¹ Boccaccio does seem to believe in the power of the stars to influence men and events, but only as agents of divine will; moreover, the human will also remains free though only a few wise men can actually overcome the influence of the stars. On the other hand, while granting the usefulness of these ideas to poets, he denies the efficacy of astrology because the subject is too complex for accurate predictions: 'existimandum est ut aliquando dicere consuevit venerabilis Andalo, deum patrem omnipotentem, dum omnis mundi machina ab eo fabrefacta est, nil fecisse superfluum aut commodo carens animalium futurorum. Sic et supercelestia corpora tam grandia, tam lucida, tam ordinate suo se et alieno motu moventia, non solum adornatum, quem nos fere ob crebram ispectionem flocci facimus, condidisse credendum est, sed circa inferiora illis plurimum potestatis dedisse; ad hoc scilicet ut eorum motu atque influentia anni volventis variarentur tempora, gignerentur mortalia, genita nascerentur, et alerentur nata atque in tempore deducerentur in finem. Nec hanc mixtim atque confuse corporibus iniunctam debemus arbitrari potentiam, quin imo unicuique proprium constituisse officium, et circa que eius versaretur autoritas distinxisse, voluisseque omnia se invicem secundum plus et minus coniunctionum atque reliquarum virium pro varietate locorum ad opus in finem deducendum intentum mutuis vicissitudinibus iuvare. Et inter alia concessa pluribus ut testantur effectus, Veneri planete asserebat idem Andalo fuisse concessum quicquid ad amorem, amicitiam. Quo concesso egregie finxere poete Google Scholar

'(Genealogie deorum gentilium libri, ed. Romano, V. [Bari 1951] 3.22). ‘E’ non pare che alcun dubbio sia li cieli, i pianeti e le stelle essere ministri della divina potenza e, secondo la virtu loro attribuita, i corpi inferiori generare, mediante quelle cagioni che dalla natura sono ordinate, e quegli nutrire e nel lor fine menargli. E, per ciò che essi corpi superiori sono in continuo moto e in diversi modi si congiungono e si separano l'uno dall'altro, par di necessità che gli effetti da lor prodotti in diversi tempi e in materie diverse, debbano esser diversi e a diverse cose disposti: e quinci par che seguiti la diversità degli aspetti degli uomini, E questo si dee cognoscere muovere dal divino intelletto, il quale cognosce una università, come è quella dell' umana generazione, non poter consistere in sé, se non avesse diversità d'offici e, quantunque da Dio sia alle nostre anime, le quali esso immediate crea, data la ragione e il libero arbitrio, per lo quale, non ostante la forza de' cieli, ciascun può far quello che più gli agrada, pare che il più seguitin gli uomini quello a che essi sono atti nati' (Esposizioni on Inferno 1 (2.12–15), ed. Padoan, G. [Tutte le opere 6; Milan 1965]). ‘E per ciò che egli non par possible cosa che gli ingegni umani comprendano le particularità infinite di questo universale effetto de’ cieli, sì come noi possiamo comprendere nelle continue fatiche, e le più delle volte vane, degli astrologhi; li quali, quantunque l'arte sia da sé vera e da certi fondamenti fermata, nondimeno non paiono gli ingegni umani essere di tanta capacità che essi possan comprendre ogni particolarità di così gran corpo, come è il cielo, né ancora pienamente le revoluzioni, congiunzioni, mutazioni e aspetti de' corpi de‘ pianeti, e per conseguente cognoscere né quello che il cielo dimostra dover producere né quello che a cio seguire o fuggire’ (Esposizioni on Inferno 7 (1,81–82). Explaining Brunetto Latini's line to Dante in Inferno 15, ‘Se tu segui tua stella,’ Boccaccio notes that Dante's horoscope ‘avesse a significar di lui mirabili e gloriose cose, sì come eccellenzia di scienza e di fama e benivolenzia di signori e altre simili.’ And it was true; Dante did become famous, etc.: ‘Ma che questo gli venga dalle stelle, quantunque Iddio abbia lor data assai di potenzia, nol credo; anzi credo venga da grazia di Dio, il quale esso di sua propria liberalità concede a coloro li quali, faticando e studiando, se ne fanno degni’ (1.32 and 36).Google Scholar

