Boccaccio’s Decameron consists of a hundred stories told ten each day for a total of ten days. But there’s a bonus, the hundred-and-first story buried in Filostrato’s introduction to the fourth day. In some ways, this is the best known of all these stories as it has made its way into the French language, through one of La Fontaine’s fables, and is generally known as Brother Philippe’s Geese. Filostrato, though, claims this isn’t a complete story, only part of one.

Filippo Balducci was a good man, knowledgeable, and deeply in love with his wife, who was equally in love with him. She died tragically young, when their only child, a son, was but two years old. Filippo was broken by this loss, and decided to withdraw from life to devote his remaining years to the service of God.

He therefore gave all his possessions to charity, and went to live in a cave on the slopes of Mount Asinaio with his young son. For many years, he kept his son in the cave, seeing only the walls around him, their meagre possessions, and his father. From time to time, Filippo travelled alone down to the city of Florence, where generous people gave him the small things that he needed to live, but his son always remained in their cave.

When Filippo’s son reached the age of eighteen, and his father was preparing to travel down to Florence again, the son asked his father if he could accompany him. He argued that the time would come when his father was no longer able to undertake the journey, so it was important that the younger man learned what to do. Filippo agreed, and the two went down to the city together.

The son had never seen another living thing apart from his father, and was taken aback when he saw the crowded buildings and bustle of Florence. He repeatedly asked his father about the new things which he saw, and what each was called.

The pair then came across a group of beautiful young ladies who had just been to a wedding. The son asked his father what they were, but Filippo just told him to keep looking at the ground, as they were evil. His son wasn’t content with that, and asked his father again what they were called. At a loss for words, Filippo said that they were goslings.

The son immediately lost interest in everything else in the city, and asked his father to get him one of those goslings. Filippo told him again that they were evil, to which his son said that he couldn’t see any evil in them, and pleaded again for them to take a gosling back so that he could pop things in its bill.

Filippo told his son that their bills are not where the son might think, and that they required a special diet, a very ribald remark that abruptly terminated Filostrato’s story.

La Fontaine’s fable, the first in his second book, is a faithful retelling of this abbreviated story, but omits the double entendre of the punchline, which is perhaps just as well given his readership when it was first published in 1668. As those fables became popular throughout France and Europe, they attracted the attention of artists, and this has been painted at least thrice now.

The first painting is this small gouache by François Boucher from about 1720-28, with its marked contrast in the dress between the reclusive pair and the goslings or geese.

Then in about 1736, Nicolas Lancret painted it in oil on copper, as one of a pair, among a larger group of his paintings of La Fontaine’s fables. The father is shown here dressed as a monk, which is more in keeping with La Fontaine’s account than Boccaccio’s original, but the facial expressions are marvellous, particularly that of the son.

That became so popular that it was reproduced in prints, such as those by Nicolas de Larmessin (1684–1755) in which the image is naturally reversed, but here seen unreversed on a porcelain plate exported from China in 1745.

At the same time, Pierre Hubert Subleyras painted a different composition telling the story, short of its punchline of course. He restores a thoroughly rustic appearance to the father and son, but surprisingly the young man isn’t staring in wonder at the goslings or geese.

And here’s an undated hand-coloured print apparently based on another composition altogether.

The phrase Brother Philippe’s geese, which in modern English might be best rendered as Philip’s birds, then entered French idiom as a reference to young and pretty women. Abbreviated further to geese, its origins have often been misunderstood as being derogatory. It certainly seems to have been well-understood by Paul Gauguin.

When Gauguin stayed at Le Pouldu in Brittany from 1889, he and others were accommodated by Marie Henry in her inn. Gauguin and his colleagues decorated the interior for her with their paintings. In 1893, when Marie Henry rented the building out, she removed as much as possible of the paintings made there by Gauguin and others, but some were left behind. Over the years, they were covered with wallpaper and vanished, until they were rediscovered in 1924.

