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624 



BOC 



Uoccacio. you from discharging your duty as a Christian. If 

 you do not follow my directions, be assured you have 

 but a short time to live, and that you shall suffer 

 eternal punishments after your death. God has re- 

 vealed this to Father Petroni, who gave me strict 

 charge to inform you of it." Terrified at this so- 

 lemn admonition, Boccacio asked the friar how Pe- 

 troni came to know him ; to which Ciani replied, 

 that Petroni saw all this in a vision, and charged him 

 with this and other commissions at Naples, France, 

 and England. 



In consequence of this interview, Boccacio aban- 

 doned the study of poetry and the profane authors, 

 and, in opposition to the expostulations of Petrarch, 

 he determined even to dispose of his library. Under 

 these serious impressions, he assumed the clerical ha- 

 bit, and became more regular and circumspect in his 

 conduct. He revisited Naples in 1362 or 1363, and 

 he soon afterwards went to Venice to see Petrarch. 

 In 1365, he was chosen ambassador to Pope Urban V. 

 at Avignon, and in 1367 he attended that pontiff at 

 Rome in the same capacity. He was appointed to 

 thtf public lecture on the Comedia of Dante, which 

 was then instituted at Florence, and began his labours 

 in October 1373. The bustle of active life, how- 

 ever, was too oppressive for his advanced age, so that 

 he felt it necessary to retire to Certaldo, where he 

 died of a disease in his stomach, on the 21st of De- 

 cember 1375, in the 62d year of his age, and was 

 buried in the church of St James and St Philip. 



Boccacio was the author of numerous works, both 

 in poetry and prose. Though he was ranked in the 

 poetical triumvirate next to Dante and Petrarch, his 

 poetical compositions are feeble and languid. Hi3 

 Theseide is remarkable chiefly for the new kind of 

 measure in which it is written. Boccacio seems to 

 have been sensible of his inferiority as a poet. After 

 having perused the sonnets and songs of Petrarch, he 

 resolved to commit his own to the flames ; and in 

 spite of the remonstrance of Petrarch, he actually 

 burnt all his Italian verse6. 



The elegance and purity of the stile, however, in 

 which his prose compositions are written, amply atone 

 for the defects of his poetry. The most celebrated 

 of his productions is his Decamerone, or a collection 

 of an hundred stories, supposed to have been recited 

 in ten days, by a party of ladies and gentlemen, who 

 had retired from the plague at Florence in 1318. 

 This work met with universal applause. It passed 

 through numerous editions. It was translated into 

 many foreign languages; and even Petrarch himself 

 was so delighted with it, as to translate it into Laiin, 

 and dedicate the work to Boccacio. The stories of 

 the Decamerone are only partly fictitious. The man- 

 ners of various erases of society arc accurately pour- 

 trayed ; the tricks of the priests are severely ex- 

 posed ; and the absurd doctrines of the Catho- 

 lic faith are lashed with the same severity. Hence the 

 Roman Catholic writers have charged Boccacio with 

 impiety and immorality, and his Decamerone has been 

 put into the list of prohibited books. Nor is this 

 charge altogether without foundation. The stories 

 are often of such a lascivious and obscene nature, that 

 the French translator, in the edition of 1697, " has 

 taken particular care to regulate the expressions, and 



to wrap up things in such a manner that the fair sex 

 may laugh at them without blushing." Bayle calls 

 it " a work of gallantry, wherein a*e to be seen very 

 diverting love adventures, and a great many roguish 

 tricks played husbands." 



The other works of Boccacio arey 1. his treatise 

 De Genealogia Deorum, fol. Basil, 1532, with the 

 notes of J. Mycillus ; and containing also a Treatise 

 on Mountains, Rivers, Seas, and Lakes. 2. An 

 Abridgment of the Roman History from Romulus to 

 A. U. 724. Cologn. 1534, 8vo. 3. De Casibus Vi- 

 rorum illustrium, beginning with Adam and ending 

 with John King of France. Augs. 1544. This 

 work was translated into Italian, Spanisn, English, 

 and French. His Italian works are, his // Philo- 

 ca/o ; La Fiameitta ; L' Ameto ; II Labirinto d'A- 

 more; La Vita di Dante ; which are all written in 

 prose, and, excepting the last, are all romances of an 

 amorous kind, interspersed with poetry, See Fa- 

 bricii, Biblioth. Latin Me J. tevi, torn. i. p. '.'VS. 

 Tiraboschi, Storia del/a Leiterat >tra J 'idinna, torn. v. 

 p. 83, 439. &c. Dobson's Life of Pet ru h, pc.-. ; m. 

 Roscoe's Life and Pontificate i L. .A. rh. p. xv. 

 vol. iii. p. 198. Roscoe's Life ->j 'Lorenzo de Medici, 

 chap. v. vol. i. p. 320. Gibbon's Hist. chap. lxvi. 

 vol. xii. p. 103. (a) 



BOCCOLD. See Anabap i ig cs. 



BOCCONIA, a genus of plant- of the class Do. 

 decandria, and order Monogynia. S- Botany. (u>) 



BOCHART, Samuel, the most learned writer 

 of his age, was born of a good family at Rota :ii, in 

 1599. His father, who was minister "f the reform- 

 ed church at Rouen, paid particula; iitent n the 

 education of his son, ant! had the happniesf- of wit- 

 nessing liio surprising progress in the requisition of 

 knowledge. He was put under the care of Thomas 

 Dempster, a learned Scotsman, who published a book 

 on Roman antiquities in lt>L2; and such was the 

 maturity of his genius, that, at the age of twelve, he 

 composed fcrty-four Greek ;er86S in praise of his 

 master, which were published, at the beginning of 

 the be jk ju*t mentioned. Having gone through a 

 course of philosophy at Sedan, and maintained public 

 dies s in 1615, he went to study divinity at Saumur, 

 under Camero ; but owing to the civil war, which 

 dispersed that academy, he went with Camero to 

 London, where he appears to have remained only a 

 short time. In 1621, he repaired to Ley den, where he 

 studied Arabic under Erpenius, and formed a parti- 

 cular connection with his maternal uncle M. Rivet, 

 who dedicated to Bochart his Catholicus Orthodox- 

 us in 1629. On his return to France, he was appoint- 

 ed to the church of Caen, in Normandy, where his 

 reputation was greatly extended by a long theologi- 

 cal controversy which he held with Veron. This 

 theologian having a special mission from the court to 

 dispute throughout the kingdom, challenged Bochart 

 on the 4th ofSeptember, 1628, and harassed him in 

 the most importunate manner till the time and place 

 were appointed This dispute was held in the castle 

 of Caen, before a number of Protestants and Catho- 

 lics, and in presence of the Duke de Longueville, 

 governor of the province, and continued for nine sit- 

 tings, from the 22d of September till the 3d of Oc- 

 tober, when Veron was compelled to quit the field. 

 3 