² For some good surveys of Dante's knowledge and use of astronomy, see Moore, E., ‘The Astronomy of Dante,’ Studies in Dante, Third series (Oxford 1903); Benini, R., Scienza, religione ed arte nell' astronomia di Dante: Conferenza tenuta alla Reale Accademia d'Italia, il 14 gennaio 1934 (Rome 1939); Palgen, R., Dantes Siernglaube (Heidelberg 1940); Orr, M. A., Dante and the Early Astronomers (London 1956); Rabuse, G., Der kosmische Aufbau der Jenseitsreiche Dantes (Graz 1958); Buti, G. and Bertagni, R., Commento astronomico della Divina Commedia (Florence 1966); and Durling, R., “‘Jo son venuto al punto de la rota”: Seneca, Plato, and the Microcosm, , ’Dante Studies 93 (1975) 95–130. For further bibliography see Buti, and Torraca, Bertagni. F., Giovanni Boccaccio a Napoli (Naples 1915) 20, suggests that Boccaccio turned to the study of astronomy because he needed it to help him understand Dante's poetry.Google Scholar

³ For Chaucer's uses of astronomy and astrology, see Curry, W. C., Chaucer and the Mediaeval Sciences (New York 1960); Price, D., The Equatorie of the Planetis (Cambridge 1955); Wood, C., Chaucer and the Country of the Stars (Princeton 1970); North, J. D., ‘Kalenderes Enlumyned Ben They: Some Astronomical Themes in Chaucer,’ Review of English Studies N.S. 20 (1969) 130–54, 257–73, 419–44; Russell, H. N. and Root, R. K., ‘A Planetary Date for Chaucer's Troilus,’ Publications of the Modern Language Association 39 (1924) 48–63, with objections by O'Connor, J. J., ‘The Astronomical Dating of Chaucer's Troilus,’ Journal of English and Germanic Philology 55 (1956) 556–62; Fowler, A. and Brooks, D., ‘The Meaning of Chaucer's Knight's Tale,’ Medium Ævum (1970) 123–46; Gaylord, A. T., ‘The Role of Saturn in the Knight's Tale,’ Chaucer Review 8 (1974) 171–90; Curry, W., ‘Astrologizing the Gods,’ Anglia 47 (1923) 213–43; and Browne, W. H., ‘Notes on Chaucer's Astrology,’ Modern Language Notes 23 (1908) 53–54.Google Scholar

⁴ Quaglio, A. E., Scienza e mito nel Boccaccio (Padua 1967).Google Scholar

⁵ For attempts to date Boccaccio's affair, see Baldelli, G. B., Vita di Giovanni Boccaccio (Florence 1806) 364, 372–73; Landau, M., Giovanni Boccaccio, sein Leben und seine Werke (Stuttgart 1877) 28–32; Casetti, A. C., ‘Il Boccaccio a Napoli,’ Nuova antologia 27 (1875) 561–62; Della Torre, A., La giovinezza di Giovanni Boccaccio (Città di Castello 1905) 31–101; Hauvette, H., Boccace: Étude biographique et littéraire (Paris 1914) 24–26; and Torraca, F., Giovanni Boccaccio a Napoli 11–12, and Per la biografia di Giovanni Boccaccio (Milan 1912) 11–34. For arguments against such dating efforts, see Renier, R., La Vita Nuova e La Fiammetta (Turin 1879) 244–45; Branca, V., Boccaccio medievale (Florence 1956) chap. 7, ‘Schemi letterari e schemi autobiografici’ pp. 193–204. Billanovich, G., Restauri Boccacceschi (Rome 1947) 82–100.Google Scholar

⁶ Almanach Dantis Alghieri sive Profhacii Judaei Montisapesulani, edd. Boffito, J. and D'Eril, C.M. (Florence 1908). This edition includes the Canones Andaloni de Nigro in Almanach Profacii. Google Scholar

