SOURCE: Nissen, Christopher. “Acquisition, Renunciation, and Retribution in The Decameron”. In Ethics of Retribution in the “Decameron” and the Late Medieval Italian Novella: Beyond the Circle, pp. 7-29. Lewiston, N.Y: Mellon University Press, 1993.

[In the following excerpt, Nissen argues that the Decameron reflects a time of shifting values in a society in flux, with Boccaccio exploring some ethical possibilities offered by that society.]

The prevailing interest in the novella as a vehicle for the literary portrayal of society has naturally been directed primarily at the Decameron, the collection which has received the most attention. Decameron studies reveal, in the main, a considerable tendency toward sociological analysis in their approach to the work.¹ It is not difficult to see why: even to the casual glance, Boccaccio appears in his book to be principally concerned with the depiction of society and social values; it is in this depiction that most critics in the past century have sought clues to explain the Decameron's overall meaning. This accent on sociology derives in part from Boccaccio's sustained interest in describing societal relationships, but also to a great extent from the Decameron's clear evidence of kinship with older medieval traditions of exemplary and sententious literature. The text is pervaded with ethical language which appears to suggest that the reader is expected to appreciate the work for its didactic content.² Inevitably, the various sociological studies have frequently centered on the problem of determining precisely how the Decameron is to be read ethically, and this problem has given rise to much controversy. A substantial critical school, inspired by Francesco de Sanctis' assertion over a century ago that Boccaccio was ideologically more dedicated to art than to morality, has found little didactic purpose in the Decameron; greatly impressed by Boccaccio's frequent assertions that his work is meant to give delight, these critics frequently portray him as an “anti-Dante,” dedicated to art and entertainment for their own sakes.³ This trend has more recently been refuted by scholars who have sought instead to emphasize the Decameron's morality, and to clarify the work's meaning through the identification of ethical or didactic notions within the text.⁴Decameron critics have long been inclined toward somewhat polemical refutations of preceding notions in their search for sovrasenso, a single concept summing up the work's overall meaning. The Decameron has been assigned a dizzying array of concise “labels” over the years; few other works of medieval literature have inspired so much controversy.

Although it is by now traditional to begin a new study of the Decameron with a capsule history of earlier Decameron criticism, listing its distinguished canon of theorists, this will not be necessary here. My study will concern itself with ethics, and thus with literary manifestations of sociology, but it is not my intention to declare yet another formula for sovrasenso, to reveal some heretofore undiscovered totalization of meaning in the book. I propose rather to describe what I see as certain primary structures giving us a key to understanding Boccaccio's awareness of the role of ethics in the novellas he creates. The Decameron is generally seen to put forth a grand view of the human experience, a picture made large of man and society. If this is so, then is there a key to help us grasp a unified scheme for the ethics of Boccaccio's novellas? What moral system do they set forth and how does the reader, now or at any other time in history, “read” them ethically? Given the great influence Boccaccio had on subsequent generations of novellieri, how can we trace the wider impact of Boccaccio's ethical notions on the history of the novella genre?

Analysis of ethics necessitates analysis of culture: culture is the matrix within which ethical systems are formulated, and cultural considerations, as manifested in the text, must lie at the root of any examination of Decameron ethics. The hundred tales present a particularly intricate picture in this regard, for within the forest of individual narratives two different cultural worlds can clearly be distinguished, representing two contrasting sets of values.

The critical studies which first emphasized the Decameron's relationship to Trecento culture and society in the 1950's and 1960's frequently stressed the idea that Boccaccio constructed his book around a commingling of aristocratic and bourgeois values.⁵ This approach produced a pair of studies, by Vittore Branca and Mario Baratto, which have provided much of the basis for my own analysis of ethics in terms of the Decameron's cultural dichotomy. In his article “Registri narrativi e stilistici nel Decameron” Branca delineates the two social worlds of the work as they relate to Boccaccio's use of literary style: the real, corresponding to bourgeois values, and the ideal, corresponding to the aristocratic; that is to say the world as it is and the art of living well according to an ideal of virtue.⁶ In Branca's view, Boccaccio epitomizes the division between these stylistic and social realms in his portrayal of two iconic novella characters, Ciappelletto in the first tale and Griselda in the last: Ciappelletto lives according to “ragion di virtù,” akin to the “arte di ben vivere” which infuses the Decameron's general moral message (44). Stylistically the first is comic and “low,” the last is tragic and sublime, with all the tone of hagiographic narrative. These two stories are the “gothic pilasters” of Boccaccio's great building, and stand as points of reference for all that goes on between them. The two worlds are fluid, not rigidly delineated: they may share a single topos in many novellas, for example that of mistaken amorous encounters in the dark, and yet remain intact and distinct in terms of style. This topos appears in numerous tales as different as those of Frate Alberto (4.2) and Tito and Gisippo (10.8); stylistically the tone of the stories varies from the low to the lofty yet the topos remains the same. Style is the key: word choice, portrayal of sentiments, use of cursus tell us which world, ideal or real, is being presented. Implicit in the ideal/real dichotomy is a sense of variability of ethical worlds, for the social values between the two are so at odds as to create opposing ethical systems. Branca does not, however, explore this idea systematically or at any great length. Overall Branca's view of the Decameron reveals a progression from vice to virtue, from “low” to “high,” from Ciappelletto to Griselda: what Branca does not seek to describe are the ethical subcategories we may be able to identify in conjunction with his stylistic registri.

