nemus: micant,

manibus quae subdita nullis perpetuum florent; these do not look planted by
hand, he says, but grow spontaneously with the help of Zephyrus. The trees in
the Garden of Venus occupy an important ecphrastic space, according to the

10 Stillinger notices that the sentence comes from Ovids: arte laboratum nulla:
simulaverat artem / ingenio natura (Met. 3.158-59).
328 Elsa Filosa

classical catalogus arborum. Boccaccio finishes his account by describing the

small stream that bisects the piano and broadens out at the center of the meadow
to make a crystal-clear pond or small lake, full of fish. Claudian also has a little
stream, in which the little cupids (amorini) dip their arrows.
One last comparison to make of the two gardens is the charming scene of
the singing competition of the birds. In the introduction to the seventh day, the
group gathers in the Valley of the Ladies. For their whole journey into the
valley, they are accompanied by birdsong (7. Intro. 4-6). The little birds and
nightingales of this valley are described almost as consciously singing, as if
aware of themselves as singers. In fact, they seem to be conscious of their art
and proficiency to such an extent that the Narrator remarks they keep
adding new notes to those just sung by the brigata (alle quali [canzoni] tutti gli
uccelli, quasi non volessero esser vinti, dolci e nuove note aggiungevano Dec.
7. Intro. 6) In Claudian, we have a perfect corollary in his account of the aves,
which, to be admitted to the garden and to make their home among the trees,
must first pass a rigorous examination, judged by the goddess herself. 11
The similarities between the texts of Claudian and Boccaccio are not
examples of the closest kind of intertextuality, but allusions are nonetheless
present. The elements described, the ecphrastic constructions created by the
synesthesia or sensory marriage of sight, sound, and smell, make them
remarkably parallel. 12 Boccaccio most likely knew the work of Claudian while
he was composing Comedia delle ninfe fiorentine and certainly had encountered
him by the time of the first edition of Faunus, in 1341-42 (Velli 265). One
passage that has no parallel in Claudians Epithalamium de nuptiis Honori et
Mariae, the description of the pond in the center of the piano, has its origin in a
combination of elements from Ovids Metamorphoses (3.407) and De Raptu
Proserpinae by Claudian (II.101-18), as Giuseppe Velli (252-65) has amply
demonstrated. 13 It seems that lines from different works by Claudian, as
Boccaccio remembered and combined them, might have contributed to his
creation of the Valley of the Ladies.

11 For a thorough analysis of the role of birds in the frame of the Decameron, see Marino

87-91; and, more recently, Cerocchi 112-19.

12 The extent to which Claudians description of the Garden of Venus has influenced

other authors in Italian literature, among them Dante, Poliziano, Ariosto, and Tasso, has
been examined by Carducci (40-41) and Romano. For the presence of Claudian in the
work of Boccaccio, see Bettinzoli, and Velli; for the use of synthesthesia in Boccaccio,
see the essays of Kleinhenz and Ciabattoni.
13 As exemplified in the passage from Genealogie 11.4, quoted above, Boccaccio tended

to cite De laudibus Stilichonis as the source of all works by Claudian. According to Velli,
this might suggest that the codex containing Claudians works, used by Boccaccio, did
not have titles, as well as the one used by Petrarch, the actual Par. Lat. 8082 (Velli 260
n18).
 Decameron 7: Under the Sign of Venus 329

As Lucia Marino (92) notes, the Valley of the Ladies also has elements in
common with the Palace of Venus as described in Boccaccios Teseida, among
them the ubiquitous presence of water. Marino was particularly intrigued by the
chiose dautore that Boccaccio offers for this palace and garden. Notably, he
draws a sharp distinction between two Venuses. The first Venus, he says,
prompts every honest and lawful desire, such as wanting a wife in order to have
children, and the like. But, he continues, he does not talk of this Venus here;
rather, he speaks of the second Venus, the origin of every lascivious desire, who
is known popularly as the goddess of love; it is the temple of this Venus, and all
the things within it, that he describes (Tes. Chiose 7.50).
The distinction between the two Venuses is very important. The Venus
inspiring the seventh day is the daughter of Dione and Jove, mother of the god
of love Cupid, wife of Vulcan; in brief, the figure popularly known as the
Goddess of Love. This may be a reason why, on this day, the group will
recount tales of lechery and betrayal by married women, for whom Venus is the
perfect godmother. It was on account of her extraordinary beauty, in fact, that
Jove feared that Venus would be the cause of disputes among the other gods,
and for this reason Jove gave her in marriage to Vulcan, god of fire, the
blacksmith of the gods, old and ugly, always at work. This marriage did not
satisfy the goddess, however, who had many amorous entanglements, with
mortals as well as with gods. We might note, too, that the Palace of Venus in
Teseida occurs in the seventh book of that work, and that the Valley of the
Ladies, the sanctuary of Venus, occupies the seventh day. It can hardly be a
coincidence that Venus, astrologically speaking, resides in the seventh house of
the zodiac.
Guests, therefore, in this locus amoenus, which has so many connections
with the house of Venus, the young people tell stories of Venus (that is, stories
of love and sex and marital infidelity, stories pertaining to the second Venus)
achieving as I will say in the conclusion of this article an experience of
initiation that completes their sentimental education.

3. The Pleasures of an Afternoon

To the Valley of the Ladies, the young women first go alone and on their own
initiative, on the late afternoon of the previous day. In doing so, they express
autonomy for the first and only time in the overarching tale of the Decameron,
for in fact they do not inform the three young men (senza farne alcuna cosa
sentire a giovani (6. Concl. 19). Thus it could be argued that they commit a
small transgression against the homogeneity of the group. Here, in fact, the
young women have a space that is all their own where they are allowed to
behave in a manner totally unacceptable otherwise: bathing in the nude. It is, in
330 Elsa Filosa

short, a valley that is for one afternoon, or, rather for a short moment of one
afternoon for women only.
The famous and sensual scene of the women bathing is recounted by
Boccaccio with great, even formal refinement. After the description of the
females entering the small lake, the phrasing reaches its climax with a simile
taken from Ovid, and expressed in a double hendecasyllabic structure: They all
seven undressed and got into the water, which to the whiteness of their flesh was
even such a veil as fine glass is to the vermeil of the rose (Tutte e sette si
spogliarono e entrarono in esso, il quale non altramenti li lor corpi candidi
nascondeva che farebbe una vermiglia rosa un sottil vetro 6. Concl. 30). 14 In
the secluded Valley of the Ladies, the young women are sure of not being spied
upon; and yet, the reader, the person who is absent from the work, commits the
voyeuristic act while reading, prompted to do so by the Narrator and thus,
ultimately, Boccaccio, who first might have enjoyed the scene in the act of
writing. In the idyllic pond the young women play with the fish, which in this
transparent water can find no hiding place from their beautiful and unusual
playmates. 15
After drying off and putting on their clothes, the young women return to the
palace, where they find the young men just as they had left them. Pampinea, the
oldest of the group, speaks jokingly about having just deceived the three young
men, to which Dioneo promptly responds, in jest, asking whether they have
begun deceiving men in reality even before starting their tales about feminine
deceptions, the proposed topic for Day Seven: (Oggi vi pure abbiamo noi
ingannati E come? Cominciate voi prima a far de fatti che a dir parole? 6.
Concl. 3334). While clearly referring to the theme of the seventh day, Dioneos
response is at the same time an intratextual allusion to his words, about freedom
of speech and honest behavior ([] se alquanto sallarga la vostra onest nel
favellare, non per dover con lopere mai alcuna cosa sconcia seguire [] 6.
Concl. 10). In effect, nothing unseemly has happened, but that does not lessen
the fact that the young women have taken a liberty with respect to the group,
independently and on their own initiative, and they did so without informing