⁷ Quaglio, , Scienza 64–65.Google Scholar

⁸ 1.358.Google Scholar

⁹ Quaglio, , Scienza 147.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Quaglio has traced many of Boccaccio's direct and indirect sources of astronomical and astrological information. As Boccaccio studied with Andalò de Negro, and copied Andalò's Trattato dei pianeti (Torraca, , G. B. a Napoli 52), naturally Andalò's writings are of interest; for a catalogue of Andalò's works, see de Simoni, C., Intorno alla vita ed ai lavori di Andalò de Negro with a Catalogo dei lavori di Andalò di Negro by Boncompagni, B. (Rome 1975), and Andalò's, Trattato sull'astrolabio ed. Bertolotto, , Atti della società ligure di storia patria 25 (1892) 49–141, also with a catalogue. On Andalò see also Thorndike, L., A History of Magic and Experimental Science (New York 1960) III 192–97, 694–98; and Duhem, P., Le Système du monde: Histoire des doctrines cosmologiques de Platon à Copernic (Paris 1916) IV 266–77.Google Scholar

Besides making use of quotations from manuscripts in Curry, Quaglio, et al., I have used the following editions of texts cited in this paper: Albumasar, , Tractatus Albumasaris florum astrologie (facsim. of incunabulum; Leipzig 1928); Alfragano, , Il libro dell'aggregazione delle stelle , ed. Campani, R. (Collezione di opuscoli Danteschi 87–90: Città di Castello 1910); al-Qabasi, , ‘Abd-al- 'Azziz ibn ’Utham (Alcabitius), Libellus ysagogicus Abdilazi (Venice before 4 Nov. 1485); Ragel, Aly Aben, El libro conplido en los iudizios de las estrellas , ed. Hilty, G. (Madrid 1954); The Commentary on the First Six Books of the Aeneid of Vergil Commonly Attributed to Bernardus Silvestris , edd. Jones, J. W. and Jones, E. F. (Lincoln, Nebr. 1977); De mundi universitate , ed. Barach, C. (Bibliotheca Philosophorum Mediae Aetatis; Innsbruck 1876); Cosmographia , trans. Wetherbee, W. (New York 1973); Boccaccio, , Genealogie deorum gentilium libri , ed. Romano, V. (Scrittori d'Italia 200–201; Bari 1951); Bonatti, G., De astronomia tractatus X (Basel 1550); De deorum imaginibus libellus in Liebeschütz, H., Fulgentius metaforalis (Studien der Bibliothek Warburg 4; Leipzig 1926) 117–28; Maternus, Iulius Firmicus, Matheseos libri VIII , ed. Kroll, W. and Skutsch, F. (Stuttgart 1968); Latini, Brunetto, Li Livres dou tresor , ed. Carmody, F. (Geneva 1975); Macrobius, , Commentarli in Somnium Scipionis , ed. Willis, J. (Leipzig 1970); Ptolemy, , Tetrabiblos , ed. & trans. Robbins, F. (Loeb Classical Library; Cambridge, Mass. 1971); and Maurus, Rabanus, De universo 15.6, ‘De diis gentium,’ PL 111.428C–434D. See also Boll, F. and Bezold, C., Sternglaube und Sterndeutung (Leipzig 1926); Bouché-Leclercq, A., L'astrologie grecque (Paris 1899); Gundel, W., Sterne und Sternbilder im Glauben des Altertums und der Neuzeit (Leipzig 1922); Stock, B., Myth and Science in the Twelfth Century (Princeton 1972); Wickersheimer, , ‘Figures médico-astrologiques des ix^e, x^e, et xi^e siècles,’ Janus 19 (1914) 157–77; and Wilkins, E. H., ‘Descriptions of the Pagan Divinities from Petrarch to Chaucer,’ Speculum 32 (1957) 511–23.Google Scholar

¹¹ ‘The Teseida: Boccaccio's Allegorical Epic,’ Northeastern Modern Language Association Italian Studies, forthcoming. I am using the Teseida ed. by Limentani, A. (Tutte le opere; Milan 1964).Google Scholar