Among them is this wonderful painting of a goose, intended as a complement to Marie Henry, in its allusion to the fable of La Fontaine, and its original telling as the hundred-and-first story in Boccaccio’s Decameron.

The last story in Boccaccio’s Decameron is the tenth of the tenth day, told by Dioneo. For the modern reader, it’s a strange conclusion praising submission and obedience in marriage. It’s a re-telling of the folk story of Griselda, which was taken up by Chaucer in the Clerk’s Tale, by Charles Perrault in his stories in the seventeenth century, and by many others even into the twentieth century, and seems to have been told exclusively by men. Although Dioneo does condemn Griselda’s husband for his “senseless brutality”, the persistence of this folk tale is disturbing.

Gualtieri inherited the title of Marquis of Saluzzo, and was soon being urged to marry so that he would have an heir. He resisted, but had recently noticed a beautiful young girl from a neighbouring village, so decided to marry her. His friends were delighted, and arranged a splendid wedding for the couple.

Henry Steimer’s illustration for an edition of the stories of Charles Perrault from the early twentieth century shows Griselda spinning by hand at the side of a river, as Gualtieri watches from his horse. Steimer was also an early cartoonist.

Early on the day of the wedding, Gualtieri rode forth with all those friends to fetch his bride Griselda. When he had met her father and confirmed with his bride that she would always try to please him, would never be upset by anything he said or did, and would obey him, Gualtieri proceeded with the ceremony. He then took Griselda outside, stripped her naked, and had her dressed in her new clothes and shoes, with a crown upon her head. Gualtieri and Griselda were married there, and went back to celebrate and feast in his house.

Between 1445-50, Francesco Pesellino painted panels telling the story of Griselda. This is a composite, using multiplex narrative, in which Gualtieri prepares to leave his house, at the left, rides to Griselda’s (centre), where he strips her naked prior to dressing her in fine clothes and marrying her (right).

Mary Eliza Haweis’ illustration of Griselda’s Marriage from 1882 was made for her book Chaucer for Children, so avoids its full detail.

Griselda was transformed by her marriage, and proved a dutiful and obedient wife, winning the hearts of all those who knew her. She soon became pregnant, and was duly delivered of a daughter. Following this, her husband started to make her life a misery. He first pretended to be angry, and accused her of falling to a lowly condition now she had a child. She accepted his rebukes, and told him that she would be content with whatever he decided to do to her.

Gualtieri then instructed one of his servants to go to his wife and take their daughter away and murder her. Griselda was again entirely compliant, accepting her husband’s will. In fact he didn’t have the infant killed, but spirited her away to be brought up by relatives elsewhere.

Mary Eliza Haweis’ illustration shows Griselda’s Sorrow (1882) in stoical terms.

Griselda again fell pregnant, this time giving birth to a boy. Her husband repeated his verbal abuse of her afterwards, then had the baby taken away to be ‘killed’, as far as she was told, when in fact the child was sent away to the same relatives.

Some years later, Gualtieri decided to put Griselda to a final test. He told others that he could no longer stand his wife, and would obtain Papal dispensation to divorce her so he could marry another. Griselda was filled with despair, as she would have to return to her father and work for him as a shepherdess again, but she didn’t voice those thoughts, only prepared herself for what seemed inevitable.

Gualtieri arranged for forged letters from Rome to support his claim that he had been granted dispensation for a divorce. Griselda accepted her distressing situation, returned her wedding ring, and was cast out of Gualtieri’s house barefoot, wearing nothing but a shift.

Gualtieri then announced that he would be marrying the daughter of a Count. He sent for Griselda, and told her to put his house in order ready for her to arrive for their wedding. She did so wearing her coarse woollen clothes from the country, cleaning all the rooms and making them ready. She then sent invitations to all the ladies in the area to the marriage feast, and on the appointed day of the wedding welcomed them all.