Style is also the subject of Mario Baratto's study Realtà e stile nel Decameron, and like Branca he searches for a breakdown into categories, a description of divisions into discrete stylistic tendencies, based primarily on considerations of genre type. Barratto's intent is to isolate and describe the stylistic patrimony that Boccaccio passes on to succeeding generations, and he acknowledges that Branca in his “Registri narrativi e stilistici” does much the same thing, although we are told Branca's biform structure does not fit exactly into Baratto's more complicated scheme (12, note 3). Baratto sees Branca's division between comic and tragic overcome and even nullified by a more complex internal dialectic between various narrative modes. Nonetheless he finds a place for Branca's biform scheme in his discussion of the Decameron's moral content. Throughout the Decameron, says Baratto, mercantile ethics predominate but co-exist uneasily with aristocratic ethics, as they are most plainly set forth in the Tenth Day; this we may regard as a manifestation of the crisis of the new bourgeoisie which required recourse to other ethical systems in its illustration of examples of high virtue (62-65). Mercantile morality is the overriding norm of the Decameron, but it is jarred by the intrusion of aristocratic ideals of magnanimity and self-sacrifice. Baratto resolves this confusion by calling Boccaccio's world view openminded and intuitive, and his moral vision by necessity provisional, capable of shifting according to the situation confronting novella characters (59-62). There can be no totalizing morality, such as can be found in Dante's Commedia. Baratto regards the ethics of novella texts as separate from the moralizing commentary which appears in the cornice; for him such observations are marginal to the ethical world view revealed within the novellas themselves (52). The novella texts do not set out to display established truths according to a programmatic, inviolate system: they only show us “situazioni da verificare” (53). Man is judged by man, not by God or any other higher truth. According to Baratto, Boccaccio forges his sense of ethics out of the choices characters must make when confronted by the dominant forces of the Decameron's world: nature, fortune and society. In terms of social structures Boccaccio's provisional sense of novella ethics manifests itself along the lines of the confrontation between bourgeois and aristocratic values: the resulting scheme for ethics resembles that which Branca would like to impose upon the Decameron's stylistic diversity.

For all his dismissal of Branca's biform analysis of Boccaccio's style as too simplistic, Baratto cannot resist noting a similar tendency toward duality and polarization in his own discussion of the clash between different social realities in the Decameron. Boccaccio, the merchant's son who spent his young manhood in the Angevin court, could not help but aid in portraying the moral crisis of his age when he set out to write a book that he felt should be built of discrete cultural elements. Baratto recognizes the split between the ethical consciousness of the merchant class and that of the aristocracy as Boccaccio sets it forth, and indeed he must, for without such recognition the Decameron's moral structure becomes very difficult to comprehend. Deprived of this awareness we would be baffled not only by the startling co-existence of novella characters such as Ciappelletto, Guglielmo Borsiere, Frate Cippolla and Griselda within a single work, but also by the differing moralistic observations that the tale-tellers themselves make concerning their novellas. To a great extent Branca's ideal/real scheme is of primary importance not only for understanding Boccaccio's use of style, but also for understanding his moral consciousness and how he applies it to his text. Different values are evoked according to the different worlds portrayed, and it is only in the unifying light of the cornice, which links the disparate parts and infuses them with wider meaning, that we are able to recognize the Decameron as an integral text and, indeed, a monument of world literature.

Branca, searching for the medieval elements in the work, finds patterns and thematic subdivisions in its structure and even has recourse, as we have already noted, to medieval architectonic metaphor when he calls the tales of Ciappelletto and Griselda “gothic pilasters” holding all the novellas together and giving them meaning within a scheme of linear progress toward a quasi transcendent goal. Branca's view of Boccaccio's “human comedy” reveals a world dominated by the three primary forces of Fortuna, Amore and Ingegno, which receive final summation in the apotheosis of Virtù in the Tenth Day.⁷ For Branca, a correct reading of the Decameron requires awareness not only of the stylistic and cultural dichotomy which distinguishes between real and ideal worlds, but also awareness of the schematic subdivisions that tell of different realms of human experience. In this study I intend to demonstrate further the Decameron's susceptibility to such a paradigmatic approach by postulating a system of three ethical modes for Boccaccio's novellas. I do not set this system forth in order to refute Branca's reading or indeed to reduce Decameron exegesis to yet another facile definition of sovrasenso, but rather to provide a key, as yet undescribed by others, to help us comprehend patterns of textual ethics as they are manifested within the work. I shall now proceed to an explanation of what I mean by ethical modes, beginning with an exposition of some of the general features of the ethical structures of the Decameron novellas.

Boccaccio's purpose in writing the Decameron is stated plainly enough in his proemio—he means to provide delight and entertainment for women (7-8, 10). The brigata's purpose in recounting novellas, as Boccaccio has his character Pampinea inform us, is to find the most pleasant way to pass the hot hours of the afternoon during a self-imposed exile from a scene of iniquity, dissolution and death (47, 111). Such emphasis on delight and entertainment should not, however, lull us into forgetting that the 101 stories contained within the Decameron (100 tales recounted by the brigata, and one tale told by the author himself in the introduction to the Fourth Day) are derived from literary traditions substantially endowed with exemplaristic or didactic characteristics. Boccaccio calls his stories “novelle, o favole, o parabole, o istorie”; in explaining these terms Branca reminds us that we may identify several literary traditions standing behind the Decameron stories, among them exempla, parables, fabliaux and tales of historical figures.⁸ In the mind of the medieval reader some of these traditions were primarily moralistic and indeed all of them had at least some didactic purpose. Even the fabliau, which differs ideologically from the exemplum, often explicitly claims in its concluding verses that the reader may derive an edifying lesson from the humorous story it has set forth.⁹ In any case the medieval reader would have had ample cause to expect moralistic content in any collection of tales because so many previous collections, such as the well known Libro dei sette savi, Gesta romanorum, Disciplina clericalis, etc. were primarily and explicitly exemplary.¹⁰ Indeed the Decameron provides, in the form of commentary on the novellas contained within it, constant references to the didactic potential of the tales. Each novella seeks to illustrate a certain human truth, and the tale teller often sets out in the opening commentary (or cappello) to explain what the novella reveals and what the hearer may learn from it. Let this example, drawn from the cappello to 3.3, be regarded as characteristic of a tendency which pervades the whole work:

La quale (beffa), o piacevole donne, io racconterò non solamente per seguire l'ordine imposto, ma ancora per farvi accorte che eziandio che i religiosi, a' quali noi oltre modo credule troppa fede prestiamo, possono essere e sono alcuna volta, non che dagli uomini, ma da alcune di noi cautamente beffati.

