Note 357 — Chapter VIII

In the Commentary on the Divine Comedy (Moutier, Vol. XI, p. 105) he says: "E se io ho il vero inteso, perciocchè in que' tempi io non ci era, io odo, che in questa città avvenne a molti nell' anno pestifero del MCCCXLVIII, che essendo soprappresi gli uomini dalla peste, e vicini alla morte, ne furon più e più, i quali de' loro amici, chi uno e chi due, e chi più ne chiamò, dicendo, vienne tale e tale; de' quali chiamati e nominati assai, secondo l' ordine tenuto dal chiamatore, s' eran morti, e andatine appresso al chiamatore...." This might seem evidence enough that Boccaccio was not in Florence in 1348, for he expressly says so. There is a passage, however, in the Decameron Introduction where he seems to say that he was in Florence; but as we shall see, we misunderstand him. He says: "So marvellous is that which I have now to relate that had not many, and I among them, observed it with their own eyes I had hardly dared to credit it...." He then goes on to tell us (assuring us again that he had seen it himself) that one day two hogs came nosing among the rags of a poor wretch who had died of the disease, and immediately they "gave a few turns and fell down dead as if from poison...." But this might have happened in Naples or Forlì quite as well as in Florence. It is only right to add that the Moutier edition of the Comento sopra Dante notes that the MS. from which it is printed reads 1340 instead of 1348 in the passage already quoted. This may or may not be an error. There was a plague in Florence in 1340. See Villani, op. cit., Lib. XII, cap. lxxiii.