Part 40

A detailed analysis of a work so well known as the _Decameron_ would be unnecessary. The description of the plague of Florence preceding the stories is universally acknowledged to be a masterpiece of epic grandeur and vividness. It ranks with the paintings of similar calamities by Thucydides, Defoe and Manzoni. Like Defoe, Boccaccio had to draw largely on hearsay and his own imagination, it being almost certain that in 1348 he was at Naples, and therefore no eye-witness of the scenes he describes. The stories themselves, a hundred in number, range from the highest pathos to the coarsest licentiousness. A creation like the patient Griselda, which international literature owes to Boccaccio, ought to atone for much that is morally and artistically objectionable in the _Decameron_. It may be said on this head, that his age and his country were not only deeply immoral, but in addition exceedingly outspoken. Moreover, his sources were anything but pure. Most of his improper stories are either anecdotes from real life, or they are taken from the _fabliaux_ of medieval French poets. On comparing the latter class of stories (about one-fifth of the whole _Decameron_) with their French originals, one finds that Boccaccio has never added to, but has sometimes toned down the revolting ingredients. Notwithstanding this, it cannot be denied that the artistic value of the _Decameron_ is greatly impaired by descriptions and expressions, the intentional licentiousness of which is but imperfectly veiled by an attempt at humour.

Boccaccio has been accused of plagiarism, particularly by French critics, who correctly state that the subjects of many stories in the _Decameron_ are borrowed from their literature. A similar objection might be raised against Chaucer, Shakespeare, Goethe (in _Faust_), and indeed most of the master minds of all nations. Power of invention is not the only nor even the chief criterion of a great poet. He takes his subjects indiscriminately from his own fancy, or from the consciousness of his and other nations. Stories float about in the air, known to all yet realized by few; the poet gathers their _disjecta membra_ into an organic whole, and this he inspires and calls into life with the breath of his genius. It is in this sense that Boccaccio is the creator of those innumerable beautiful types and stories, which have since become household words amongst civilized nations. No author can equal him in these contributions to the store of international literature. There are indeed few great poets who have not in some way become indebted to the inexhaustible treasure of Boccaccio's creativeness. One of the greatest masterpieces of German literature, Lessing's _Nathan the Wise_, contains a story from Boccaccio (_Decameron_, Day 1st, tale iii.), and the list of English poets who have drawn from the same source comprises, among many others, the names of Chaucer, Lydgate, Dryden, Keats and Tennyson.

For ten years Boccaccio continued to reside in Florence, leaving the city only occasionally on diplomatic missions or on visits to his friends. His fame in the meantime began to spread far and wide, and his _Decameron_, in particular, was devoured by the fashionable ladies and gentlemen of the age. About 1360 he seems to have retired from the turbulent scenes of Florence to his native Certaldo, the secluded charms of which he describes with rapture. In the following year took place that strange turning-point in Boccaccio's career which is generally described as his conversion. It seems that a Carthusian monk came to him while at Certaldo charged with a posthumous message from another monk of the same order, to the effect that if Boccaccio did not at once abandon his godless ways in life and literature his death would ensue after a short time. It is also mentioned that the revelation to the friar on his deathbed of a secret known only to Boccaccio gave additional import to this alarming information. Boccaccio's impressionable nature was deeply moved. His life had been far from virtuous; in his writings he had frequently sinned against the rules of morality, and worse still, he had attacked with bitter satire the institutions and servants of holy mother church. Terrified by the approach of immediate death, he resolved to sell his library, abandon literature, and devote the remainder of his life to penance and religious exercise. To this effect he wrote to Petrarch. We possess the poet's answer; it is a masterpiece of writing, and what is more, a proof of tenderest friendship. The message of the monk Petrarch is evidently inclined to treat simply as pious fraud, without, however, actually committing himself to that opinion. "No monk is required to tell thee of the shortness and precariousness of human life. Of the advice received accept what is good; abandon worldly cares, conquer thy passions, and reform thy soul and life of degraded habits. But do not give up the studies which are the true food of a healthy mind." Boccaccio seems to have acted on this valuable advice. His later works, although written in Latin and scientific in character, are by no means of a religious kind. It seems, however, that his entering the church in 1362 is connected with the events just related.