¹² Hollander, R., Boccaccio's Two Venuses (New York 1977) 53–65.Google Scholar

¹³ Alton, E. H., ‘The Medieval Commentators on Ovid's Fasti,’ Hermathena 44 (1926) 119–51.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Apuleius, , Pro se de magia liber (Apologia) 12, ed. Helm, R., Opera quae supersunt (Leipzig 1955–59) II 1.14.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Ed. Jones, 9–10.Google Scholar

¹⁶ da Prato, Giovanni, Il Paradiso degli Alberti 1 (Scelta di Curiosità Letterarie inedite o rare dal secolo xiii al xix, 18; Bologna 1968) 20–21.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Ibid. 26.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Some writers spoke of three or four Venuses. Thus, for example, St. Augustine (Civ. Dei 4.10) lists three of them: one a virgin identified with Vesta; one the wife of Vulcan; and one a harlot. But even the married Venus was an adulteress, remarks St. Augustine, refusing to dignify her with the role of legitimate married love. Cicero in De nat. deor. (3.23) describes four different Venuses: ‘Venus prima Caelo et Die nata, altera spuma procreata, ex qua et Mercurio Cupidinem secundum natum accepimus, tertia Iove et Dione, quae nupsit Volcano, sed ex ea et Marte natus Anteros dicitur, quarta quae Astarte vocatur, quam Adonidi nupsisse proditum est.’ Cicero's descriptions are clearly a major source for the sundry Venuses of Boccaccio's Genealogia. Nonetheless, within his works of fiction, Boccaccio tends to work with the twofold rather than the manifold Venus. (See Hollander, R., Boccaccio's Two Venuses.) Google Scholar

¹⁹ Andalò refers to Venus as cold rather than warm, following the opinion of Albumasar (cited in Quaglio 197–98); at best, as in the Canones in Almanack Profacii, he writes, ‘frigidus (al. calidus) et humidus.’ But Boccaccio seems to have chosen the other side of the argument. Depending on whether she is hot or cold, Venus is similar to either Jupiter or the moon. Ptolemy (1.4) gives her the Jovian warmth.Google Scholar

²⁰ De universo 15.6 (PL 111.430b): ‘martem quasi effectorem mortium.’ Google Scholar

²¹ Stock, , Myth and Science ix.Google Scholar

²² Microc. ch. 5; Wetherbee 101.Google Scholar

²³ Wood, , Chaucer 118.Google Scholar

²⁴ Ibid. 118–19.Google Scholar

²⁵ Curry 103; Aly 5.5 and 15, pp. 230, 266, 271.Google Scholar

²⁶ Genealogia 9.4.Google Scholar

²⁷ Genealogia 9.3.Google Scholar

²⁸ Ed. Gothein, (Zurich 1949).Google Scholar

²⁹ Boccaccio, , Genealogia 3.22.Google Scholar

³⁰ See Teseida 12.34 and the discussion below, pp. 315–17.Google Scholar

³¹ Ptolemy 1.23.Google Scholar

³² Firmicus 2.11.2 and 2.15ff.: So important is the ascendant position that it is even referred to as the ‘horoscope’ by astrologers. Boccaccio himself describes the process of interpreting a horoscope in his commentary on Inf. 15 (1.30–32): 'e tra le altre cose che essi [astrologhi] più puntualmente riguardano, è l'ascendente, cioê il grado, il quale nella natività predetta sale sopra l'orizonte orientale della regione; e, avuto questo grado, considerano qual de‘ sette pianeti è più potente in esso; e quello dicono essere signore dell'ascendente e significatore della natività. E secondo la natura di quel pianeto e la disposizion buona o malvagia, la quale allora ha nel cielo per congiunzioni or per aspetti o per luogo, giudicano della vita futura di colui.’ Google Scholar

³³ Aly, 1.9, p. 26.Google Scholar

³⁴ Ptolemy, , 1.24 and 3.3. ‘Direct’ means that Venus is moving in the direction of her orbit, as opposed to retrograde motion. This is how I interpret ‘facea de’ passai con che sale,' for Boccaccio glosses ‘passi’ as ‘gradi’ or degrees of the ecliptic.Google Scholar

