Note 503 — Chapter XIV

Cf. Corazzini, op. cit., p. 337. We have four letters which Boccaccio wrote during these years: that to Matteo d' Ambrosio, dated "iv Idus Maias," which Hortis (op. cit., p. 285) argues belongs to 1371; that to Orsini, which the same critic gives to June, 1371; that to Jacopo da Pizzinghe, which he gives to the summer of the same year; and that to Piero di Monteforte, dated from Certaldo "Nonis Aprilis," which he gives to 1372. Baldelli, followed by Witte (op. cit., p. xl), thinks the letter to Matteo d' Ambrosio belongs to 1373, and thus argues that Boccaccio was twice in Naples: in the winter of 1370-1, and again in the autumn of 1372 to May, 1373. But Hortis shows it is impossible that the letter to Ambrosio is of May, 1373, since on 19 March, 1373, Boccaccio was in Certaldo when the Bishop Angelo Acciaiuoli committed to him an office—"confidens quam plurimum de fidei puritate providi viri D. Joannis Boccaccii de Certaldo Civis et Clerici Florentini." Cf. Manni, Ist. del Decameron, p. 35, and Hortis, op. cit., pp. 208, n. 1, and 284, n. 3.