14 Ovid, recounting the incident in which Hermaphrodite is spied on by the nymph

Salmacis while he is bathing, describes him thus: in liquidis tranlucet aquis, ut eburnea
siquis / signa tegat claro vel candida lilia vitro (with gleaming body through the
transparent flood, as if one should encase ivory figures or white lilies in translucent
glass Met. 4.354-55).
15 Readers recall that a similar scene is relived in the sixth tale of Day Ten, when King

Carlo is smitten by the darts of love when he sees the two beautiful twin girls, Ginevra
and Isotta, fishing in a pond.
 Decameron 7: Under the Sign of Venus 331

them. It is a form of deceit, and it is the only time anyone in the group behaves
in this fashion. 16
The young women praise the Valley of the Ladies, and the young men are
curious they go there themselves, and bathe in the water, as well. When the
men return, they find the women dancing to a song performed by Fiametta.
Dioneo, ecstatic about the valley, arranges with the steward that the group will
move the next day to this place, which will be the setting in which the tales of
the seventh day are told. Once he has done that, he asks Elissa to sing them a
song.
The words of Elissas ballad fit her personality well. She is, in fact, closely
connected to its subject, Dido (Billanovich 135-41; Marchesi; Filosa, Tre studi
98-103, 112). The ballad speaks of an experience of love that is overwhelming
and painful: a young woman falls in love, becomes enslaved by it, and hopes to
free herself as soon as possible in order to regain her lost beauty. Everyone in
the group marvels at the pitiful sigh with which Elissa concludes her song, but
Dioneo does not want laments; he wants happy things, as he said at the start of
the tale he narrates at the end of the tearful fourth day. So he calls for Tindaro
and asks him to play the bagpipes, to the sound of which he gets them all to
dance. 17

4. Structure and Topics of the Ten Tales 18

With the seventh day, the tales of trickery (beffe) are officially begun, and they
continue not only into Day Eight, which has a similar, further expanded topic of
deceptions, but even into Day Nine, although the theme for that latter day is
open. Trickery of this kind is certainly not a novelty in the works of Boccaccio,
but it is the first time that we encounter the term beffa in the rubric. Boccaccio
begins to foreground a peculiar form of human intelligence in the witty repartees
of Day Six, and he continues doing so in Days Seven and Eight by means of
human ingenuity intent on tricking other people and/or playing practical jokes.
We are in what critics call the second part of the Decameron (the sixth
through the ninth day), which brings us into forms of thinking and behavior that
are characteristic of urban civilization; in fact, of the thirty stories told in the
sixth, seventh, and eighth days, sixteen take place in Florence and eight in

16 For a more detailed analysis of this issue, see Barolini (among the countless readings of
this text).
17 The bagpipes, not coincidentally, are an instrument traditionally played during carnival

(Hollander 275) and are sacred to Venus (Gen. 22.5).

18 Many scholars have published studies on the seventh day, including Montale; Segre;

Muscetta 254-60; Zandrino; Giovannuzzi; Ascoli; Surdich 156-80; Battistini; Sherberg;

and Grudin.
332 Elsa Filosa

Tuscany (Surdich 156). 19 More precisely, out of the ten stories told on the
seventh day, two are set in Florence (7.6; 7.8) and its environs like Fiesole (7.1),
or in Arezzo (7.4) and Siena (7.3; 7.10), a city which appears also in Dante for
the credulity of its inhabitants (Battistini 189).
The morning of the seventh day opens with the move from the second villa
to the Valley of the Ladies, in which, as the rubric says, under the rule of
Dioneo, discourse is had of the tricks which, either for love or for their
deliverance from peril, ladies have heretofore played their husbands, and
whether they were by the said husbands detected, or no (sotto il reggimento di
Dioneo, si ragiona delle beffe, le quali o per amore o per salvamento di loro, le
donne hanno gi fatte a suoi mariti, senza essersene avveduti o s). Most
obviously, then, all the tales share a set of related themes, as Segre writes, in that
the wife, contriving a trick to her husbands discomfort (beffa), manages to put
into effect, disguise, and in one way or another carry on her betrayal (94), in
each case for erotic ends. Thus these tales basically retell the same story over
and over, giving the seventh day the most cohesive and compact character of
any in the Decameron. 20 Given Segres masterly reading, I will limit myself
here to a summary of his observations.
All the tales under consideration (with the exception of the tenth, told by
Dioneo), are based on a love triangle, made up of the husband, the wife, and the
wifes lover (in the sixth tale, there are in fact two lovers). In each of the nine
tales, the tricks orchestrated by the women, to the detriment of their husbands,
are motivated by the pursuit of love outside marriage or of their deliverance
from peril, in other words, the need to save themselves. The first group, that is,
the tricks for love, are premeditated, because planning is needed if the wife is
to reach her goal to enjoy her lover (tales 5, 7, and 9). The second group,
instead, is improvised with great ingenuity and on the spot by the woman
already engaged in the pursuit of eros, in order not to be found with the lover
and thus save her life and honor as well as, in general, to continue her affair with
her beloved.

19 Si entra nel vivo di forme mentali e forme comportamentali caratteristiche della

civilt cittadina; e non a caso su trenta novelle che nel loro insieme compongono le
giornate sesta, settima e ottava, sedici sono ambientate a Firenze e otto in Toscana
(Surdich 156).
20 Segre remarks: Day VII [] seems to have been created expressly for formalist-

semiotic analysis. It is no less structurally homogeneous than a carefully selected group

of folktales (94). Montale considered Day Seven the most impoverished one (566): in
his opinion, the pervasive amorality of the stories and the absence of even a glimmer of
virtue in them, make them all seem flat. Montale pities the poor husbands, who in the
stories receive not even a word of compassion, while marriage is reduced to a misfortune,
an obstacle to overcome, to make fun of (Montale 567-68).
 Decameron 7: Under the Sign of Venus 333