Gualtieri arranged for Griselda’s children, then flourishing at the ages of twelve and six, to be brought to his house. As Griselda was welcoming guests to the wedding, Gualtieri decided that the time had come to reveal the truth to her, and to stop making her suffer. He told her what he had done, introduced their children to her, embraced and kissed Griselda, who was weeping with joy.

The ladies who had been invited to the sham wedding took Griselda away and dressed her up as the queen she deserved to be. Gualtieri ensured his father-in-law was set up in comfort. And Gualtieri and Griselda lived happily ever after.

The finest series of paintings telling this story are the Spalliera Panels in London’s National Gallery, painted in 1494.

The first appears to have been inspired by Pesellino’s earlier panels, and tells of Gualtieri and Griselda’s wedding using multiplex narrative. At the far left, Gualtieri is hunting prior to his decision to marry. He then sets out on horseback to ride to Griselda’s house. At the right, Griselda is shown naked, as she’s just about to be dressed in her fine clothing. In the centre the couple are married.

The second panel is set in the grander surroundings of Gualtieri’s house. At the left edge, Griselda’s infant is taken from her apparently to be killed. In the centre, she is shown the forged Papal dispensation dissolving her marriage, then to the right she is removing her fine clothes prior to leaving Gualtieri’s house (detail below). At the far right she is barefoot, wearing just her shift, with her father’s house in the background.

The final panel shows scenes from the end of the story. At the right edge, Gualtieri tells Griselda (now dressed in black) to prepare his house for the wedding, which she does by sweeping it, at the left edge. Between those is the wedding feast: at the right, Griselda, still in black, talks with Gualtieri as he sits at the table. At the left end of the table, Griselda and Gualtieri embrace and kiss in reconciliation.

On the eleventh day, the ten young fugitives from the plague in Florence returned to the city, and Boccaccio’s Decameron comes to an end. But I still have one more story, the one hundred and first, that I’ll tell next week.

On the tenth and final day of stories in Boccaccio’s Decameron, the theme is set by Panfilo, the ‘king of the day’, as those who have performed liberal or munificent deeds in the cause of love, or for other reasons. Emilia is called on to tell the fifth of the day’s stories, concerning Messer Ansaldo and Madonna Dianora. Messer was a contemporary title for a gentleman who hadn’t quite made it to the ranks of the nobility.

This is set in the town of Udine, in Friuli, in the north-east of Italy, not far from the borders with Austria and Slovenia. It’s set in January, a time when that part of Italy is frosty and snowy.

Madonna Dianora was the noble and faithful wife of Gilberto, an exceedingly rich man. Another gentleman, Messer Ansaldo, who was renowned for his courtesy, fell deeply in love with Dianora, sending her incessant messages in the hope that she would return his love. Dianora became fed up with his badgering, so decided to set Ansaldo an impossible task.

She gave Ansaldo’s messenger a reply that she would return his love only if he demonstrated it by providing her with a garden near Udine where there were plants, trees, and flowers as if it were the month of May, rather than January. If he was unable to do that, then he should desist from troubling her again.

When Ansaldo heard of this demand, he realised that Dianora was trying to be rid of his attentions in her impossible task. However, making enquiries he located a magician who said that he could pull this off, provided that Ansaldo would pay him a great price. Ansaldo agreed, and waited for it all to happen.

The weather grew bitterly cold at the start of January, but the magician transformed a meadow next to Udine into a miraculous garden, with trees in full leaf, abundant vegetation, flowers, and rich fruit, all amid surrounding snow. Ansaldo invited Dianora to visit, reminding her of the pledge she had made.

She had already heard reports of this enchanted garden, and went to visit it in the company of other ladies.

As far as I can discover, there are only two paintings showing the enchanted garden of Messer Ansaldo, the first by Marie Spartali Stillman, and the second painted over twenty-five years later by John William Waterhouse, shortly before he died.