³⁵ Firmicus, , 2.22.4.Google Scholar

³⁶ Aly, , 1.6. I am following the medieval habit of calling the sun a planet.Google Scholar

³⁷ Limentani notes in 3.5 an echo of Dante's lines from Purg. 1.19–21. Venus is in the east; though she is not in Pisces, Pisces is mentioned; and the whole sky ‘rideva.’ Dante, emerging from Hell to Purgatory, sees Venus shining in Pisces. The combination indicates a good kind of love or caritas which graces the road to salvation but was not visible in the hell of cupidinous lusts. The fact that the fish is also a sign for Christ combines with the astrological implications to confirm the meaning, just as Boccaccio's mythological glosses add to the astrological significations of his verses. The echo of Dante's lines suits Boccaccio's epic, where as in the Purgatorio, a long process is beginning which will lead ultimately to the self-government of the soul. Just a few lines earlier Dante invokes his ‘sante muse’ who overcame ‘le Piche’; that is, the bird attributed to Mars. Possibly, then, the baneful influences of Mars are banished while the influence of the Jovian Venus now dominates the scene.Google Scholar

³⁸ Jupiter, , two houses away from Venus, is possibly in ‘sextile aspect’ with her, although to be strictly sure of this one would have to know the exact degrees of the planets' positions. An aspect of 180 or 90 degrees was considered unfavorable; 120 or 60 degrees was favorable. Thus two planets could interfere with or support each other.Google Scholar

³⁹ Genealogia 2.2. Cf. Rabanus, , De universo (PL 111.428d–429a): Jupiter ‘quasi juvans pater.’ Cf. also Silvester, Bernard, Cosmographia 2.5, p. 100, and Cicero, , De nat. deor. 2.25,64.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Quaglio 93n.Google Scholar

⁴¹ 1.4, pp. 13–14.Google Scholar

⁴² Col. 101.Google Scholar

⁴³ See Curry, 167.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ E.g. 11.11: ‘di voler temperar il tristo pianto.’ Furthermore, by persuading Emilia to marry Palemon, he tempers their opposite qualities as the planet Jupiter is said to temper the cold of Saturn and the heat of Mars.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Ovid, , Metamorphoses 3.26–137; Teseida 5.57 and gloss.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Genealogia 2.63, citing Ovid's Metamorphoses. Google Scholar

⁴⁷ See Hollander, 55–65, on the temples and prayers of Book 7.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ The connection between Mars and Venus at this point may also explain why Boccaccio starts the temple of Mars in stanza 30 and the temple of Venus in stanza 50, crossing the usual numerical associations of three for Venus and five for Mars. Thus, for example, the knights fall in love in Book 3 and begin to fight each other in Book 5. If one counts inward from Saturn instead of outward from the moon, Mars is third and Venus fifth; both ways of counting were common. For the uses of threes, fives, and other numbers in the Teseida, I owe thanks to Kirkham, V., ‘The Numerology of Marriage in Boccaccio's Teseida,’ a paper presented at the meeting of the Midwestern Modern Language Association at Chicago in November 1975.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ See above, p. 315.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Quaglio, 177 has pointed out that Boccaccio's verses echo Dante's ‘Io sono al punto della rota’ (Rime 100.6–7), which is certainly an astrological poem. But there it is the sun which is in Sagittarius, while the moon is full and directly opposite the sun in Gemini. Dante's heavens, as Durling shows (“‘Io son venuto al punto de la rota”: Seneca, Plato, and the Microcosm’), are a low point for the poet, being nearly a reversal of his native horoscope. Boccaccio is being neither so dramatic nor so personal as far as we can tell; nonetheless, his use of astrological information is clearly in part an imitation of Dante's practice, which we know does refer to historical dates.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Aly, , 1.9, p. 26: a sign gains power when the sun is present in it by day or the moon by night.Google Scholar