(347: 3.3, 4)

Leaving aside the irreverent irony implicit in the lesson, as the tricking of priests is certainly not usually a feature of the exemplum, we can still note that Filomena's purpose here is to “farvi accorte,” to instruct through an example. In numerous other cappelli a preferred term is “dimostrare,” or “mostrare”: the terminology of didactic literature.¹¹

It would nonetheless be a mistake to conclude from these observations that the Decameron is collection of exempla in the same fashion as the Disciplina clericalis or the Libro dei sette savi. It clearly is not. The true exemplum is an aphorism expanded into narrative, ultimately a tool of the sermon wherein it aids the illustration of universal truths, external to the tale itself, which become crystallized in the form of a sentenza. Lucia Battaglia Ricci calls the exemplum “la verifica narrativa di una tesi precedentemente enunciata,” distinguishing it from the novella as created by Boccaccio in that it does not employ “mimetic” narration based on the actual experiences of life.¹² Unlike the exemplum, the novella may advocate a clear-cut behavioral norm and at the same time consciously seek to entertain its audience without appearing to contradict itself. The primary purpose of the Decameron is not to educate its readers in the same way exempla collections do: we may note that the truths illustrated in the Decameron are not always oriented toward teaching correct behavior, toward helping the reader distinguish between right and wrong actions. We see this characteristic in the stories of the Second Day, which present by and large ethically neutral messages meant to reveal the effects of fortune on human affairs. These novellas show human truths without seeking to establish a norm for correct behavior or correct choices made by individuals.¹³ Nonetheless the Decameron novella frequently employs homiletic structures that ultimately derive from both the exemplum and the fabliaux: it does “demonstrate” truths rendered explicit by statements in the cornice structure (external to the narrative world of the novella itself, and thus akin to the sentenza of more specifically exemplaristic tale types), truths which give the story some additional purpose beyond mere entertainment. The medieval reader, accustomed to expect homiletic structures and content in most kinds of short tales and tale collections, would hardly be surprised to find them substantially present in the Decameron.¹⁴

These homiletic structures, pertaining to individual novellas, are set within the wider context of the cornice's own value system, which in turn is enclosed by the proemio's stated purpose, to undertake the kind and compassionate task of entertaining confined females. The brigata demonstrates proper conduct through words and behavior without resorting to blatant didacticism or indeed bothering to go far in analyzing the apparent ethical contradictions between the various novellas. Baratto notes that the central stated exigency of the text, that of the need to seek recreation through delight, tends to overcome any tendencies of the brigata characters to make moralizing comments.¹⁵ The brigata derives its sense of manners and propriety from the nexus between two seemingly contradictory social needs, those of discretion and delight, of “onestà” and “diletto”: together they provide for a sort of ambiguity which precludes an overtly moralistic tone. The linking factor in the presentation of so many ethically varied novellas, so heterogenous in values, is the essential law of “diletto.” Indeed it seems a law, set out for us repeatedly by the brigata and so pointedly that it attains something of a didactic tone:

Amorose donne, se io ho bene la ‘intenzione di tutte compresa, noi siamo qui per dovere a noi medesimi novellando piacere; e per ciò solamente che contro a questo non si faccia, estimo a ciascuno dovere essere licito (e cosí ne disse la nostra reina, poco avanti, che fosse) quella novella dire che piú crede che possa dilettare …

(83: 1.4, 3)

This didacticism is provisional, a characteristic of the exigencies of this particular group (“se io ho bene la ‘ntenzione di tutte compresa”); these people have made a point all along of spending this brief interlude in their lives according to a provisional moral code, since plague-stricken Florence has been temporarily deprived of morals. When Dioneo repeats these sentiments later on in the cappello to 5.10, “diletto” is again a prime factor in justifying the choice of action of the brigata:

E per ciò che la fatica, la quale altra volta ho impresa e ora son per pigliare, a niuno altro fine riguarda se non a dovervi torre malinconia, e riso e allegrezza porgervi, quantunque la materia della mia seguente novella, innamorate giovani, sia in parte men che onesta, però che diletto può porgere, ve la pur dirò.

(693: 5.10, 4)

Diletto and onestà here clash head on, and diletto has the better part of the encounter. Ethically the brigata tends more to distance itself from the novellas than to live according to their systems, all the while providing judgments in the cappelli which point up valuable lessons to be derived from each novella. After paring away the Decameron's various textual layers, from the proemio to the cornice, we arrive at the novellas and their own peculiar moral world, infused with didactic content by their cappelli which most properly belong to the textual world of the cornice. This brings us to the basic question which has long been asked: what is the prevailing sense of ethics in the Decameron novellas? How can we identify a moral system which predominates in the exemplary actions of their characters? The simple answer is that there is no single system. The dichotomy of values and cultural settings in the Decameron, the clear distinction between “mondo aristocratico” and “mondo comunale,” provide us with a pair of differing systems. As Branca speaks of “registri stilistici,” he might well have distinguished between corresponding “registri etici.” Ethics in its most fundamental sense constitutes the potential for an individual to make correct choices of action in a social context. In the majority of Decameron novellas one or more characters are presented as making clear choices for right action; these are the protagonists with whom the reader is expected to identify, whose moral choices are defensible according to a moral system fully understood and accessible in terms of reader expectations. The peculiarity of the Decameron is that it has more than one such system; previous tale collections typically do not present so much variety in this regard. The Decameron is a document of the urban Italian Trecento, representing a society in a state of flux and social change, with a concomitant shifting of values.

With the Decameron it becomes necessary to talk of opposing ethical systems, opposing modes of ethical discourse which, on the level of the text, embrace a wide variety of factors: elements of style mingle with presentation of character type and sociological references to create an overall tone of “propriety” for a given novella. Recognition of the ethical mode which predominates in a novella involves awareness of the most fundamental goals of the character whom the text presents as morally defensible, a sense of which basic choices result in the presentation of the moral good, of how a just end is achieved. To some extent this can be determined through the didactic statements of the frame characters in the cappelli, but the central element for establishing a tale's ethical content must lie in choices, the choices that characters are shown to make as the story unfolds. Boccaccio is the first European tale teller to pay careful attention to this point; the characters he creates are imbued with a moral individuality which allows them to break out of the flat iconic molds of the exemplum tradition.¹⁶ The notion that action is the principal narrative element of the Decameron novella has been made much of by formalist and structuralist students of Boccaccio, and the observations of such critics as Tzvetan Todorov and Marga Cottino-Jones in this regard show a certain awareness of the ethical implications inherent in characters' choices of action.¹⁷ I hope now to demonstrate how these choices, embodying the basic ethical substance of the Decameron novella, can be reduced to three fundamental patterns of behavior, patterns which we may conveniently term ethical modes.

