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Maria d'Aquino (died in 1382) was a Neapolitan noblewoman who is traditionally identified with
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 somet ...
's beloved and muse 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, o ...
”, an illegitimate daughter of Robert the Wise, King of Naples and Count of Provence. 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.
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 at his coronation 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
''The Filocolo'' (orig. '' Il Filocolo'') is a novel written by Giovanni Boccaccio between 1335-36. It is considered to be the first novel of Italian literature written in prose. It is based on a very popular story of the time, '' Florio e Bia ...
''
* ''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 notion ...
''
* '' Il Filostrato''
* ''Ninfale d'Ameto''
* ''Amorosa visione''
* ''Fiammetta'' (novel)
* ''Ninfale fiesolano''
* '' The Decameron'' (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 byAndreas 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 The Decameron.
See also
*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