In 1363 Boccaccio went on a visit to Naples to the seneschal Acciajuoli (the same Florentine who had in 1344 persuaded the elder Boccaccio to permit his son's return to Naples), who commissioned him to write the story of his deeds of valour. On his arrival, however, the poet was treated with shameful neglect, and revenged himself by denying the possibility of relating any valorous deeds for want of their existence. This declaration, it must be confessed, came somewhat late, but it was provoked by a silly attack on the poet himself by one of the seneschal's indiscreet friends.

During the next ten years Boccaccio led an unsettled life, residing chiefly at Florence or Certaldo, but frequently leaving his home on visits to Petrarch and other friends, and on various diplomatic errands in the service of the Republic. He seems to have been poor, having spent large sums in the purchase of books, but his independent spirit rejected the numerous splendid offers of hospitality made to him by friends and admirers. During this period he wrote four important Latin works--_De Genealogia Deorum libri XV._, a compendium of mythological knowledge full of deep learning; _De Montium, Silvarum, Lacuum, et Marium nominibus liber_, a treatise on ancient geography; and two historical books--_De Casibus Virorum et Feminarum Illustrium libri IX._, interesting to the English reader as the original of John Lydgate's _Fall of Princes_; and _De Claris Mulieribus_. To the list of his works ought to be added _Il Ninfale Fiesolano_, a beautiful love-story in verse, and _Il Corbaccio ossia Il Laberinto d'Amore_, a coarse satire on a Florentine widow who had jilted the poet, written about 1355, not to mention many eclogues in Latin and miscellaneous _Rime_ in Italian (the latter collected by his biographer Count Baldelli in 1802).

In 1373 we find Boccaccio again settled at Certaldo. Here he was attacked by a terrible disease which brought him to the verge of death, and from the consequences of which he never quite recovered. But sickness could not subdue his intellectual vigour. When the Florentines established a chair for the explanation of the _Divina Commedia_ in their university, and offered it to Boccaccio, the senescent poet at once undertook the arduous duty. He delivered his first lecture on the 23rd of October 1373. The commentary on part of the _Inferno_, already alluded to, bears witness of his unabated power of intellect. In 1374 the news of the loss of his dearest friend Petrarch reached Boccaccio, and from this blow he may be said to have never recovered. Almost his dying efforts were devoted to the memory of his friend; urgently he entreated Petrarch's son-in-law to arrange the publication of the deceased poet's Latin epic _Africa_, a work of which the author had been far more proud than of his immortal sonnets to Laura.

In his last will Boccaccio left his library to his father confessor, and after his decease to the convent of Santo Spirito in Florence. His small property he bequeathed to his brother Jacopo. His own natural children had died before him. He himself died on the 21st of December 1375 at Certaldo, and was buried in the church of SS. Jacopo e Filippo of that town. On his tombstone was engraved the epitaph composed by himself shortly before his death. It is calm and dignified, worthy indeed of a great life with a great purpose. These are the lines:--

"Hac sub mole jacent cineres ac ossa Joannis; Mens sedet ante Deum, meritis ornata laborum Mortalis vitae. Genitor Boccaccius illi; Patria Certaldum; studium fuit alma poesis."