Marie Spartali Stillman’s The Enchanted Garden of Messer Ansaldo from 1889 condenses the story slightly to include both Dianora’s viewing of the garden in company, and her subsequent meeting with Ansaldo. Surrounded by his enchanted blooming garden, and with snow on the ground outside, Ansaldo (at the right) is welcoming Dianora (just right of centre) and the other ladies. Dianora is torn between her honour as a married woman, and her promise.

Stillman painted this when in London, and exhibited it at the New Gallery later in 1889 with a written explanation of the scene. Failing to sell it in the UK, she took it with her to the USA in 1900, where it was bought in Boston by a distant relative of her husband. The painting then disappeared until its re-discovery in the 1980s.

John William Waterhouse’s The Enchanted Garden was painted at the end of his career, between 1916-17. Although it may show influence from Stillman’s painting, which he may well have seen over twenty-five years earlier when it was hanging in the New Gallery, and both share a very similar look, their composition and details are quite different.

Ansaldo is again at the right, and Dianora on the left, with her ladies marvelling at the garden between them. Dianora doesn’t look in despair by any means, just puzzled and slightly fearful of the consequences.

When Dianora had confirmed that Ansaldo had achieved the impossible, she was thrown into the depths of despair, realising she had to honour her promise. At first her husband was unable to discover what was the matter, but eventually she confessed the full story to him. He was angry, but told her that her errors were from the purest of motives. He told her to go to Messer Ansaldo and do everything she could to get out of her obligation. However, if she couldn’t escape it, she could give him her body, but not her heart.

Dianora burst into tears at this, but followed her husband’s instructions and went to Ansaldo the next morning at dawn.

Messer Ansaldo asked her why she had come, and she explained that it wasn’t out of love, but her obligation to stick to her word, and that her husband had told her to do so.

Ansaldo told her that he never intended to hurt her or harm her reputation, and that he would treat her as a sister, not a lover. Dianora was delighted, and returned to her husband full of praise for Ansaldo’s manners. Her husband Gilberto and Messer Ansaldo became lifelong friends as a result. Even the magician waived his fee, and despite Ansaldo’s every attempt to get him to take his money, the magician insisted that he too had to be generous in the circumstances.

Thereafter, Messer Ansaldo got over his love for Dianora, which he replaced with a deep and proper affection.

On the fifth day of the Decameron’s stories, Fiammetta chose the theme of the adventures of lovers who survived calamities or misfortunes and reached a state of happiness. The first of those concerns Cimon (or Cymon) and Iphigenia, and was told by Panfilo. This has been painted more than any other story in the whole of the Decameron, by masters from Rubens to Frederic, Lord Leighton, none of whom attempts to tell any more than its opening. Also note that Iphigenia here isn’t the daughter of Agamemnon who had to be sacrificed to bring favourable winds for the Greek fleet to sail against Troy.

Cimon’s father was a wealthy Cypriot, but Cimon, a nickname given in honour of his apparent simplicity and uncouthness, was his problem child. He was exceedingly handsome and had a fine physique, but behaved like a complete imbecile. He appeared unable to learn anything, even basic manners, so was sent to live with the farm-workers on his father’s large estates.

One afternoon in May, Cimon was out walking when he reached a fountain in a clearing surrounded by tall trees. Lying asleep on the grass by that fountain was a beautiful young woman, Iphigenia, wearing a flimsy dress that left nothing to the imagination. Sleeping by her were attendants, two women and a man. Cimon was immediately enraptured, leaned on his stick, and stared at her. As he did so, his simple mind started to change.

As with many of Boccaccio’s stories, this is shown on a wedding cassone, here from about 1525. It’s relatively simple: there’s no sign of the attendants, but there is a second image of Cimon walking along a path at the far right.

In about 1617, Peter Paul Rubens joined with Frans Snyders (who painted the still life with monkeys at the lower right) and Jan Wildens (who painted the landscape background) in their marvellous Cymon and Iphigenia. This is accurate in its details too, with the correct quota of attendants, and a splendid fountain at the left. Cimon really looks like Boccaccio’s uncouth simpleton.