In proposing the topic of wives tricks, Dioneo had already speculated that
husbands could be aware of being deceived or not. In most of the stories, the
women manage in fact to hide their betrayals from their husbands (tales 1, 2, 3,
5, 6), while in the others the husbands find out (tales 4, 7, 8, 9). Segre suggests
that this last group could be further divided in two: the tales which he calls
illusionistic (tales 7 and 9), in which the husband is present or in fact even
witnesses the erotic encounter of wife and lover, but does not realize what it is
he is seeing because of the way the scene has been rigged; these two tales, in
fact, are very complicated from the psychological point of view, and the
adulterous relationship moves well into the realm of the absurd. In the other
subgroup, tales 4 and 8 which Giovanni Getto calls tales that switch illusion
and reality (le novelle dello scambio di illusione e realt 165-88) the
husbands Tofano and Arriguccio, both profoundly jealous of their respective
wives, Monna Ghita and Monna Sismonda, discover them in flagrante; but the
astute women manage to turn reality upside down so that Tofano loses, as it
were, his mind, coming to terms with his wife after being duped (a modo del
villan matto 4.31), while Arriguccio is lost in his wifes deceptions
(trasognato 8.40). There is a difference between the two men: on the one hand,
Tofano, at the end of his tale, is aware that he has been tricked and damaged,
and that the fake world that Monna Ghita has created is real for his relatives and
neighbors, while in reality it is not, for he can tell the difference between truth
and falsehood. Arriguccio, on the other hand, remains confused, unable to tell
whether what had happened was real or if he had dreamt it (Arriguccio, rimaso
come uno smemorato, seco stesso non sappiendo se quello che fatto avea era
stato vero o segli aveva sognato [] 8.50). Segre notes that Arriguccio is
doubly a prisoner: of embarrassed befuddlement before the others, and of
dreamlike, almost hallucinatory confusion before himself (176). 21 In these two
stories, the chorus of neighbors and relatives plays a vital role. It is they who
establish what reality is, albeit not what it actually is, but as it seems to be, in
their eyes; that is, a deceptive reality invented by the crafty directors of the
show, Monna Ghita and Monna Sismonda. 22
Moving beyond Segres structural analysis, one can also look at the tales
from the point of view of thematics. During the course of the day, several
themes emerge, which can be gleaned from the headings and narrators
introductions to each tale. The first theme to appear on the narrative scene is that
of bewitchment (incantagione), in tales 1, 3, and 10, for these tales create
among themselves an intratextual relationship with explicit allusions to each
other. In fact, what inspires Elissa as she prepares to narrate her tale (Dec. 7.3),

21 For more on Decameron 4 and 8, see Getto, Le novelle dello scambio; Radcliff-
Umstead; Rzsa; Filosa, Modalit di contatto.
22 Battistini includes in his essay a paragraph on the crowd of neighbors.
334 Elsa Filosa

in which Rinaldo allegedly charms the worms out of the boy (incantava i
vermini al figlioccio), is to remember (7.3.3) the enchantment of the phantasm
by Emilia in the first tale (Dec. 7.1); Elissas tale, in turn, provides the prompt
for Dioneos, as he acknowledges (7.10.7). In fact, tales 3 and 10 form a
deliberate pairing, as the notion and practice of comparatico bear out (Ferreri):
Boccaccios intention is, in these tales, to use the parody in order to invalidate
the notion that comparatico 23 establishes a bond of blood, and that amorous
relations between the godfather of a child and the mother of the same child
(comare) would therefore be incestuous. 24 In a vision from the afterworld,
Tingoccio shares with his friend Meuccio the information that to sleep with the
comare is not a sin (7.10.25-29). Dioneo concludes the tale commenting that, if
Frate Rinaldo (7.3) had known about it, he surely would have not have had to
find so many arguments to convince his comare to make his pleasure (7.10.30).
Thus readers are urged to reflect on the function of comparatico in these two
tales. 25
Another theme that may be discerned in the ten tales of the seventh day is
the condemnation of jealousy, as it occurs in the tale of Fiammetta, according to
whom jealous husbands plot against the lives of their wives and seek their death
(insidiatori della vita delle giovani donne e diligentissimi cercatori della lor
morte Dec. 7.5.3). In the fourth and fifth stories, in fact, both husbands are
jealous. Tofanos jealousy, in the fourth, inspires Fiammetta to tell her own tale
of jealousy, the fifth:

Nobilissime donne, la precedente novella mi tira a dovere similmente ragionar dun

geloso, estimando che ci che si fa loro dalla lor donna, e massimamente quando senza
cagione ingelosiscono, esser ben fatto.
(Dec. 7.5.3)
(Most noble ladies, the foregoing story prompts me likewise to discourse of one of these
jealous husbands, deeming that they are justly requited by their wives, more especially
when they grow jealous without due cause.)

23 Here is the definition of spiritual affinity at the basis of the notion of comparatico,
which, therefore, renders all the people affected by the comparatico spiritually related
and thus called upon to practice a special, Christian relationship among themselves:
Spiritual relationship (cognatio spiritualis). Spiritual birth has been considered as
producing a kind of relationship between those who took an active part in the rites of
Christian initiation, baptism, and confirmation, and marriage between them is forbidden.
[] it prevents the marriage of the sponsor with the child or with the childs parents, also
the marriage of the minister of the sacrament with the person baptized or confirmed and
with his parents (Canonical Impediments, Catholic Encyclopedia, online).
24 On tales 3 and 10 as a deliberate pair, see also Porcelli. For the tales recounted by

Dioneo, see the essays of Giannetto and Duranti, and the book by Grimaldi.
25 A positive transformation in the relationships among people connected spiritually

through comparatico occurs in the fourth tale of Decameron 10.

 Decameron 7: Under the Sign of Venus 335

Therefore, jealous husbands deserve to be tricked. So, Tofano has received

insult and injury, and he is beaten becoming black and blue from head to foot
(7.4.29); and, according to the tale, this treatment seems to be therapeutic, since
afterward he promises his wife, Monna Ghita, never again to be jealous
(7.4.30). In the same way, il geloso as the jealous husband of the fifth tale
par excellence is called having been tricked by his wife, loses his jealousy. In
the eighth tale, a similar fate awaits the merchant Arriguccio Berlinghieri, who
foolishly married a noble lady, Sismonda, and grew so jealous of her that his
only care and concern became to watch her all the time (7.8.6); but, by the end
of the tale, after all the machinations and deceptions of his wife, the tricked
merchant with pretensions to nobility is so confused that he leaves his wife in
peace, unable to determine whether or not he dreamt (7.8.50). Jealousy, not only
in these three tales, but in the entire Decameron, is always presented as negative,
and it affects men as well as women. Men, in fact, end up being cuckolded
(Ferondo in 3.8) or even losing the wife (Riccardo di Chinzica, who era s
geloso che temeva dello aere stesso 2.10.14). In another story narrated by
Fiammetta, Catella, who is jealous of her husband, is tricked by her rejected
suitor into having intercourse with him while she thinks she is cavorting with
her unfaithful husband, although, after finding out and being upset by the
lovers deception, she accepts the affair she has been tricked into and is cured of
her jealousy (3.6). The second jealous woman in the Decameron, Ninetta,
poisons her lover, Restagnone (the text never tells us that they got married), for
his flirting, or perhaps even his affairs, with another girl the first tragedy in
this tale in a series of many others that end up destroying the lives of the
protagonists, three sisters and three young men (4.3). Outside the one hundred
stories but within the brigatas overarching tale, we readers discover that
Fiammetta, too, is jealous, even though we have to wait for this revelation until
the end of Day Ten, when in her ballad she proclaims that her beloved has all
the virtues a woman might desire to see in a man. Thus, on the one hand, she
launches a virulent tirade against i gelosi (7.5.3-6), while, on the other hand,
she is herself jealous of her lover. 26 The reason she is jealous might ultimately
explain why jealousy is so sternly condemned: men are fickle, and women are
capable of stealing men from other women. 27 Ultimately, therefore, jealousy is
part and parcel of the human condition, characterizing especially men and