The ethical mode which is perhaps most fundamental to the Decameron is the one in which characters may be seen to gain materially or hedonistically while remaining praiseworthy; the example they set is one upholding the propriety of gain. This mode is most readily associated with Giorgio Padoan's “mondo comunale,” with Branca's “mondo reale” or “mondo comico”: for the purposes of this study I would like to call it Ethics of Acquisition. Opposite it, naturally enough, stands a contrary mode in which material or hedonistic gains are foregone according to another system of values: this is the mode corresponding to the “mondo ideale,” to be associated with adherence to aristocratic or feudal values of magnanimity, charity or largesse. This mode I will call Ethics of Renunciation. Ethics of Acquisition and Ethics of Renunciation are the opposing moral poles of the novella characters; their correct choices in society frequently reflect clear identification with one or the other of these modes. Yet these two are not sufficient in themselves to describe all motivation for right behavior in Boccaccio's characters, and indeed one more mode remains to be described. This is Ethics of Retribution wherein “right” characters deliberately (or at times, instead, almost unwittingly), set out to correct or punish the behavior of “wrong” ones who are often clearly labelled as such.

I must stress that these modes may go beyond considerations of novella type or stylistic mood. Ethical modes do not always correspond exactly or uniformly to the social status of characters or to the different narrative styles, “high” and “low,” to be found in the Decameron, despite the clear tendency of Renunciation to be a characteristic of the ideal world and Acquisition to be a characteristic of the real, as we have noted. These modes reflect, in the most direct way, the primary goals and choices of action of ethically correct characters. Seen in these terms, such characters are either acquiring, relinquishing or punishing: in their actions lies the essence of whatever moral message the reader may extract from the tale. Reading the tales in terms of ethical modes allows for some blurring of the lines between various stylistic tale types, for Acquisition is not solely a motivation of lower class characters in the more comic situations of adultery and beffa, and Renunciation is not solely the domain of aristocratic or solemnly tragic figures, despite the fact that such modes derive ultimately from the spirit and mood of different, even opposing, social worlds. Ghismonda (4.1), an aristocrat, chooses a moral good in the name of personal gain while Cisti (6.2), a baker, chooses to do right in the name of virtuous renunciation. The values according to which Cisti lives his life derive ultimately from the cortesia of the feudal aristocracy and are therefore to be associated with the “mondo aristocratico”; the fact that here a baker lives by them merely reflects the intricate state of social consciousness in Trecento Florence, the confluence of societal norms as Boccaccio sees them. In his stylistic analysis Baratto recognizes distinct variations of story type in the Decameron which he identifies according to a variety of criteria, so that ultimately he can identify in each tale categories he calls racconto, romanzo, novella, contrasto, etc.¹⁸ We may be inclined to recognize the validity of this approach and yet not feel we must reject the validity of a scheme of ethical modes, for the two systems can co-exist and even overlap without contradiction. The Decameron, as I have said, is highly susceptible to paradigmatic analysis, to division into categories reflecting variations in narrative type. On different planes different subdivisions, which are not necessarily mutually exclusive, suggest themselves. On one plane, the stylistic, we may follow Baratto's lead and identify tale types which, we may then find, cannot correspond to wholly different subdivisions on another plane, the ethical. We have noted how Branca recognizes the stylistic variability of certain Decameron topoi, such as confusion of identity in darkened beds: a topos is fluid, interchangeable, not fixed by a certain stylistic category. In a similar way an ethical mode may prevail to some extent in differing stylistic categories: the solemn, tragic tone of Ghismonda's tale does not preclude acquisition, so often to be associated with comic characters, as a factor in this particular character's choice of goals. Simple acquisition does not go far enough in describing the motivations of a protagonist as richly complex as Ghismonda, who in the end becomes a tragic heroine relinquishing her very life, but it is certainly a feature of her initial motivations in carefully choosing a lover to satisfy the longings of her body. This story can stand as an example of contamination of modes: acquisition is here glorified by an act of sublime renunciation, renunciation of life itself in the name of love. Boccaccio's ethical modes relate to his differing novella types in the same way his topoi do; they are capable of shifting somewhat between stylistic categories.

Through examination of various structural features in and around a given novella we may form a kind of ethical “portrait” of it, a portrait which leads us to conclusive identification of the ethical mode which predominates in it. The two novellas I have chosen as introductory models for analysis show us traits of acquisition (Agilulf and the groom, 3.2) and renunciation (Federigo degli Alberighi and the falcon, 5.9).

The novella of Agilulf provides us with some intriguing moral material because its presentation of didactic content is not simplistic or linear: the king and his groom each present different, parallel moral lessons. It is a novella about which a great deal can be said with regard to the subject of ethics.

The first line of approach in determining the ethical content of this novella (or indeed that of any Decameron novella) is to take note of certain external factors belonging more properly to the cornice than to the text of the novella itself, but which provide the initial orientation for the study of novella ethics. Of primary importance is awareness of the day in which the novella is recounted: here we are in the Third Day, wherein we read of novella protagonists who gain things they want or regain lost things through their own cleverness, through human intelligence which can defeat the machinations of Fortune. Given this awareness, we can readily identify the protagonist of this tale and recognize in him those qualities of wit which, in the context of this day's theme, are set forth for our admiration. He is the pallafreniere, or groom, and the choices of action he makes are those which are ethically correct for this particular narrative moment in the Decameron. We are clearly expected to find him praiseworthy, for he gains something he has long desired, and gains it through cleverness.