A complete edition of Boccaccio's Italian writings, in 17 vols., was published by Moutier (Florence, 1834). The life of Boccaccio has been written by Tiraboschi, Mazzuchelli, Count Baldelli (_Vita di Boccaccio_, Florence, 1806), and others. In English the best biography is Edward Hutton (1909.) The first printed edition of the _Decameron_ is without date, place or printer's name; but it is believed to belong to the year 1469 or 1470, and to have been printed at Florence. Besides this, Baldelli mentions eleven editions during the 15th century. The entire number of editions by far exceeds a hundred. A curious expurgated edition, authorized by the pope, appeared at Florence, 1573. Here, however, the grossest indecencies remain, the chief alteration being the change of the improper personages from priests and monks into laymen. The best old edition is that of Florence, 1527. Of modern reprints, that by Forfoni (Florence, 1857) deserves mention. Manni has written a _Storia del Decamerone_ (1742), and a German scholar, M. Landau, who published (Vienna, 1869) a valuable investigation of the sources of the _Decameron_, subsequently brought out in 1877 a general study of Boccaccio's life and works. An interesting English translation of the _Decameron_ appeared in 1624, under the title _The Model of Mirth, Wit, Eloquence and Conversation_. (F. H.)

BOCCALINI, TRAJANO (1556-1613), Italian satirist, was born at Loretto in 1556. The son of an architect, he himself adopted that profession, and it appears that he commenced late in life to apply to literary pursuits. Pursuing his studies at Rome, he had the honour of teaching Bentivoglio, and acquired the friendship of the cardinals Gaetano and Borghesi, as well as of other distinguished personages. By their influence he obtained various posts, and was even appointed by Gregory XIII. governor of Benevento in the states of the church. Here, however, he seems to have acted imprudently, and he was soon recalled to Rome, where he shortly afterwards composed his most important work, the _Ragguagli di Parnaso_, in which Apollo is represented as receiving the complaints of all who present themselves, and distributing justice according to the merits of each particular case. The book is full of light and fantastic satire on the actions and writings of his eminent contemporaries, and some of its happier hits are among the hackneyed felicities of literature. To escape, it is said, from the hostility of those whom his shafts had wounded, he returned to Venice, and there, according to the register in the parochial church of Sta Maria Formosa, died of colic, accompanied with fever, on the 16th of November 1613. It was asserted, indeed, by contemporary writers that he had been beaten to death with sand-bags by a band of Spanish bravadoes, but the story seems without foundation. At the same time, it is evident from the _Pietra del Paragone_, which appeared after his death in 1615, that whatever the feelings of the Spaniards towards him, he cherished against them feelings of the bitterest hostility. The only government, indeed, which is exempt from his attacks is that of Venice, a city for which he seems to have had a special affection.

The _Ragguagli_, first printed in 1612, has frequently been republished. The _Pietra_ has been translated into French, German, English and Latin; the English translator was Henry, earl of Monmouth, his version being entitled _The Politicke Touchstone_ (London, 1674). Another posthumous publication of Boccalini was his _Commentarii sopra Cornelia Tacito_ (Geneva, 1669). Many of his manuscripts are preserved still unprinted.

BOCCHERINI, LUIGI (1743-1805), Italian composer, son of an Italian bass-player, was born at Lucca, and studied at Rome, where he became a fine 'cellist, and soon began to compose. He returned to Lucca, where for some years he was prominent as a player, and there he produced two oratorios and an opera. He toured in Europe, and in 1768 was received in Paris by Gossec and his circle with great enthusiasm, his instrumental pieces being highly applauded; and from 1769 to 1785 he held the post of "composer and virtuoso" to the king of Spain's brother, the infante Luis, at Madrid. He afterwards became "chamber-composer" to King Frederick William II. of Prussia, till 1797, when he returned to Spain. He died at Madrid on the 28th of May 1805.