26 It is worthwhile to remember here that in the Elegy of Madonna Fiammetta, the

protagonist Fiammetta, abandoned by her lover Panfilo, is very jealous as well, and she
talks about it, in terms of miserable jealousy (3.6) and my enemy, jealousy (3.14).
So, it cannot just be a coincidence that Fiammetta sings her ballad on jealousy exactly
when Panfilo is the king of the day.
27 For the analysis of Fiammettas ballad, I refer to Cervignis essay in this volume.
336 Elsa Filosa

women in love; jealousy can hardly be overcome, and thus it causes much grief
and suffering, bringing about even death, as the tales of jealousy evince. In the
stories of Day Ten, even though none of them deals directly with the theme of
jealousy overcome, one might see signs of this vice being conquered in some of
the stories. Thus, King Charles marries off with a splendid dowry the two very
young sisters whose beauty had overwhelmed him totally (10.6); Gisippus gives
his bride to his friend Titus (10.8) in a spirit of much liberality and even
magnanimity; and, finally, Griselda raises no objection to Gualtieris summons
to return to his palace and prepare everything needed for his matrimony with a
very young bride. Thus, Day Tens stories on liberality and magnificence may
be viewed as a form of positive rewriting of all the stories focusing on jealousy.
In fact, Day Tens tales of liberality and magnanimity may help us interpret
properly the praises of what is called love in some preambles of Day Seven
stories. Lauretta, in fact, begins the fourth tale of the day proclaiming the power
of Love, its advice, its resources (O Amore, chenti e quali sono le tue forze,
chenti i consigli e chenti gli avvedimenti! Dec. 7.4.3). In the seventh Days
sixth tale, Pampinea continues in this vein, emphasizing that there is no truth in
the claim that people in love are out of their mind and lose their wits, for it is
quite the opposite. In fact, in Pampineas tale the female protagonist is so quick
and clever in finding a stratagem to get herself and her lover out of trouble that
the husband suspects nothing. Furthermore, readers remember that it was
Arriguccio, and not the two lovers, to end up smemorato (7.8.31; 7.8.50).
Panfilo, for his part, suggests in his ninth tale that whoever loves fervently is
willing to dare everything; and yet, it is also Panfilo who advises not to be so
bold because fortune may not always come to the aid of those who are so brazen
because of love (7.9.4).

5. The Narrative Model and the Function of Parody

Seen as a whole, the stories of the seventh day seem to constitute a parody: a
parodic reversal of conventional treatments of the theme of love or of exemplary
female behavior themes well known to the public of this time undertaken
perhaps for the sake of humor or to ridicule specific canons already perceived as
trite or no longer upheld.
The plots of many of the tales of Day Seven have literary subtexts already
known: the story of Peronella, who bestows her lover in a tun, has its origin in
Apuleius; Tofano and Ghita have their antecedents in the exemplum de puteo of
the Disciplina clericalis by Pietro Alfonso, as does the story of Madonna
Isabella, Lambertuccio, and Leonetto. The ninth tale, very clearly, derives from
 Decameron 7: Under the Sign of Venus 337

Comoedia Lydiae, which Boccaccio knew well and which is trancribed in his
Zibaldone. 28
I would like here to examine some tales of which the subtext is less certain,
starting with the central tale of the set, Decameron 7.5, also known as the Tale
of the Jealous Husband. A woman is kept secluded at home, as in a prison, by a
husband who is jealous without reason; she decides to betray him, almost out of
spite. Since she is constantly under the watchful eye of the husband, she looks
for other means to execute her plan:

E per ci che a finestra far non si potea, e cos modo non avea di potersi mostrare
contenta della amore dalcuno che atteso lavesse per la sua contrada passando,
sappiendo che nella casa la quale era allato alla sua aveva alcun giovane e bello e
piacevole, si pens, se pertugio alcun fosse nel muro che la sua casa divideva da quella,
di dovere per quello tante volte guatare, che ella vedrebbe il giovane in atto da potergli
parlare, e di donargli il suo amore, se egli il volesse ricevere.
(7.5.11)
(And since she could not show herself at the window, there could be no interchange of
amorous glances between her and any man that passed along the street, but knowing that
in the next house there was a handsome and debonair young man, she thought that if
there were a hole in the wall that divided the two houses, she might watch until she
should have sight of the young man so that she might speak to him, and give him her
love, if he cared to have it.)

Not being able to leave the house, or even approach the window (one of the
modes canonized in the literature of courtly love for selecting a lover), she has
recourse to another strategem, also literary in derivation, reviving the classic
episode of the hole in the wall a theme that recurs often in literature, starting
with the famous story of Pyramus and Thisbe, of Ovidian origin. 29 Thisbe and
Pyramus use the chink in the wall to talk to each other, to express their love for
each other, to meet. The situation in Decameron 7.5, however, is rather different
from Ovids story, in that a different kind of love is represented. That between
Pyramus and Thisbe is an innocent love between two nave and inexperienced
young people, and it moves the reader to compassion; that between the jealous
mans wife and the young man she hopes to enveigle is more an example of
eros, and comes from a desire to trick the husband, in an extremely astute way
an astuteness, moreover, that derives from reading or from generally diffused
tales. And while Pyramus and Thisbe find their chink by chance, the wife finds

28 On Dec. 7.2, see especially Stocchi; White; and Martinez. On 7.4, see Getto, Le

novelle dello scambio; Radcliff-Umstead; and Filosa, Tre studi. On 7.6, see, most
recently, Toce; Masciandaro. On the story of Lidia and Pirro, see Picone; Ascoli; and
Kuhns.
29 The connections between this tale and the story of Pyramus and Thisbe in De

mulieribus claris are examined in my Tre studi (109-11).

338 Elsa Filosa

hers by searching the walls methodically, inch by inch:

E venendo ora in una parte e ora in una altra, quando il marito non vera, il muro della
casa guardando, vide per avventura in una parte assai segreta di quella il muro alquanto
da una fessura esser aperto.
(Dec. 7.5.13)
(So peering about, now here, now there, when her husband was away, she found in a very
remote part of the house a place, where, by chance, the wall had a little chink in it.)

The revival of the tragic story of Pyramus and Thisbe may or may not occur in
the mind of the protagonist, but it certainly does in the mind of the reader, for it
is well known and widely diffused. Boccaccios version of the story is not a
straight retelling, but a parody, based on the comic intention of the story, a
parody that centers on the way in which the deceit is set in motion. In this case,
the protagonist (or rather, Boccaccio) seems to have a good knowledge of the
classical literary models and how to put them into effect in her own life, as do
other heroines of the seventh day.
In the eighth tale, Monna Sismonda conducts herself in much the same
manner. She too knows the literary traditions, specifically those that provide
widely well-known models of how the perfect wife should conduct herself. She
is caught in flagrante by her husband, but manages to switch the situation in
such a way that she saves her own honor in the eyes of her neighbors and
relatives and makes her unlucky husband, Arriguccio, out to be a drunkard and
madman. In fact, Arriguccio, believing that he has beaten his wife and shorn her
hair (while actually he did that to her servant), summons her brothers and
mother in order to denounce her to them. 30 But Sismonda moves quickly, and,
thanks to her foresight in exchanging places with her servant, she arranges to be
found sitting in a chair and sewing by the light of a lamp, with no sign of having
been beaten and her hair in perfect order. Thus she reproduces (in parody) the
classic topos of the perfect wife, based on Livys portrayal of Lucretia, and
enters the canon of women models. 31 The image offered by Monna Sismonda
seems to reproduce this model perfectly, in order to show what is not the case:

E come la fante nella sua camera rimessa ebbe, cos prestamente il letto della sua rifece e
quella tutta racconci e rimise in ordine, come se quella notte niuna persona giaciuta vi
fosse, e raccese la lampana e s rivest e racconci, come se ancora a letto non si fosse

30 The practice of cutting braids or locks of hair is of German origin; it appears also in the
tale of Agilulfo and his groom (Dec. 3.2). On this tale, see my The Tale of the King and
the Groom, forthcoming.
31 In the episode in Livys Ab Urbe condita, which is well known, Sextus Tarquinius and

Tarquinius Collatine go to Rome to find the best among the wives there, and find
Lucretiam [] nocte sera deditam lanae inter lucubrantes ancillas in medio aedium
sedentem inveniunt (Lucretia sitting among the lighted lamps, late at night, with her
maidservants in the middle of the atrium, intent on her wools (vol. 1, 155).
 Decameron 7: Under the Sign of Venus 339

andata; e accesa una lucerna e presi suoi panni, in capo della scala si pose a sedere, e
cominci a cucire e a aspettare quello a che il fatto dovesse riuscire.
(Dec. 7.8.23)
(The maid thus bestowed in her room, the lady presently went back to her own, which she
set all in neat and trim order, remaking the bed, so that it might appear as if it had not
been slept in, relighting the lamp, and dressing and tidying herself, until she looked as if
she had not been abed that night; then, taking with her a lighted lamp and some work, she
sat down at the head of the stairs, and began sewing, while she waited to see how the
affair would end.)

Knowing the literary models as he does, Boccaccio makes sure that the sly
Monna Sismonda manages to save herself. When Arriguccio arrives at the house
with his in-laws, they encounter a scene quite different from the one they
expected. The lady who sits there, quietly sewing, with no sign of having been
assaulted proceeds to give her account of events: her husband frequents taverns
and keeps company with whores, and under the influence of alcohol is no longer
capable of distinguishing what is and what is not. Her mother chimes in
immediately with a spirited defense of Monna Sismonda (Dec. 7.8.47): 32

Ben vorrei che miei figliuoli navesser seguito il mio consiglio, che ti potevano cos
orrevolmente acconciare in casa i conti Guidi con un pezzo di pane, e essi vollon pur
darti a questa bella gioia, che, dove tu se la miglior figliuola di Firenze e la pi onesta,
egli non s vergognato di mezzanotte di dir che tu sii puttana, quasi noi non ti
conoscessimo.
(Dec. 7.8.47)
(Ah! had my sons but followed my advice! Your honour would have been safe in the
house of the Counts Guidi, where they might have bestowed you with a morsel of bread
for your dowry: but they had to give you to this rare treasure, who, though there is no
betterand more chaste daughter than you in Florence, has not blushed this very midnight
and in our presence to call you a strumpet, as if we didnt know you.)

Some historical background, of which Boccaccio is aware, might be useful here.

Guido il Vecchio of the Counts Guidi did in fact marry, in 1180, a woman by the
name of Gualdrada Berti, not for her dowry, certainly, but for her chastity,
dignity, and refined way of talking. Giovanni Villani writes that Count Guido
was taken by Gualdradas beauty and behavior, and on the advice of Emperor
Otto, married her without regard to her lowly origins or dowry. 33 Memorialized
thus in Villanis Cronica, la buona Gualdrada (Inf. 16.37) has passed into

32 As I explain in Modalit di contatto, the figure of the mother has many parallels in

Boccaccios Corbaccio and Juvenals sixth satire. The similarities suggest that she was
likely quite aware of the machinations of her daughter, and who knows? that she
may even have taught Sismonda the elements of the deceit.
33 [] il detto conte Guido preso damore di lei per la sua avenentezza, e per consiglio

del detto Otto imperadore, la si fece a moglie, non guardando perchella fosse di pi
basso lignaggio di lui, n guardando a dote (213).
340 Elsa Filosa

history as an example of goodness and virtuous self-conduct from Florences

past.
The mother-in-laws reversal of the situation is indeed stunning, and deeply
ironic, amounting almost to sarcasm on the part of Boccaccio. He evokes not
one but two exemplars of wifely virtue in this story, all for comic effect. Monna
Sismonda, whom the readers by now know perfectly well, presents herself to her
family as a new Lucretia (the classical exemplar of womanly chastity), and her
mother implies that she is a new Gualdrada (the exemplar of contemporary
Florentine tradition). The comic outcome is assured. The wretched Arriguccio
the parvenu who hoped to improve his social standing through marriage
(ingentilire per moglie) and ends up completely bewildered shows that he
is out of his depth in this situation and that he is not really part of the aristocratic
world, having entered it through marriage, but not intelligence and worth
after all, he is a drunkard!
One last example of a wily wife comes from the first story from this seventh
day. Monna Tessa is married to Gianni Lottinghieri, from the contrada of San
Brancazio (San Pancrazio), where Brother Puccio of Decameron 3.4 also comes
from. Lottinghieri is a simple soul, who loves to spend his time singing lauds in
the church of Santa Maria Novella (Dec. 7.1.4). As captain of the laud singers in
that church, Lottinghieri considers himself much more important than his
modest role in the citys wool trade would otherwise merit. Precisely because of
his ostentatious piety he ends up cuckolded, while his wife, Monna Tessa, uses
precisely his pious practices to ensure that her lover, Federigo di Neri Pegolozzi,
is not found out. When Monna Tessa is home one evening with her husband, she
hears someone knock on the door of the house, and she pretends to be terrified.
She knows perfectly well that it is her lover. She exclaims to her husband that
this is the phantasm of which she is so frightened, upon which her husband
reassures her that all is well, for he has recited many effective prayers to chase it
off, among them the Te lucis and Ntemerata. He has in fact chosen well: the Te
lucis ante terminum contains a formula for sending away ghosts of the night:
procul recedant somnia / et noctium phantasmata. But, in the Decameronian
novella, the prayer is presented to the reader as a mock imitation of the
Purgatorial context, and readers can certainly catch its parodic intention
(Ciabattoni 73). 34 The mechanical prayers by Gianni, almost superstitious
recitation, are in any case ineffective, and herein lies the irony: Monna Tessa in
fact uses (or better, invents) another prayer to send off her lover, full of double

34 Ciabattoni writes: [] essa si presenta al lettore come una ridicola imitazione della
situazione purgatoriale di cui impossibile non cogliere lintento parodico. Le
meccaniche preghiere di Gianni, quasi superstiziose incantazioni, sono ovviamente del
tutto inutili da un punto di vista apotropaico, ma proprio qui sta lironia della beffa: Tessa
infatti usa molto efficacemente una nuova orazione per avvertire Federigo
dellinaspettato ritorno a casa del marito (73).
 Decameron 7: Under the Sign of Venus 341

meanings, by warning him that her husband is at home:

Fantasima, fantasima che di notte vai, a coda ritta ci venisti, a coda ritta te nandrai; va
nellorto, a pi del pesco grosso troverai unto bisunto e cento cacherelli della gallina mia:
pon bocca al fiasco e vatti via, e non far mal n a me n a Gianni mio.
(Dec. 7.1.27)
(Ghost, ghost that goes by night, tail erect you came, tail erect take flight: Go to the
garden, to the foot of the great peach tree, and there you will find one greased, and
greased again, and one hundred droppings of my hen: set the flask to your lips, then go
away, and do no harm to me or my Gianni.)