Still within the realm of the cornice lies the next element we must consider, i.e. the cappello, placed in this case in the mouth of Pampinea:

Sono alcuni sí poco discreti nel voler pur mostrare di conoscere e di sentire quello che per loro non fa di sapere, che alcuna volta per questo, riprendendo i disaveduti difetti, in altrui, si credono la lor vergogna scemare là dove essi l'acrescono in infinito: e che ciò sia vero nel suo contrario, mostrandovi l'astuzia d'un forse di minor valore tenuto che Masetto, nel senno d'un valoroso re, vaghe donne, intendo che per me vi sia dimonstrato.

(338-339: 3.2, 3)

There is a sort of contradiction here, which makes this story so interesting. Boccaccio means the protagonist to be the groom but a major part of the story's moral lesson will derive from the right actions of the king, his antagonist. The first will be acclaimed for his astuzia while the second will appear to be no less admired for his senno. Boccaccio stresses the king's discretion and wisdom in the cappello, and as it turns out, these will be characteristics which will apply as well to the groom, who is so careful to hide his love. Boccaccio's language tells us about his characters' motivations—they act in their own best interests, for personal gain. The two main characters stand in conflict, but each has a reward of sorts. The groom outwits the king but the king makes the best of things by displaying a discretion uncommon to men in his position: his senno provides a contrast for the groom's astuzia. In the wider context of the Decameron, wit and discretion emerge as essential components of Ethics of Acquisition—they recur constantly when characters are to be praised for gain. Traditional “high” virtue, as it appears in Boccaccio's world, is exemplified best by acts of renunciation and liberality, and can frequently be a public act designed to attract attention and general praise. On the other hand acquisition, for all that it may be a good thing and an ethically correct goal, is best sought away from the public eye, in the margins of social awareness. In this novella all is done in secret: the king discovers something it behooves men in his position never to know (“che per loro non fa di sapere”). Having discovered it he shows great wisdom in staying discreet and maintaining appearances, gaining thereby the avoidance of shame and tranished honor. Likewise the groom acts secretly and to his consistent advantage, first in assuaging his love desire, second in employing his astuzia to outwit the king.

Curiously, Pampinea mentions “i disaveduti difetti” with reference to acts like those of the groom. Branca's footnote calls these “le colpe non conosciute, non evidenti, nascoste.”¹⁹ This term “difetti” reminds us that Boccaccio's Ethics of Acquisition treads a narrow line between sin and virtue (unlike Ethics of Renunciation, the type of traditional, aristocratic “high” virtue which is closer to Christian ethics) and that acquisition for personal gain, even in the context of a didactic lesson, still occurs at someone else's expense. Baccaccio was very aware of how controversial his tendency to uphold Ethics of Acquisition would become, as we realize in reading those passages in the Decameron which defend the work against critical reproach for moral content.²⁰ Throughout the Decameron, what may seem a “difetto” to one person may become another's ethical right, the right to acquire what he or she wants, the more so since it is “disaveduto,” i.e. done discreetly.

The creation of the ethical portrait continues in the presentation of the natures and deeds of the characters. About Agilulf we read standardized, positive things: he is a good king, whose vertù and senno make his kingdom prosper (339, 5). Similar terminology may be found in exemplary portraits of good potentates throughout medieval literature, in the historical tales of the Novellino and the Fiori e vita dei filosafi to cite examples near in time and tone to the Decameron. Agilulf's “goodness” as a positive character is given great emphasis in his initial description and this becomes a basic premise of the tale.²¹ The portrait of the groom reflects instead certain ideals of the medieval love lyric. He is proud to love far beyond his station (“pur seco si gloriava che in alta parte avesse allogati i suoi pensieri”) and in any case his “vilissima condizione” does not preclude greatness of soul capable of the highest and most worthy passions (399, 5-7). In the fashion of the love ideal of the dolce stil novo, we are reminded here that social rank has nothing to do with ability to feel such stirrings and to dedicate oneself to faithful service in love. Boccaccio takes pains to sanctify the pallafreniere's bizarre passion, to ennoble it, by describing him in such terms. His love is rendered proper, even solemn, by these references to codes of amorous behavior; there are echoes here of certain doctrinal pronouncements of Andreas Cappellanus.²² In his own humble way the groom provides the requisite courtly service to his lady, becoming her most loyal attendant. He associates himself all the more to the culture of the high love ethic when he contemplates suicide, the ultimate sacrifice of the desperate courtly lover (340). Boccaccio feeds the reader a steady stream of such specific references designed to arouse feelings of sympathy for the groom's state and admiration for his behavior, yet we can detect elements here of Boccaccio's typical merging of social and ethical currents, in keeping with his recognition of the peculiar state of Trecento culture. The groom's sexual conquest of a completely unaware love object by means of a clever trick is not typical of the more exalted love traditions, and is certainly far from the ideals of fin' amors. It is, in fact, the amor naturale which is so often manifested in Boccaccio's tales of middle class sexual adventures, reworked with the trappings of that amor cortese which pervades the Decameron, even in untraditional contexts. The groom may be moved by the highest feelings of love, and he may be inclined to conceive of that love in highflown terms, but the fact remains that he can never reveal even the slightest hint of his desire to his lady nor to anyone else, because of the stark social realities which are the essence of this tale. His love is not so much unrequited as completely unknown to anyone. The groom, faced with the choice between lyric anguish in the face of utter deprivation and cunning action in the name of acquisition, chooses the latter, rendering his lady an absolutely passive object to be gained by skill, instead of a lofty domma whose mercy must be sought through heartfelt pleas.