Willem Van Mieris’ Cymon and Iphigenia from 1698 treats the scene more in the vein of Poussin or Claude, and again remains faithful to Boccaccio’s details.

Benjamin West was more coy in both of his depictions of this scene. His earlier Cymon and Iphigenia from about 1766 (above) was well-received at the time. Six years later, in 1773, he reversed the composition, and was even more restrained in the display of flesh, as shown below.

A few years later, in about 1780, Angelica Kauffman painted this delightful tondo of Cymon and Iphigenia, another variation on the same theme. The cultural contrast between the young man and woman is not so stark.

When he was only eighteen, John Everett Millais painted what was to be his last work before he embraced Pre-Raphaelite style: Cymon and Iphigenia (1848). At first sight this bears little resemblance to Boccaccio’s story, which is to be expected, as Millais didn’t use the Decameron as his literary reference, but a later re-telling by the English poet John Dryden, to which this is more faithful.

In 1884, Frederic, Lord Leighton painted what must be the most luxuriant and sensuous version of this scene. This study shows Leighton confirming his composition and use of colour.

The finished painting, Cymon and Iphigenia from 1884, shows Iphigenia stretched out languidly in her sleep, in the warmth of the last light of the day; behind her the full moon is just starting to rise. Leighton has changed the season to autumn, with the leaves already brown but the days still hot. Cymon stands in shadow on the right, idly scratching his left knee, gazing intently at Iphigenia.

The story that follows those painted idylls is very different.

When Iphigenia finally awoke, she was surprised to see Cimon there, and recognised him immediately. He insisted on accompanying her to her house, then went to his family home, where he turned a new leaf, and over the following four years transformed himself into the best-dressed, most cultured and refined young man on Cyprus. Despite this transformation, Cimon was unable to persuade Iphigenia’s father to allow him to marry the young woman, but was told she was betrothed to a noble on the island of Rhodes.

When the time came for her marriage, Cimon took an armed vessel and gave chase to the ship carrying Iphigenia to Rhodes. He boarded her ship and abducted her.

With Iphigenia on board, Cimon headed for the island of Crete, where he and his crew had relatives and friends. But shortly after they had altered course, a storm blew up, so violent that it threatened to sink the ship. Unable to tell where they were heading, they ended up taking shelter off the coast of Rhodes, where they were caught up by the ship from which they had just abducted Iphigenia.

When their vessel ran aground, Cimon and his crew were forced ashore, where they were quickly rounded up and thrown into prison, and Iphigenia was returned to her family ready for her wedding. Iphigenia’s fiancé implored the chief magistrate of Rhodes, Lysimachus, to put Cimon to death, but he was held in custody with the rest of his crew.

It happened that Lysimachus was deeply in love with a young woman of Rhodes, who was betrothed to Iphigenia’s future brother-in-law. To Lysimachus’ relief, that marriage had been postponed several times, but it was then decided to hold both weddings in the same ceremony. Lysimachus was aggrieved by this, and decided the only way he could marry the Rhodian woman that he loved was to abduct her. In order to do so, he needed the help of Cimon and his crew, who would undoubtedly be delighted to be able to abduct Iphigenia again.

Lysimachus offered Cimon a deal whereby they would together make off with their partners from the scene of the joint wedding, and they agreed to proceed with that.

Two days later, at dusk, as the weddings were just getting under way, Lysimachus, Cimon and his crew entered the house of the two bridegrooms and seized their brides. Unfortunately, it turned out that both grooms were armed and mounted a determined resistance. Cimon killed Iphigenia’s fiancé with a single blow to the head, and the other woman’s intended husband fell dead following a blow by Lysimachus.