Here is another case of invention and creativity coming to the aid of a wife, and
of a text in this story, a liturgical one, the Te lucis as well as an incantation
or charm from oral folk tradition, used parodically. At the same time, the tale
demonstrates a certain familiarity with contemporary culture on the part of the
female protagonist. As Carlo Delcorno writes in Ironia/parodia, the tales of
Boccaccio are in effect a rewriting, largely parodic, of a wide range of literary
genres, ancient and medieval, oral and written, in prose and verse (in primo
luogo riscrittura, sempre tendenzialmente parodistica, dei pi diversi generi
lettarari: antichi e medievali, orali e scritti, in prosa e in versi 174). In an earlier
study of the seventh tale of this day, Michelangelo Picone anticipates and
confirms Delcornos assessment. In fact, Picone shows how all the elements of
the source story which tells of Egano and the beautiful Beatrice, with whom
Lodovico is madly in love derive from the classic tale of Tristan and Isolde,
and are radically transposed by Boccaccio into a parodic key. Picone sees also
the influence of comic fabliaux, and attributes to the detached, superior style of
narration the tales tonal unity and cultural specificity. 35

6. The Protagonists and Their Characterization: Smart Wives, Foolish

Husbands
The female protagonists of these tales are all young, smart, and beautiful, and,
from what we have seen of them already, their actions are parodically patterned
after classical or even popular literary sources. The husbands, by contrast, are
dumb, would-be saints, simpletons, beastly (besci, santocci, sciocchi,
bestiali); some are unjustifiably jealous, just old, or are trying foolishly to use
their marriages to raise their status. The lover the third person in the love
triangle is of course young, graceful, and handsome. 36

35 La novella decameroniana [7.7] si pone alla confluenza tematica tragica tristaniana,

vista attraverso lo specchio deformante di una prassi letteraria sistematicamente parodica,
e della esperienza comica dei fabliaux, la cui evenemenzialit stata per riscattata sul
piano dellarte da un atteggiamento distaccato e superiore. Di qui la sua unit tonale e la
sua specificit culturale (85).
36 For more on the three persons of the triangle, see Battistini 191-94.
342 Elsa Filosa

A distinctive feature of these women is their superior cunning and

shrewdness vis--vis the foolishness or naivete of their husbands, who all end up
being tricked and betrayed, as Cesare Segre says, speaking of the tales of the
seventh day:

The beffa is not merely a question of self-defense; it also represents the humiliation of the
husband, outmatched by the wifes intelligence or cunning. And Boccaccio is careful to
distinguish sudden accesses of talent called forth by necessity da subito consiglio
aiutata (with an inspiration as happy as sudden, III.27), la donna, alla quale Amore
aveva gi aguzzato co suoi consigli lingegno (the lady, her wits sharpened by love,
IV.16) from a superiority which we might call constitutional (hence the opposition
between con la sua sagacit: by her address, VIII.50, said of the wife; and
scioccamente: foolishly, VIII.4, said of the husband). But on the whole, while the
wifes intelligence is more often demonstrated by the facts than proclaimed, the
husbands lack of intelligence is specifically stressed (il bescio santio: The poor
simpleton, III.29; quella bestia: the fool IV.13; sciocca oppinione: foolish
purpose, IV.17, etc.) and underlined comparatively by the wife herself at V.52-53: Tu
non se savio [] quanto tu se pi sciocco e pi bestiale, cotanto ne diviene la gloria
mia minore [] tu se cieco di quegli [gli occhi] della mente (No wise man art thou
[] the more foolish and insensate thou art, the less glory have I [] thou art [blind] of
the minds eye).
(96)

Women characters in the tales of the seventh day, seem therefore different, if not
completely opposite, in their nature itself from those in other days of the book.
More often than not, the women in the rest of the one hundred tales are
sensitive, perverse, suspicious, pusillanimous and timid (mobili, riottose,
sospettose, pusillanime e paurose Dec. 1. Intro. 75). 37
In short, women are constitutionally and ontologically inferior to men, for
which reason they are placed under mens guidance. Elissa, in the introduction
to the first day, alludes to the teaching of Saint Paul: Without doubt man is
womans head, and, without mans governance, it is seldom that aught that we
do is brought to a commendable conclusion (Veramente gli uomini sono delle
femine capo e senza lordine loro rade volte riesce alcuna nostra opera a
laudevole fine Dec. 1. Intro. 76). 38 Emilia, too, when she is queen of the ninth

37 In the Decameron, we find statements such as: Women [are] one and all more
capricious, for many reasons and founded in nature, which I might adduce;
universalmente le femine sono pi mobili, e il perch si potrebbe per molte ragioni
naturali dimostrare (2.9.15); or this: Sure it is that we (without offence to the men) are
more delicate than they, and much more fickle; Noi pur siamo (non labbiano gli
uomini a male) pi dilicate che essi non sono e molto pi mobili (4.3.6); or: Women
are all by nature apt to be swayed and to fall; Son naturalmente le femine tutte labili e
inchinevoli (9.9.9).
38 As Mazzotta points out (55), the allusion to the Pauls Epistle to the Ephesians is

transparent: Mulieres viris suis subditae sint, sicut Domino: quoniam vir caput est
 Decameron 7: Under the Sign of Venus 343

day, in the introduction to the tale she is about to narrate, ponders the obedience
women owe to men, as something necessary and absolute: obedience and
submission, expressed by Emilia in a language that is narrowly legalistic
(Kirkham 252-53), are required by nature, custom, and the law (dalla natura e
da costumi e dalle leggi). Emilias disquisition summarizes and develops, with
clear verbal repetitions, what was affirmed on the first day, emphasizing, in
perfectly circular fashion, understanding of the female nature and correct
behavior for women. Her long speech on this subject can be related to the
teachings of church fathers, assimilated into precepts of conduct and pastoral
catechisms. 39
Given this context, Day Seven, taking place as it does for the most part in
the Valley of the Ladies, stands out strongly from the whole work. The tales told
here as I noted in Il mondo alla rovescia describe an imaginary upside-
down world, under the sign of Venus, in which the women are superior to the
men, not only sexually but also in cunning and determination . 40 In this way, the

mulieris: sicut Christus caput est Ecclesiae: ipse, salvator corporis ejus. Sed sicut Ecclesia
subjecta est Christo, ita et mulieres viris suis in omnibus (Ephes. 5.22-24).
39 Philosophers and theologians of the Middle Ages always take inspiration from patristic

literature, as DAlverny has pointed out. The theologians, she notes, in their writings on
women, limited themselves to glossing the Scriptures with reference to the writings of the
church fathers, and had nothing original to say; moralists repeat fallacious common
places, the credibility of which is entrusted in ancient sources, that do not allow any
variation on the theme; natural philosophers, meanwhile, were only marginally interested
in these matters (I teologi, a riguardo [della donna], si limitano a glossare i testi della
Scrittura con il supporto degli scritti dei padri della Chiesa, e non si pu sperare di
ricavarne considerazioni originali. I moralisti ripetono luoghi comuni, la cui credibilit,
affidata al tempo, non permette variazioni di nessun tipo, e quanto ai filosofi naturalisti si
sono occupati della questione solo marginalmente 259). For more on the precepts of
conduct that derive from patristic sources, see also Dalarun and, for examples, the
sermons of Humbert de Romans.
40 As Forni has shown (Forme complesse 44-51), the debate on the inexhaustible, and