Thus we see that the groom reflects not only ideals of service and sacrifice, but also the shrewdness of the realist, as befits a protagonist of the Third Day. He is intelligent enough to know that revelation of his desire will gain him nothing, so he says nothing and makes no gesture that might betray him (339, 6). He comes to his choice of action through rational reflection and assessment of his condition: “E pensando seco del modo, prese per partito di volere questa morte per la quale apparisse lui morire per l'amore che alla reina aveva portato e portava: e questa cosa propose di voler che tal fosse, che egli in essa tentasse la sua fortuna in potere o tutto o parte aver del suo desidero” (340, 10). His situation is so hopeless that death must be his prime course of action, and yet it is a kind of rational death, oriented towards a challenge of fortune that might give him all or part of his desire and thereby infuse his act with purpose and significance. He commits this deed in the name of acquisition, an acquisition which we are clearly to perceive as righteous. After he takes his brief possession of the queen's body he resolves not to lose the bliss he has acquired (“pur temendo non la troppo stanza gli fosse cagione di volgere l'avuto diletto in tristizia” 342, 16), so he discreetly withdraws and preserves his life. Against all odds, through intelligence, he achieves his goal.

The most overtly didactic message of the tale arises from the example of the king's discretion, as indicated by the cappello and borne out by repeated assertions made in the narrator's own voice. But the tale resolves itself in a battle of wits between the groom and the king, with repeated references to the intelligence of both. Each makes the best of a bad situation and is content with the outcome. The king acts not only to preserve his own honor but also that of his queen, whose innocence he is shrewd enough (and merciful enough) to recognize (342, 18). The portraits of the deeds and natures of these men stress both their intelligence and competence in acting in their own best interests. The groom gained as much as fortune would ever concede him, and as he is wise enough to recognize this fact, he never again will so tempt fate (“né piú la sua vita in sí fatto atto commise alla fortuna” 345, 31). Ethics of Acquisition is the ethics of rational choice, of the intellect and the process of intellection, of the wise recognition of the scope and limits of the gifts of fortune. All of these characteristics are well reflected in this novella, and recur frequently in many others throughout the Decameron.

The novella of Federigo, which we shall use as a model for the mode of Renunciation, is told in the Fifth Day, wherein love stories have happy endings. For most of the tales of this day the predominant mode tends to be Acquisition, so Federigo's stands as something of an exception. And indeed, Fiammetta's cappello gives no clear indication of which mode will come to the fore, since she only alludes in passing to Federigo's great sacrifice by telling the ladies that this story will show how deep an influence they have on men of noble hearts (“… quanto la vostra vaghezza possa ne' cuor gentili …” 682, 3). Fiammetta leaves the question of characters' choices of action out of her preamble, concentrating instead on a didactic message for the discerning reader: the tale should inspire ladies to bestow their amorous gifts as they themselves choose, not as Fortune, the fickle arbiter, would decide. We must therefore establish the dominant ethical mode of this tale through the presentation of characters within the novella text itself, through the portrayal of their choices and deeds, most notably Federigo's.

Of Federigo we hear that he is a nobleman distinguished in arms and cortesia (682-683, 5). The word cortesia immediately channels us into a moral atmosphere that differs significantly from that of the tale of Agilulf, despite Agilulf's regality and kingly virtue. Specific mention of cortesia evokes an ideal, in which desire for gain is submerged by the need for magnanimity and self-sacrifice; avarice has no place in the corte d'amore, the poetic realm of the courtly lover.²³ We have shifted ethical worlds and expectations. Various topoi consonant with the world of cortesia and the feudal aristocracy now begin to present themselves: for example, we see now a topos not uncommon in the novella tradition, that of the lovesick knight who jousts to win his love and is left impoverished.²⁴ Despite his ultimate motivation, which is that of desire to possess a woman, his acts are those of feudal service, which take the form of sacrifice and adherence to a sense of duty. Left poor, we hear that he endures his lot with patience, as befits a man who has dedicated himself to chivalric ideals of dignity in the face of defeat. Throughout this novella Boccaccio sounds the note of cortesia with the kinds of characters he presents, their activities (jousting, falconry), their humble and decorous ways of addressing one another, etc. In tales of this sort, Boccaccio tempers his characters' naked desire for gain with the solemnity of aristocratic ritual (as we see in Federigo's dedication to knightly service for love) or with the stylized and quasi-surreal topoi of the romance tradition (as in the case of the boy who falls grievously ill and can only be cured by gaining the object of his desire.)²⁵ Humility, honorable deeds and self-sacrifice predominate over the gross motivations of acquisition. Boccaccio balances his portrait of the gentle nobleman Federigo with those of the other characters who, nonetheless, belong to the class of the borghesia. Giovanna has the principal qualities of faithful devotion to her husband and tender love for her son, while the husband himself is honorable and generous.

Boccaccio employs elements of cortesia in constructing his tale and characters, but allows these elements to mingle with certain traits more typical of the middle class: for example, Federigo's love has no regard for those tenets of aristocratic love doctrine which demand a man choose for a love object a woman higher born than himself. Moreover, when Giovanna finds herself dealing with her brothers' objections in her choice of a new husband, we must recognize a motif more typical of the world of the borghesia, one which would naturally appear out of place in the cortesia ambience. But all this hardly puts the novella on a different track. A melancholy tone of lofty renunciation has been sustained throughout the tale, and this tone is not substantially jarred by the addition of the brothers' concerns. Boccaccio wants to resolve his tale in terms of the Fifth Day's overall theme of love tales with happy endings, and the device of marriage allows him to do this even though it runs counter to the tale's primary narrative focus. The brothers' role and the marriage stand as a sort of detached element in the novella, added to help us recognize the benefits the borghese Giovanna has derived from her lesson in aristocratic virtues. By her appreciation of Federigo's gesture, Giovanna can be “promoted” into the ranks of the aristocracy—we can regard her as an exemplum of manners for her class. Marriage is the social mechanism which, in effect, creates this “promotion.”

Boccaccio builds his tale around a central act of pathetically ironic renunciation: the confused Federigo, challenged to commit a great act of self-sacrifice in the name of hospitality and courtly largesse, unwittingly eliminates his chance to earn his lady's favor through bestowing the falcon to her alive—in effect, one act of renunciation precludes the other, leaving him profoundly distressed (“m'è sí gran duolo che servire non ve ne posso, che mai pace non me ne credo dare” 689, 36). This tragic sense of irony is heightened by the lady's grief at what she has brought about and by the eventual death of the boy. But sacrifice, for the faithful knight no less than for the pious Christian, has its reward in final acquisition, and Federigo gains both the woman and material wealth at the tale's conclusion. This resolution in marriage and material gain shows how completely Boccaccio allows his tale to be pervaded by elements of the borghese-comunale world, and yet we must still note that Federigo is motivated not so much by borghese intelligence as by dogged adherence, in the face of all rejection and adversity, to the ideals of cortesia. His moral lesson is one of the value of renunciation.

