The ‘Decameron’ Eighth Day in Perspective ed. by William Robins (review)

Reviewed by: The 'Decameron' Eighth Day in Perspective ed. by William Robins Rebecca Bowen The 'Decameron' Eighth Day in Perspective. Ed. by William Robins. (Toronto Italian Studies: Lectura Boccaccii, 8) Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 2020. vii+284 pp. $75. ISBN 978–1–4875–0690–2. The productivity of scholarly brigate such as the one formed by the American Boccaccio Association's Lecturae Boccaccii, the bedrock of the series to which this volume belongs, is proven by the depth and insight of the essays in this collection. Deftly articulated socio-historical panoramas take shape next to developed discussion of literary and metaliterary landscapes. The Decameron's eighth day lends itself to this approach since the basic structure of the genre on which the giornata is focused, the beffa, or practical joke, is constructed along a fault-line of insider/outsider dynamics that reflects and enhances variances in civic, gender, and professional identity. As William Robins outlines in his Introduction, the ingrained theatricality of the beffa also presents the potential for literary self-awareness, the ever-present metaleptic slippage between Boccaccio's reader, the brigata listening to the novella, and the audience of the beffa inside the tale itself. Notable for their diverse interdisciplinary approaches (from sociology to manuscript studies) the rich tapestry of responses in this volume more than answers the well-established tradition of canto-by-canto Lecturae Dantis. [End Page 415] A keystone of several of the essays is Boccaccio's 'geographic imagination' (pp. 7– 12), as Robins terms it in his opening piece. Through convincing use of visual and statistical aids, Robins draws attention to the centrality of Tuscan identities in understanding the emotional and social impact of the novelle. Justin Steinberg's essay on Calandrino and the Florentine police (viii. 3, pp. 59–88) further illuminates the urban landscape and its functionaries, revealing an infiltration of actual legal systems into the fabric of Boccaccio's literary tale (pp. 80–81) via a review of the norms and sources (from Pliny's Natural History to Roman Law) that may be said to shape the ethical dimension of the tale. Questions of illusionistic representation, implicit in Calandrino's profession as an artist, are also addressed as Steinberg argues that the reader's panoptic surveillance turns the tricking of Calandrino into a living pittura infamante (p. 76). Similar questions of identity and representation are at the forefront of Roberta Morosini's essay on Salabaetto and Iancofiore (viii. 20, pp. 225–42), in which the Mediterranean is considered an active social environment shaping the urban spaces and cultural and economic realities that surround it, from the specialized language of the port to the classical and post-classical models behind the figures in the tale. Textual communities present another bedrock of the collection. Elisa Brilli's illuminating assessment of the popular knowledge of exemplary tales reveals them to be a crucial factor in the comic success of doctor Simone's duping (viii. 9, pp. 205–24). Brilli's discussion of Petrarchan intertexts convincingly highlights the wider social debate around the medical profession and situates Boccaccio's tale in a detailed contemporary panorama. Teodolinda Barolini gives a similarly detailed historicizing treatment in her essay on the tale of the scholar and the widow (viii. 7, pp. 148–89). Careful analysis of the social categories constructed by Boccaccio reveals that Rinieri descends from 'sagio amante' to sophistic priest, breaking the Aristotelian bounds of misura and losing touch with both umanità and compassione, the key ingredients of personhood as Boccaccio lists them in his introduction. Humanity and measured punishment are also at the heart of Olivia Holmes's discussion of the tale of the 'Sienese polyamorous couple' (viii. 8, pp. 190–204). While the seemingly happy ending of the tale offers a note of hope in relation to conflict, the lack of clear ethical and narrative closure leads to a more comic corrective justice that opens itself out to endless variations on the prisoner's dilemma, a sociological paradigm that Holmes outlines through strong interdisciplinary reference and astute comment on the narrative methodology of the Decameron more broadly. Katherine Brown's analysis of the tale of Monna Piccarda's deception of the...

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