therefore threatening, disturbing capacity of female eroticism (inesauribile, e quindi

anche minacciosa, inquietante capacit erotica femminile 50) is opened by the characters
of the ninth tale of the second day, Bernab and Ambrogiuolo, and is continued beyond
the plots of the tales into the frame itself of the work, and the conversations the members
of the brigata have among themselves. Filomena supports the theories of Bernab (2.9)
on fidelity and chastity of women; Dioneo, on the other hand, supports the opposing
position (2.10; 3.10); Filostrato aligns himself with Dioneo (3.1). The entire group is a
spectator of the back-and-forth of positions taken by the tales, and it includes the women,
who do not stand by passively, but express their own judgments: Their queens story, by
its beauty [that of Madonna Zinevra], elicited hearty commendation from all the
honourable company (2.10.2), but then all the ladies by common consent
acknowledged that Dioneo was right, and pronounced Bernab a blockhead (di pari
consentimento tutte le donne dissero che Dioneo diceva vero e che Bernab era stato una
bestia 2. Concl. 1). From the assumption that women are lascivious, Filostrato starts off
344 Elsa Filosa

protagonists of Day Seven play tricks on men, banter with them, make them
look ridiculous, manage to betray them under their own eyes, and keep their
lovers, even after being caught in flagrante, and all because of their genial
shrewdness in other words, a world hardly imaginable in the reality of the
1300s, when the Decameron was written. 41
Another clear difference between the ten stories of the seventh day and all
the other tales is the distinctive way in which the conduct of the women is
represented, and it is strictly connected to the distinctive nature of the women in
this particular set of tales. Nowhere in the seventh day are we given the kind of

the third day with an exemplum of such behavior, adding, however, a twist of his own:
women not only want to live erotic lives, they are also insatiable, to the point that the
poor Masetto di Lamporecchio is constrained to say, Madam, I have understood that a
cock may very well serve ten hens, but that ten men are sorely tasked to satisfy a single
woman( Io ho inteso che un gallo basta assai bene a dieci galline, ma che dieci uomini
posson male e con fatica una femina soddisfare 3.1.37). This tale links to the tenth of the
same day, in which Rustico educates Alibech on how to put the devil in Hell ([si]
rimetta il diavolo in inferno). Here, too, the theme is the insatiability of womens libido:
Rustico dissele che troppi diavoli vorrebbono essere a potere il ninferno attutare ma che
egli ne farebbe ci che per lui si potesse (3.10.30). In the conclusion of the third day, the
theme appears again, in the guise of some risqu bantering between the queen of the day,
Neifile, and the incoming king, Filostrato (3. Concl. 13).
41 Women represented in this decade of novellas are really special. It is interesting to

highlight how, in a contrastive comparison with their sources, the misogynous vein of
their literary subtext (when present) is completely deleted. For example, in his analysis of
Dec. 7.9 compared with the Comoedia Lydiae, Picone points out how the moralistic
teaching with misogynous nuances that comes out from the comedy gives place in the
novella to an hedonistic moral based on an opposite filoginist ideology (Linsegnamento
moralistico a sfondo misogino estraibile dalla commedia cede il posto nella novella ad
una morale edonistica fondata su unopposta ideologia filogina 1997, 408). Toce, in her
comparison between Dec. 7.6 and its oriental sources affirms that another difference
between the two narrations lies in the concept of misogyny. This is essential in Sinbad,
where the overwhelming libido in the female protagonist is underlined consistently, for
she is always called woman or adulteress, and not by name. This aspect is completely
absent in the representation in the Decameron and in the conventional attributes given to
Isabella (Unulteriore differenza tra le due narrazioni sta nel concetto di misoginia:
fondamentale nel Sinbad, dove si tende a porre continuamente in evidenza il desiderio
irrefrenabile della protagonista femminile, la quale, come se non bastasse non sempre
viene definita donna, ma persino adultera; tale aspetto risulta invece del tutto assente
nella delicata presentazione decameroniana e nei convenzionali attributi riferiti a
Isabella 175-76). In the case of Peronella, Dec. 7.2, and its classical source, Martinez
argues that Boccaccios deletions of Apuleiuss explicit criticisms of the wife serve to
augment, not diminish, the attack on Peronella and Scrinario by having it emerge from
events and language of the tale itself (203). This point does not change the fact that all
the explicit attacks against the wife have been eliminated in comparison with the original
text. These details underline once more the specificity and singularity of the female
protagonists of the seventh day.
 Decameron 7: Under the Sign of Venus 345

explanations for womens conduct that we find in other parts of the masterpiece.
Examples of the kind of behavior considered socially destabilizing and ethically
immoral, that leads the protagonists of the tales to act on their sexual impulses,
are many. Take, for instance, the similar motives of Ghismonda (4.1) and the
daughter-in-law of the king of France (2.8) in deciding to take on a lover, which
are explained partly in ontological terms, that is, by their constitution and nature:
feminine fragility (4.1.32; II.8.11), the fact they are made of flesh and not of
stone or iron (carne e non di pietra o di ferro 4.1.33), or were prompted by
libido (stimoli della carne 2.8.15); or the law of youth (leggi della
giovinezza 4.1.33; 2.8.14); or even in terms of social class: living in idleness
and richness (ozii e [ne] le dilicatezze 4.1.33; 2.8.12), they are inclined to
eros. As is evident, the range of explanations is wide, and, by and large,
consistent with the conventions of courtly love. We might think that Ghismonda
and the daughter-in-law of the king of France offer, in the elevated style of
discourse that they employ as persons of high rank, more than a justification for
their otherwise unacceptable behavior. 42
Contrary to what we often see in other days, on the seventh day, we never
hear about the womens motives for choosing a lover or seeking sexual
satisfaction, with the sole exception of the fifth tale, where the wife explains her
actions as a response to her husbands excessive jealousy, as if it were a kind of
retribution. Thus, in this day, Boccaccio for the most part throws the reader in
medias res, in a situation already under way, or gives only a brief account of the
beginning of the amorous entanglement. There is no doubt, in the economy of
these stories centering on the tricks that wives play on their husbands, that the
adultery on which the plot is based reaches its high point in the game of cunning
and deception between the married partners. Thus the beffa explains, at least in
part, the absence of any theoretical preambles in defense of betrayal per se.

42
But the protagonists of lower classes also make similar arguments, as we see in tales
of previous days. Bartolomea (2.10) and the wives of Mazzeo della Montagna (4.10) and
Pietro di Vinciolo (5.10) justify themselves on the grounds of youth, in speeches that are
far from short and that constitute a kind of praise for carpe diem. Madonna Filippa (6.7)
appoints herself as her own advocate, in defense of an excessively exuberant feminine
nature; the nuns of Masetto da Lamporecchio (3.1) find their curiosity an excellent
pretext for trying out the pleasures of eros; the widow of Rinaldo dAsti (2.2), employing
a strictly economic argument, decides to make use of the good gift which Fortune even
had sent her (quel bene che innanzi laveva la fortuna mandato 2.2.35). Even Alatiel
(2.7), while not justifying herself in any speech, is exculpated by her storyteller, Panfilo,
who provides justification for her: Mouth, for kisses, was never the worse, rather like
the moon it renews its course (Bocca basciata non perde ventura, anzi rinnuova come
fa la luna 2.7.122).
346 Elsa Filosa

Lasciviousness and eroticism, meanwhile, have a free run, with no prior

justifications needed.

