A Vision of Fiammetta by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Maria d'Aquino (died in 1382) was a Neapolitan noblewoman who is traditionally identified with

Giovanni Boccaccio Giovanni Boccaccio (, , ; 16 June 1313 – 21 December 1375) was an Italian writer, poet, correspondent of Petrarch, and an important Renaissance humanist. Born in the town of Certaldo, he became so well known as a writer that he was som ...

's beloved and

muse In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the Muses ( grc, Μοῦσαι, Moûsai, el, Μούσες, Múses) are the inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge embodied in the ...

Fiammetta (Italian for "little flame"). Maria d'Aquino was a “

royal bastard A royal bastard was a common term (now largely dropped from common usage) for the illegitimate child of a reigning monarch. These children were considered to be born outside of marriage - either because the monarch had an extra-marital affair, ...

”, an

illegitimate Legitimacy, in traditional Western common law, is the status of a child born to parents who are legally married to each other, and of a child conceived before the parents obtain a legal divorce. Conversely, ''illegitimacy'', also known as ...

daughter of Robert the Wise, King of Naples and

Count of Provence The land of Provence has a history quite separate from that of any of the larger nations of Europe. Its independent existence has its origins in the frontier nature of the dukedom in Merovingian Gaul. In this position, influenced and affected by ...

. She was an accomplice in the 1345 murder of King Andrew, the husband of her niece and Robert's successor, Queen Joanna I. For this Maria was sentenced to death and beheaded in 1382 on the orders of Queen Joanna I's successor,

King Charles III Charles III (Charles Philip Arthur George; born 14 November 1948) is King of the United Kingdom and the 14 other Commonwealth realms. He was the longest-serving heir apparent and Prince of Wales and, at age 73, became the oldest person to ...

. Boccaccio wrote about Maria d'Aquino and their relationship in several of his literary works. She is traditionally identified as Fiammetta. According to him, Maria's mother was a Provençal noblewoman, Sibila Sabran, wife of Count Thomas IV of Aquino. She was born after Countess Sibila and King Robert committed

adultery Adultery (from Latin ''adulterium'') is extramarital sex that is considered objectionable on social, religious, moral, or legal grounds. Although the sexual activities that constitute adultery vary, as well as the social, religious, and leg ...

at his

coronation A coronation is the act of placement or bestowal of a crown upon a monarch's head. The term also generally refers not only to the physical crowning but to the whole ceremony wherein the act of crowning occurs, along with the presentation of o ...

festivities in 1310, but was given the family name of her mother's husband. Her putative father placed her in a convent.

Literature

Fiammetta appears in the following works by Boccaccio: * '' The Filocolo'' * ''

Teseida ''Teseida'' (full title: ''Teseida delle Nozze d’Emilia'', or ''The Theseid, Concerning the Nuptials of Emily'') is a long epic poem written by Giovanni Boccaccio c.1340–41. Running to almost 10,000 lines divided into twelve books, its notiona ...

'' * ''

Il Filostrato "Il Filostrato" is a poem by the Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio, and the inspiration for Geoffrey Chaucer's ''Troilus and Criseyde'' and, through Chaucer, the Shakespeare play ''Troilus and Cressida''. It is itself loosely based on '' Le Ro ...

'' * ''Ninfale d'Ameto'' * ''Amorosa visione'' * ''Fiammetta'' (novel) * ''Ninfale fiesolano'' * ''

The Decameron ''The Decameron'' (; it, label= Italian, Decameron or ''Decamerone'' ), subtitled ''Prince Galehaut'' (Old it, Prencipe Galeotto, links=no ) and sometimes nicknamed ''l'Umana commedia'' ("the Human comedy", as it was Boccaccio that dubbed Da ...

'' (Novels № I, 5; II, 5; III, 6; IV, 1; V, 9; VI, 6; VII, 5; VIII, 6; IX, 5; X, 6) * Sonnets (№ XLV, XCVII, CII, CXXVI)

Historicity

Boccaccio scholar G. H. McWilliam contends that Maria d'Aquino did not even exist as little evidence outside of Giovanni Boccaccio's own work is given for her existence. According to McWilliam, the medieval art of courtly love which Boccaccio followed was put down by

Andreas Capellanus Andreas Capellanus (''Capellanus'' meaning "chaplain"), also known as Andrew the Chaplain, and occasionally by a French translation of his name, André le Chapelain, was the 12th-century author of a treatise commonly known as '' De amore'' ("About ...

and it heavily revolved around unreciprocated love of a noblewoman outside the lover's class. Boccaccio may have created this woman to follow medieval standards of love more closely. McWilliam briefly discusses this hypothesis in the footnotes of the Penguin Classics edition of

References

Bibliography

* *{{cite book, title=The Filostrato of Giovanni Boccaccio, volume=2, last=Boccaccio, first=Giovanno, editor1=Nathaniel Edward Griffin, editor2=Arthur Beckwith Myrick, publisher=Biblo & Tannen Publishers, isbn=081960187X, year=1998, ref={{harvid, Griffin, Myrick, 1998 14th-century Italian women 14th-century Neapolitan people Muses Characters in The Decameron Daughters of kings

Literature

Historicity

See also

References

Bibliography