⁵² Firmicus, , 3.4; Silvester, Bernard, Cosmographia 109.Google Scholar

⁵³ Alcabitius 4.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Boccaccio says so in 5.103; but one could have figured it out already from stanza 29. A full moon is always opposite the sun; thus, if the moon is nearly full and in Sagittarius, the sun is in Cancer.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Firmicus, , 8.7.9.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Genealogia 1.34: ‘est sciendum secundum planetarum ordinem successive unicuique diei hore dari dominium, et ab eo cui contingit prime hore diei dominium habere, ab eo dies illa denominata est, ut puta si diei dominice Veneri secundam horam tribues, que Sol immediate subiacet, et Mercurio tertiam et Lune quartam quintam autem Saturno, ad quem convertendus est ordo cum in Luna defecerit sub nomine vel dominio Mercurii invenietur hora xxiii^a, et xxv^a que prima est diei sequentis sub nomine vel dominio Lune, et ideo ab ea secundus denominatus ebdomade dies a quo et ipsa secunda dies Martis denominata est, quia prime eius hore Mars imperat.’ Google Scholar

⁵⁷ This number of hours is in fact too large for Athens, Naples, or Florence.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ In 1336, when Venus was in Taurus and Mars in Gemini, Mars was beginning to descend from the summit of the sky, that is, he was weakening from a powerful position, while Venus' house Libra was rising. By analogy to the sun, which is stronger at midday, the other stars too were thought to increase in power toward the zenith and then decrease as they set. See Gundel 172.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Genealogia 7.41 and gloss to Teseida 9.31.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ 2.23–24.Google Scholar

⁶¹ See for example Firmicus 2.24; Bonatti col. 98; and Wickersheimer, 159–60.Google Scholar

⁶² 1322 would be possible if Boccaccio, imitating Dante, were alluding to his own ninth year; but nothing in the Teseida supports such a notion.Google Scholar

⁶³ ‘Profilo biografico’ in Boccaccio, , Tutte le Opere (Milan 1967) I 47.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Or any planet; Bonatti 9.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ See above, p. 322, about Mercury's power over Arcita in Books 9 and 10.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ I am using the Egyptian rather than the Ptolemaic terms, as those are by far the most commonly used; even Ptolemy lists the Egyptian terms before offering his own. For a discussion on the disagreement about terms, see Aly 1.5, p. 19.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ See Aly 5.15, p. 267.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Filocolo, 1.17; Comedia delle Ninfe Fiorentine 25.104.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Restauri Boccacceschi (Rome 1947) 105–26.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ ‘Profilo biografico’ 47.Google Scholar

⁷¹ Seniles 8.1. And see Ricci, P. G., ‘La data di alcune lettere e la nàscita del Boccaccio,’ Rinascimento Ser. 2, vol. 2 (1962) 3–11, esp. 10.Google Scholar

⁷² For the relation of the Fish sign to Venus, see above, p. 314.Google Scholar

⁷³ Der kosmische Aufbau der Jenseitsreiche Dantes (Graz 1958) 88–89.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ Aly 1.4.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Canones in Almanack Profacii. Google Scholar

⁷⁶ Rabuse, 262.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ Pp. 320–21, above.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ Rabuse, 68–69 discusses the influence of these ideas on Dante.Google Scholar

⁷⁹ Ed. cit. 95.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ Ed. cit. 67.Google Scholar

⁸¹ Cf. the debate among Chaucerians as to Troilus' final destination after his ascent to the stars in imitation of Arcita.Google Scholar

⁸² Aquarius, Saturn's house, is named in the gloss to 9.29. The absence of any mention of Saturn sharply contrasts with the importance of that planet in Chaucer's Knight's Tale. Google Scholar

⁸³ Ed. cit. 648.Google Scholar

⁸⁴ See Torraca, , Per la biografia di G. B. 16–17; Quaglio, 70–72. The Metamorphoses are also a source for these descriptions; see Quaglio, 170–72.Google Scholar

⁸⁵ Bernard Silvester quotes this line in his commentary on the Aeneid at the beginning of a discussion on the meanings of Jupiter (p. 109).Google Scholar

⁸⁶ Microc. ch. 7; Wetherbee, , p. 106.Google Scholar

⁸⁷ Ch. 8, p. 109.Google Scholar

⁸⁸ Ch. 4, p. 98.Google Scholar