7. Under the Sign of Venus

It seems therefore that the whole of the seventh day is under the sign of earthly
Venus: Licisca, the pseudonym of Messalina, born under an astral conjunction
inclined toward Venus, inspires the theme of the day. These tales are told on a
Thursday (gioved in Italian), namely, in Roman mythology, the day of Jove,
who, in some versions of the myth, was considered the father of Venus (Venus,
Homero teste, Iovis fuit filia et Dyonis Genealogie 11.4.1); Dioneo, descendant
of Dione, the mother of Venus (and thus related in some degree to Venus), is its
king. The Valley of the Ladies is its locus, inspired perhaps by Claudians
Garden of Venus and strongly connected with the idea of femininity, of which
the goddess is representative. The love triangles of the plots mirror the situation
of Venus the young, beautiful, and clever goddess, married, against her will,
to the blacksmith Vulcan, old, ugly, lame, and always at work. Finally, even the
number seven, the number of the day devoted to this kind of tales, points to the
astrological house where Venus resides.
In the stories of Decameron 7, through their experiences as storytellers, the
ten young people come in contact with female carnality and concupiscence,
which have Venus as their protector and sponsor. In his description of the Great
Venus, sixth daughter of Celus, Boccaccio tell us she is a nocturnal creature, a
trickster when it comes to promises, a liar, voluptuary, and, of course, beautiful
in every imaginable way; she likes the game of chess, fornication of all kinds,
lascivious behaviors, numerous couplings, and takes great pleasure in laughter,
dances, lyres, and bagpipes (Gen. 3.22.5) in other words, all the elements that
we find among the female protagonists of the seventh days tales. Moreover, just
as these women have a freer relationship with eros, so too the behavior of the
female narrators changes in recounting their erotic tales. As Rosario Ferreri
astutely notes, the tales of Days Seven through Nine, no matter how lascivious
they might be, may cause laughter but they provoke no shame in the seven
women, who, with few exceptions, make simply generic comments about some
risqu circumstances; they have, evidently, undergone an initiatory experience,
and now respond to the obscene, erotic material of the tales in a more natural
way, without embarassment or shame. In fact, the last tale to cause them to
blush is Madonna Filippas (Dec. 6.7), as Ferreri points out (176).
Having experienced the tales of love between virtuous young people in the
tragic love of the fourth day and in the happy love of the fifth, the group
encounters in the seventh day adulterous and erotic love. The narratives and
lessons take place in the most remote space which the brigata inhabits, called
not by accident the Valley of the Ladies, reachable by a hidden and narrow
entrance. The space is circular and level, shady and humid, and seems, from a
 Decameron 7: Under the Sign of Venus 347

psychoanalytical perspective, a fertile womb, ripe for regenerative action, a

maternal uterus. This place, the most remote from plague-ridden Florence that
the group reaches, is the turning point of their wanderings; from this moment
onward, each step they make takes them back toward a city emptied by death.
They are by now expert in the matters of love in all its aspects; and maybe they
are also ready to generate new citizens under the auspices of magnanimity and
liberality, learnt in the tenth and last Day of the Decameron. 43
The tales of Day Seven, therefore, recounted under the sign of Venus in the
Valley of the Ladies, represent a world turned upside-down, a carnival in which
everything is permitted, an erotic bacchanal, a rite of carnivalesque propitiation
to ensure successful regeneration after the deadly plague, from which the young
people were fleeing at the start of the work and to which they return.
The exceptional nature of the tales of the seventh day is already signaled by
Filostrato in the preamble, in which he makes it clear that the betrayals wrought
by the women in the tales and their trickery are isolated cases:

Carissime donne mie, elle son tante le beffe che gli uomini vi fanno, e spezialmente i
mariti, che, quando alcuna volta avviene che donna niuna alcuna al marito ne faccia, voi
non dovreste solamente esser contente che ci fosse avvenuto o di risaperlo o dudirlo
dire a alcuno, ma il dovreste voi medesime andar dicendo per tutto, acci che per gli
uomini si conosca che, se essi sanno, e le donne daltra parte anche sanno: il che altro che
utile esser non vi pu, per ci che, quando alcun sa che altri sappia, egli non si mette
troppo leggiermente a volerlo ingannare. Chi dubita dunque che ci che oggi intorno a
questa materia diremo, essendo risaputo dagli uomini, non fosse lor grandissima cagione
di raffrenamento al beffarvi, conoscendo che voi similmente, volendo, ne sapreste
beffare? adunque mia intenzion di dirvi ci che una giovinetta, quantunque di bassa
condizione fosse, quasi in un momento di tempo per salvezza di s al marito facesse.
(Dec. 7.2.3-6)
(Dearest ladies, so many are the tricks that men play on you, and most of all your
husbands, that, when from time to time it so happens that some lady plays on her husband
a trick, the circumstance, whether it comes within your own cognizance or is told you by
another, should not only give you joy but should incite you to publish it everywhere, so
that men may be aware, that, clever as they are, their ladies are clever also, which cannot
but be serviceable to you, for one does not rashly seek to deceive someone whom one
knows is not a fool. Can we doubt, then, that, when all we say today comes to be
discussed among men, it will serve to put a most notable check upon the tricks they play
on you, knowing that you, in a similar manner, when you wish, may play the same tricks
on them? So, it is my intention to tell you in what manner a young girl, although she was
of low rank, did, on the spur of the moment, beguile her husband to save herself.)

43 The Veneralia, pagan fertility rites dedicated to Venus, included also a propitiatory

bath for both women and men (just as both women and men bathe in the lake of the
Valley of the Ladies), to enable procreation. The plague of 1348 reduced the population it
affected by two-thirds, according to reliable calculations.
348 Elsa Filosa

What stands out in this passage is, in fact, Filostratos premise: men betray
women much more often than women betray men. Therefore, in Filostratos
mind, these tales display the didactic goal of teaching husbands of the capacities
women have to invent tricks, so that they may restrain themselves or stop
betraying their wives altogether.
The special privilege granted to women in the tales of Day Seven do not last
long, however. In the tales of the following day, in fact, even though they take
as their theme the tricks men and women play on one other and among
themselves (si ragiona di quelle beffe che tutto il giorno o donna a uomo o
uomo a donna o luno uomo allaltro si fanno), the women no longer defeat the
men, with the exception of Monna Picarda (Dec. 8.4), who defends in any case
her wifely chastity against the continual, impertinent advances of the church
provost of Fiesole (by means of a clever device, one that pivots on contemporary
conventional morality). Going back to the second villa and leaving behind the
Valley of the Ladies, the ten young people go back also to the morality of their
time. The fate of women who dare to play tricks on the stronger sex is quite
different from those living in the tales of Day Seven, as Rinieri shows, very
cruelly so much so that Pampinea closes her tale with the words,
Wherefore, my ladies, have a care how you flout men, and more especially
scholars (E per ci guardatevi, donne, dal beffare, e gli scolari
spezialmente 8.7.149).

Vanderbilt University

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