Lysimachus, Cimon, their crew and the two abducted brides then fled to a ship which they sailed to exile in Crete, where the two couples were married, amid great and joyous celebrations. In time, the people of Cyprus and Rhodes forgave them for the violent way they had stolen their brides; Lysimachus and his wife were able to return to Rhodes, and Cimon and Iphigenia returned to live happily ever after on Cyprus.

Sadly, none of the masters who had painted Cimon and Iphigenia seems to have been tempted to depict any of the rest of Panfilo’s story.

Some stories in Boccaccio’s Decameron attained fame less in the original, more in their later retelling. A good example is the tragic tale of Lisabetta related by Filomena on the fourth day, when it was the fifth about those whose love ended unhappily.

In 1818, the British poet John Keats (1795-1821) wrote his version, titled Isabella, or the Pot of Basil, which was published two years later, shortly after the poet’s untimely death at the age of just twenty-five, and it quickly became one of his most popular works. Here I will tell Boccaccio’s original, using his version of the names, being mindful that Keats called his leading lady Isabella rather than Boccaccio’s Lisabetta. Her lover’s name, common to both accounts, is Lorenzo.

Following the death of a rich merchant of Messina, his three sons inherited his riches, while their sister remained unmarried despite her beauty and grace. Lisabetta and Lorenzo, a Pisan who directed operations in one of the family’s trading establishments, fell in love with one another, and their relationship was consummated.

The couple tried to keep their affair secret, but one night one of her brothers saw her making her way to Lorenzo’s bedroom, and Lisabetta remained unaware of her discovery. Her brother was distressed, but decided to keep quiet, and to discuss it with his brothers next morning.

The following day, the brothers decided that they would also keep quiet until the opportunity arose to end their sister’s relationship. Some time later they pretended they were going to the country for pleasure, and took Lorenzo with them. When they reached an isolated location, they murdered Lorenzo and buried his body. They then told their sister that they had sent him away on a trading mission.

Lisabetta was anxious for her lover’s return, and persistently asked her brothers for news of him. Eventually, one of them rebuked her for this nagging, so she stopped mentioning him altogether, but each night kept repeating his name and pining for him. One night, having finally fallen asleep in tears, she saw him in a dream, in which he said that her brothers had murdered him, and revealed where his body was buried.

In her grief, Lisabetta obtained the permission of her brothers to go to the country for pleasure. Once she had located where she thought Lorenzo was buried, she quickly found his corpse, which remarkably showed no signs of decay. As she couldn’t move his whole body for more appropriate burial, she cut off his head and concealed it in a towel.

When she returned home, Lisabetta cried greatly over Lorenzo’s head, washing it with her tears, then wrapped it in cloth and put it in a large pot. She covered it with soil and in that planted some sprigs of basil. These she watered daily with her tears, as she sat constantly beside the pot in between bouts of crying over it. As a result, the basil grew strong and lush, and richly fragrant.

William Holman Hunt’s Isabella and the Pot of Basil from 1867 is intricately detailed, with several references to the story, such as the relief of a skull on the side of the pot, a red rose on a tray by Lisabetta’s left foot, and a silver watering can at the bottom right. Behind her is the image of a bedroom, possibly showing Lorenzo coming to her in a flashback to their affair.

Joseph Severn’s Isabella, or the Pot of Basil from 1877 appears remarkably high in chroma, and shows Lisabetta fondly embracing the pot and crying over the basil. Severn had been a personal friend of John Keats, and painted this just a couple of years before his own death.

Edward Reginald Frampton’s Isabella, or the Pot of Basil was probably painted towards the end of the nineteenth century, or possibly in the early twentieth. Lisabetta is kneeling before her pot of basil at an altar, with a crucifix behind.

Ricciardo Meacci’s watercolour of Isabella and the Pot of Basil from 1890 shows Lisabetta embracing her pot of basil, as her three brothers watch with growing anger at her behaviour.

Her brothers began to suspect something, so had the pot removed from her room. This deepened their sister’s grief, and she kept asking after the pot.