As an admirer of Haydn, and a voluminous writer of instrumental music, chiefly for the violoncello, Boccherini represents the effect of the rapid progress of a new art on a mind too refined to be led into crudeness, too inventive and receptive to neglect any of the new artistic resources within its cognizance, and too superficial to grasp their real meaning. His mastery of the violoncello, and his advanced sense of beauty in instrumental tone-colour, must have made even his earlier works seem to contemporaries at least as novel and mature as any of those experiments at which Haydn, with eight years more of age and experience, was labouring in the development of the true new forms. Most of Boccherini's technical resources proved useless to Haydn, and resemblances occur only in Haydn's earliest works (e.g. most of the slow movements of the quartets in _op_. 3 and in some as late as _op_. 17); whichever derived the characteristics of such movements from the other, the advantage is decidedly with Boccherini. But the progress of music did not lie in the production of novel beauties of instrumental tone in a style in which polyphonic organization was either deliberately abandoned or replaced by a pleasing illusion, while the form in its larger aspects was a mere inorganic amplification of the old suite-forms, which presupposed a genuine polyphonic organization as the vitalizing principle of their otherwise purely decorative nature. The true tendency of the new sonata forms was to make instrumental music dramatic in its variety and contrasts, instead of merely decorative. Haydn from the outset buried himself with the handling of new rhythmic proportions; and if it is hardly an exaggeration to say that the surprising beauty of colour in such a specimen of Boccherini's 125 string-quintets as that in E major (containing the popular minuet) is perhaps more modern and certainly safer in performance than any special effect Haydn ever achieved, it is nevertheless true that even this beauty fails to justify the length and monotony of the work. Where Haydn uses any fraction of the resources of such a style, the ultimate effect is in proportion to a purpose of which Boccherini, with all his genuine admiration of his elder brother in art, could form no conception. Boccherini's works are, however, still indispensable for violoncellists, both in their education and their concert repertories; and his position in musical history is assured as that of the most original and, next to Tartini, perhaps the greatest writer of music for stringed instruments in the late Italian amplifications of the older quasi-polyphonic sonata or suite-form that survived into the beginning of the 19th century in the works of Nardini. Boccherini may safely be regarded as its last real master. He was wittily characterized by the contemporary violinist Puppo as "the wife of Haydn"; which is very true, if man and woman are two different species; but not as true as e.g. the equally common saying that "Schubert is the wife of Beethoven," and still less true than that "Vittoria is the wife of Palestrina."

His life, with a _Catalogue raisonne_, was published by L. Picquot (1851). (D. F. T.)

BOCCHUS, king of Mauretania (about 110 B.C.), and father-in-law of Jugurtha. In 108 he vacillated between Jugurtha and the Romans, and joined Jugurtha only on his promising him the third part of his kingdom. The two kings were twice defeated. Bocchus again made overtures to the Romans, and after an interview with Sulla, who was Marius's quaestor at that time, sent ambassadors to Rome. At Rome the hope of an alliance was encouraged, but on condition that Bocchus showed himself deserving of it. After further negotiations with Sulla, he finally agreed to send a message to Jugurtha requesting his presence. Jugurtha fell into the trap and was given up to Sulla. Bocchus concluded a treaty with the Romans, and a portion of Numidia was added to his kingdom. Further to conciliate the Romans and especially Sulla, he sent to the Capitol a group of Victories guarding a device in gold showing Bocchus handing over Jugurtha to Sulla.

See JUGURTHA; also Sallust, _Jugurtha_, 80-120; Plutarch, _Marius_, 8-32, _Sulla_, 3; A.H.J. Greenidge, _History of Rome_ (London, 1904).

His son, BOCCHUS, was king of Mauretania, jointly with a younger brother Bogud. As enemies of the senatorial party, their title was recognized by Caesar (49 B.C.). During the African war they invaded Numidia and conquered Cirta, the capital of the kingdom of Juba, who was thus obliged to abandon the idea of joining Metellus Scipio against Caesar. At the end of the war, Caesar bestowed upon Bocchus part of the territory of Massinissa, Juba's ally, which was recovered after Caesar's murder by Massinissa's son Arabion. Dio Cassius says that Bocchus sent his sons to support Sextus Pompeius in Spain, while Bogud fought on the side of Caesar, and there is no doubt that after Caesar's death Bocchus supported Octavian, and Bogud Antony. During Bogud's absence in Spain, his brother seized the whole of Numidia, and was confirmed sole ruler by Octavian. After his death in 33, Numidia was made a Roman province.

_Bell. Afric._ 25; Dio Cassius xli. 42, xliii. 36, xlviii. 45; Appian, _Bell. Civ._ ii. 96, iv. 54.