In both of these novellas, the prime substance of plot lies in the protagonist's central choice of action. The groom chooses his secret conquest of the queen, and Federigo chooses to sacrifice his falcon. Each choice reflects a completely separate moral ideal. Character choice combines with lesser factors such as style, character type, topoi, etc. to produce varying moral moods, which is to say (in terms of the present study) varying ethical modes. These moods reflect patterns of character behavior and plot which in time become familiar to the reader of the Decameron novellas, resolving themselves into predictable and recurring conclusions for the different tales. Exposition of the system of ethical modes helps us analyze and systematize the varying moral atmospheres that infuse different novellas in turn, allowing us to understand characteristics which otherwise can appear vague and even contradictory.

Although all Decameron novellas tend toward a certain specific and readily identifiable cultural orientation, some of them may still resist easy categorization according to ethical modes: these are for the most part the stories in which human choice of action is not an important factor. This is especially true of the tales of the Second Day; here the driving force shaping human affairs is not so much free will as the machinations of fortuna, or adverse circumstance. Nevertheless this day can be said to play an indirect role in the presentation of ethical modes, for the illustration of the effects of fortuna, as introduced here, attains its true culmination in the eventual triumph of Ethics of Acquisition in the Third Day, wherein characters achieve their desires and defeat fortuna through their own intelligence. Thus the tales of the Second Day ultimately make a contribution to Boccaccio's general apotheosis of the power of human intelligence and the capacity of individuals to control the world around them.

The figure of Ciappelletto is also quite problematic, not because he makes no choice, but because the choice he makes defies easy interpretation in terms of ethics. This tale of a profoundly evil man who becomes a saint through a false deathbed confession appears as a tissue of ironies, ironies no less apparent in the tale-teller's commentary than in the story itself. The narrator Panfilo presents the novella as an illustration of the notion that God, through his infinite mercy, will grant sincere prayers even if they are mistakenly directed at false saints. But the reader finds this tone of exemplary righteousness attenuated by the comic portrayals of both the overly naive confessor and the simple-minded Burgundians who are all too quick to venerate the supposed saint. Even though the topic is serious, and Panfilo's pronouncements are quite solemn, the story comes across as something of an amusing parody of that most solemn of genres, the saint's life.²⁶

Nor does the text make completely clear Ciappelletto's motivations for choosing to make his outrageous confession. His hosts, expatriate Italian businessmen, are afraid their affairs will suffer if Ciappelletto dies without confession in their house, and yet they imagine that any true confession of his iniquities will surely lead to an equally detrimental denial of absolution (56-57, 23-26). Ciappelletto reassures them that he will arrange things to their advantage if they will but fetch a confessor. He says he has done so much to offend God that one more sin could make no difference, but we are left wondering about his real motivations for this uncharacteristic altruism. Boccaccio allows him to speak, but does not reveal his innermost thoughts, nor permit us to follow the interior deliberations which lead to his act of perverse generosity.²⁷ We see him choose, but we are not made to understand his choice.

If we examine Ciappelletto in terms of ethical modes, we can almost trace a hint of Ethics of Renunciation in his willingness to sacrifice his chances for salvation, however remote, for the good of his compatriots, while the wily trick he plays on the monk shows some parallels with the actions of Boccaccio's many heroes of ethically correct acquisition. But we cannot acribe the overall tone of this novella to either of these modes. No matter how much some of his deeds may resemble those of Boccaccio's many morally justified characters, it is well not to forget what a monster he has deliberately been made out to be. He cannot play the role of the ethically correct protagonist, for this story is not meant to have such a protagonist.²⁸ Like Frate Alberto (4.2), Ciappelletto as a central character amuses us, but does not gain our admiration. The ethical substance of this story is not transmitted through the characters' actions within the narrative, but rather through the external “application,” which appears as the narrator's final commentary. This is not Boccaccio's usual pattern; he rarely has the brigata pronounce anything more than the sketchiest of concluding comments at the end of a novella. We are close here, in a certain sense, to the world of the traditional exemplum, wherein characters' choices are not especially relevant, and the story in and of itself is neither moral nor immoral—what matters ultimately is the extra-textual final statement, which serves to define the story's a priori ethical message.²⁹ Having read the events of this tale, we are at a loss as to how to appreciate them ethically until Panfilo speaks up and gives us an exemplary interpretation:

… grandissima si può la benignità di Dio cognoscere verso noi, la quale non al nostro errore ma alla purità della fé riguardando, cosí faccendo noi nostro mezzano un suo nemico, amico credendolo, ci essaudisce, come se a uno veramente santo per mezzano della sua grazia ricorressimo.

(70, 90)

There has been controversy about the degree to which we are to accept this application at face value, and indeed there is far more irony implicit in the relationship between this conclusion and the tone of the tale itself than we should ever expect to find in the traditional exemplum.³⁰ Nonetheless Boccaccio's conclusion is the only aid he provides, in the absence of clear adherence to any ethical mode, to help us resolve the moral vacuum which the tale creates.

Notes

1. See Petronio, “I volti del Decameron” for an outline of critical works relevant to this topic.

2. For an indication of the difficulties some critics have had in accepting the presence of ethical language in the Decameron see Marcus, An Allegory of Form 24. Marcus notes that Boccaccio avoids passing any moral judgment on the content of his tales; in effect he strives for ethical objectivity by letting the audience created for each story interpret that narrative's specific moral content.

3. For examples of this viewpoint see De Sanctis 1: 327-330, Singleton, and Almansi's The Writer as Liar 1-7. Hastings too claims prevalence for the role of art, but in more cautious terms (3-7).

