The Gardens in the Decameron Cornice

The fifth edition of Attilio Momigliano's Storia della Letteratura Iialiana (Milan, 1946) still insists on the mainly ornamental function of the Decameron frame story: “II motivo del verde e dei fiori che inghirlandano la lieta compagnia, ha per lo più la superficialità e la povertà di un ornamento: è più decorazione che pittura. Ed è questo il carattere di tutta l'intelaiatura del libro : un largo affresco aristocratico da guardare nel decoro del complesso senza meditazione e senza analisi” (pp. 79 ff.). Yet a number of modern critics have seen in the cornice more than an ornament and have considered it rather an organic part of the entire work. Some of these writers see symbolic significance in the brigata's departure (or escape) from the stricken city to more ideal places, and their assumptions seem to be borne out by the statements of Boccaccio, who actually leaves no doubt about his artistic intention and consciousness in writing the frame story. However, it seems strange that even those critics who see symbolic significance in the brigata's departure from the city should look at the remainder of the cornice as a single setting and should overlook entirely the group's wanderings from garden to garden. Although a detailed study of these gardens has not hitherto been made, they and the group's peregrinations suggest symbolically the philosophy of the whole work and are thus essential to its interpretation.