BOCHART, SAMUEL (1599-1667), French scholar, was born at Rouen on the 30th of May 1599. He was for many years a pastor of a Protestant church at Caen, and became tutor to Wentworth Dillon, earl of Roscommon. In 1646 he published his _Phaleg_ and _Chanaan_ (Caen, 1646 and 1651), the two parts of his _Geographia Sacra_. His _Hierozoicon_, which treats of the animals of Scripture, was printed in London (2 vols., 1663). In 1652 Christina of Sweden invited him to Stockholm, where he studied the Arabian manuscripts in the queen's possession. He was accompanied by Pierre Daniel Huet, afterwards bishop of Avranches. On his return to Caen he was received into the academy of that city. Bochart was a man of profound erudition; he possessed a thorough knowledge of the principal Oriental languages, including Hebrew, Syriac, Chaldaic and Arabic; and at an advanced age he wished to learn Ethiopic. He was so absorbed in his favourite study, that he saw Phoenician and nothing but Phoenician in everything, even in Celtic words, and hence the number of chimerical etymologies which swarm in his works. He died at Caen on the 16th of May 1667.

A complete edition of his works was published at Leiden, under the title of _Sam. Bochart Opera Omnia_ (1675, 2 vols. folio; 4th ed., 3 vols., 1712). An _Essay on the Life and Writings of Samuel Bochart_, by W.R. Whittingham, appeared in 1829.

BOCHOLT, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Westphalia, near the frontier of Holland, 12 m. by rail north of Wesel. It is a seat of the cotton industry. Pop. (1900) 21,278.

BOCHUM, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Westphalia, 11 m. by rail west from Dortmund. Pop. (1905) 118,000. It is a centre of the iron and steel industries, producing principally cast steel, cast iron, iron pipes, wire and wire ropes, and lamps, with tin and zinc works, coal-mining, factories for carpets, calcium carbide and paper-roofing, brickworks and breweries. The Bochumer Verein fur Bergbau (mining) und Gusstahl Fabrication (steel manufacture) is one of the principal trusts in this industry, founded in 1854. There are a mining and a metallurgical school.

BOCKH, PHILIPP AUGUST (1785-1867), German classical scholar and antiquarian, was born in Karlsruhe on the 24th of November 1785. He was sent to the gymnasium of his native place, and remained there until he left for the university of Halle (1803), where he devoted himself to the study of theology. F.A. Wolf was then creating there an enthusiasm for classical studies; Bockh fell under the spell, passed from theology to philology, and became the greatest of all Wolf's scholars. In 1807 he established himself as privat-docent in the university of Heidelberg and was shortly afterwards appointed a professor extraordinarius, becoming professor two years later. In 1811 he removed to the new Berlin University, having been appointed professor of eloquence and classical literature. He remained there till his death on the 3rd of August 1867. He was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences of Berlin in 1814, and for a long time acted as its secretary. Many of the speeches contained in his _Kleine Schriften_ were delivered in this latter capacity.

Bockh worked out the ideas of Wolf in regard to philology, and illustrated them by his practice. Discarding the old notion that philology consisted in a minute acquaintance with words and the exercise of the critical art, he regarded it as the entire knowledge of antiquity, historical and philosophical. He divides philology into five parts: first, an inquiry into public acts, with a knowledge of times and places, into civil institutions, and also into law; second, an inquiry into private affairs; third, an exhibition of the religions and arts of the ancient nations; fourth, a history of all their moral and physical speculations and beliefs, and of their literatures; and fifth, a complete explanation of the language. These ideas in regard to philology Bockh set forth in a Latin oration delivered in 1822 (_Gesammelte kleine Schriften_, i.). In his speech at the opening of the congress of German philologists in 1850, he defined philology as the historical construction of the entire life--therefore, of all forms of culture and all the productions of a people in its practical and spiritual tendencies. He allows that such a work is too great for any one man; but the very infinity of subjects is the stimulus to the pursuit of truth, and men strive because they have not attained (_ib_. ii.). An account of Bockh's division of philology will be found in Freund's _Wie studirt man Philologie?_