L’APPETITO E IL PIACERE. FONTI E INTERTESTI DI DECAMERON, X 7

MARIA PIA ELLERO, Appetite and pleasure. Sources and intertexts in ‘Decameron’, X 7 In the Proem of the Decameron, the theme of consolatio mobilises two different cultural traditions, which converge in proposing a reading of Decameron as remedium amoris. Alongside Latin erotic literature of Ovidian reminiscence, well investigated in relation to Decameron, a new source has recently been found: the medieval medical tradition, known to Boccaccio already at the time of his Glosse to Teseida. Classical tradition andcontemporary medical tradition appear intertwined and expanded according to original developments in some of the novellas of the collection. My aim in this paper is to investigate the aspect of Boccaccian intertextuality in novella X 7. In it a dense interference of different sources can be traced: in addition to the two literary currents already reported, Boccaccio elaborates aspects of Aristotle’s moral reflection (the presence of the Nicomachean Ethics is pervasive throughout the tenth day), and the observations of St. Thomas on passions. The rewriting of these sources and their interweaving gives rise to a partial reformulation of the theme of love and its relationship with will, which had emerged in the two central days of the collection.