Note 80 — Chapter II
Reading edition
Boccaccio was called Giovanni della Tranquillità partly in scorn. He resented it, as appears from a letter to Zanobi della Strada (Op. Volg. vol. xvii. p. 101), because it implied a love of Court delights and parasitical idleness. In that letter he amply defends himself from such imputations, showing that he led the life of a poor and contented student. Yet the nickname was true in a deeper sense, as is proved by the very arguments of his apology, and confirmed by the description of his life at Certaldo remote from civic duties (Letter to Pino de' Rossi, ibid. p. 35), as well as by the tragi-comic narrative of his discomfort at Naples (Letter to Messer Francesco, ibid. pp. 37-87). Not only in these passages, but in all his works he paints himself a comfort-loving bourgeois, whose heart was set on his books, whose ideal of enjoyment was a satisfied passion of a sensual kind.