4. See for example Ferrante, Cottino-Jones' “The City/Country Conflict,” Marino and Potter.

5. This idea came to prominence in Branca's Boccaccio medievale, a book which appeared in its first edition in 1956. The approach received further attention in Petronio's “La posizione del Decameron” and in Padoan's “Mondo aristocratico e mondo comunale.”

6. This article has also been adapted for the 1975 edition of Branca's Boccaccio medievale, in the chapter entitled “Registri strutturali e stilistici,” 86-133.

7. For a summary of this scheme see Branca, Boccaccio medievale 16-17.

8. Boccaccio 9. Branca's note 1 gives us his explanation of the terminology. For a further discussion of these terms see Borlenghi, La struttura e il carattere della novella italiana 25-28, and also Stewart.

9. Concerning these sententious passages, and the ironic relationship between them and the fabliaux plots, see Nykrog 100-103 and Muscatine 101-104. For examples of sententiousness in certain fabliaux see the conclusions of “Les tresces” (6: 258: 427-434) and “Brunain, la vache au prestre” (5: 47-48: 64-72) in Noomen and van den Boogaard.

10. See Ricci 13-48 for “Il libro dei sette savi.” The tales of the Italian novella collections which immediately precede the Decameron, such as the Novellino and the stories in codex II. III. 343 of the Biblioteca Nazionale and the ms. Panciatichiano 32 (see Lo Nigro for all of these), tend to be exemplary even if they rarely have explicit sententiae, deprived as they are of cornici or authors' pronouncements on individual novellas.

11. Some examples: 71:1.2 (dimostrare); 90:1.5 (mostrare); 113:1.9 (dimostrare); 535:4.6 (dimostrare).

12. Ricci xxxi. For further discussions of the relationship between exemplum and novella see the chapter entitled “L'esempio” of Borlenghi in La struttura e il carattere della novella italiana, especially 22-24, Battaglia's essays “L'esempio medievale” and “Dall'esempio alla novella” in La coscienza letteraria del medioevo, and Delcorno 405.

13. On this topic see Bardi 30, 35-37. Despite the general incapacity of the characters of this day to control the course of events in their lives, she notes the transition in several characters from helpless passivity to a defiant ability to make wise choices: here too, ingegno has a role.

14. Joy Potter has noted that 55 Decameron novellas have some sort of sententious commentary (34); she also lists the 45 which do not (174-175). She remarks that some of these morals are ironic, as Muscatine does for the fabliaux (see note 9).

15. “Il diletto del racconto non solo sposta su un nuovo piano la tensione stilistica del Boccaccio, ma annuncia una concezione della forma artistica che va oltre i canoni tradizionali. Si pensi, ad esempio, al modo con cui il Boccaccio giustifica l'audacia contenutistica di certe novelle: opponendo una difesa di ordine edonistico a un'accusa di ordine moralistico” (76). Baratto goes on to cite several examples of Dioneo's justifications for story content, noting that “… la preoccupazione moralistica è esplicitamente subordinata all'intento edonistico” (77).

16. See Neuschäfer's first chapter for a fine analysis of the development of Boccaccio's characters away from the relatively simple dimensionality of the earlier narrative traditions towards an ethically more ambivalent “bipolarity” (Doppelpoligkeit). In this regard see also Baratto 15-16.

17. See Todorov 34-41. Todorov breaks the action of the Decameron novellas into three basic categories: a (action with the aim of modifying a situation), b (action to break laws or commit wrongs), and c (action directed toward punishment). My study, although ultimately quite different in purpose and method and concentrated entirely on the ethical implications of narrative action, owes a debt to Todorov's approach. See also Cottino-Jones, “Observations on the Structure of the Decameron novella.” However, for a description of the all too real drawbacks inherent in the application of structuralist methods to the Decameron see Fido 73-78. For a useful distinction between novellas controlled by action and those controlled by external events (“adventures”) see Scaglione, “The Narrative Vocation.” For another study of ethical modes, from which this chapter is in part adapted, see Nissen, “Ethical Modes in Boccaccio's Decameron.”

18. See Baratto's chapter “Storicità e invenzione nel Decameron” (23-48) for a summary of this tendency toward narrative multiplicity in Boccaccio's work.

19. Boccaccio 338, note 6.

20. See the Introduction to the Fourth Day (459-470), and the “Conclusione dell'autore” (1255-1261).

21. For an identification of Agilulf as the central character of the tale, endowed with an “exemplary” tendency toward silence, see Grimaldi.

22. See especially Cappellanus 1.12, which includes a dialogue between a man of lower rank and a noble woman on the subject of love.

23. Andreas Cappellanus himself specifically condemns avarice in his list of rules of love at the end of Book II of the De amore: “Amor semper consuevit ab avaritiae domiciliis exsulare” (282), and also among his commandments to lovers, wherein he is even more forceful: “Avaritiam sicut nocivam pestem effugias et eius contrarium amplectaris” (94).

24. See Decameron 5.8 (673), and Sabadino Porretane 34. See also motif T 75.2 in Rotunda, 186.

25. See motif T24.1 in Rotunda, 184.

26. Concerning the parallels between Ciappelletto's story and hagiographic style see Shklovskij, Branca's Boccaccio medievale 95, Mazzotta's World at Play 61-62, and Baldissone 17-18. See De' Negri for a general treatment of hagiographic style in the Decameron. For a very complete summary of the critical controversy surrounding this tale see Fido 45-52.

27. For a study of Ciappelletto's hidden motives, and Boccaccio's depiction of the interiority of this character see Seung 195-196.

28. Fontes-Baratto sees the ethical ambiguity of Ciappelletto, the first beffatore of the Decameron, as projecting itself to some extent over every subsequent beffatore who appears in the book (36-38).

29. Concerning the moral ambivalence of the exemplum plot see Battaglia, “L'esempio medievale” (La coscienza letteraria 470). The Gesta romanorum tales can stand as a case in point; they are morally almost meaningless without the allegorical overlay of the final sententia.

30. For a point of view which underscores the tale's ironic aspect see Marcus An Allegory of Form 17-19. For Croce, the moral essence of the novella could only be summed up in terms of total ambivalence: “La novella … niente afferma e niente nega” (89).

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