John Melhuish Strudwick’s Isabella from about 1886 shows Lisabetta staring in grief at the stand on which her pot of basil had stood. Through the window, two of her brothers are seen making off with the pot, and looking back at her.

The brothers examined its contents and discovered Lorenzo’s head. Scared that his murder might cause them problems, they reburied the head, wound up their business, and left Messina for Naples. Lisabetta’s grief only grew deeper, and destroyed her health completely. Still asking for her pot of basil, she finally cried herself to death. Although the brothers had done everything to keep these events secret, eventually they became widely known, and were celebrated in folk verse.

The first and still greatest depiction of Keats’ retelling is John Everett Millais’ Isabella (Lorenzo and Isabella) from 1848-49, completed before he was twenty, and one of the earliest examples of Pre-Raphaelite art. This is a composite of references to Keats’ poem and Boccaccio’s story, set at an imaginary family meal which the three brothers, Lisabetta and Lorenzo are taking together.

Lorenzo is sharing a blood orange with Lisabetta, white roses and passion flowers climbing from behind their heads. The dog, acting as a surrogate for Lorenzo, is being petted by Lisabetta, but one of her brothers aims a kick at it. Other symbols are shown of the plot to kill Lorenzo: a brother staring at a glass of red wine, spilt salt on the table, and a hawk pecking at a white feather. The pot of basil is already on the balcony, awaiting Lorenzo’s head. When exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1849, it was accompanied by verses 1 and 21 of Keats’ poem.

The first story on the fourth day of Boccaccio’s Decameron was told by Fiammetta, and relates the tragedy of Ghismonda and her love for Guiscardo.

Ghismonda was the daughter of Prince Tancredi of Salerno, who was known for being a benevolent ruler, but in his later years became a possessive father. He refused to let her marry until she was older than was usual, and when she did, her husband died soon after. She returned to live with her doting father, who had no interest in seeing her married for a second time, so she decided to take a lover instead.

She fell in love with a young valet to her father named Guiscardo, and he fell in love with her. Ghismonda devised an ingenious way of passing him messages concealed inside a reed. They met in an old cavern underneath the palace: Ghismonda’s room had a long-disused door that opened into the cavern, and Guiscardo descended into it from a shaft outside the walls.

Before meeting in this cavern, Ghismonda dismissed all her ladies-in-waiting, telling them she wanted to sleep. She then locked herself in her room, opened the door to the cavern, and descended its staircase to meet her lover, who had roped down from the entrance to the shaft. The couple then spent much of the rest of the day making love in her room before Guiscardo departed.

One day when the couple had arranged to meet in this way, Prince Tancredi came looking for his daughter. Seeing her outside, he settled down in a corner of her room and fell asleep. She was unaware he was there, and proceeded with her lovemaking, during which her father awoke. He remained silent and was undiscovered, eventually climbing out of a window while the couple descended into the cavern to make their farewells.

Later that night, Guiscardo was arrested on the orders of the Prince, and confined to a room in the palace without Ghismonda’s knowledge. Tancredi went to his daughter’s room, where he told her of the dishonour she had brought upon herself. She showed no contrition, nor did she seek her father’s forgiveness, but told her father honestly of the love she shared with Guiscardo, of her youth, and amorous desires. She pleaded her lover’s virtues, and asked that she should bear the brunt of any punishment, rather than her lover.

Prince Tancredi decided to take revenge not on his daughter, but on her lover. He had two of his men strangle Guiscardo, then cut his heart out. The heart was placed inside a gold chalice, and presented to his daughter “to comfort her in the loss of her dearest possession, as she had comforted her father in the loss of his”.

Before she could be given this gruesome present, Ghismonda had called for poisonous herbs, which she turned into a highly toxic potion. When the servants delivered her the chalice, she removed its lid, saw her lover’s heart, and was given her father’s message. Ghismonda raised her lover’s heart to her lips and kissed it. She then thanked the servants for her father’s priceless gift to her, bade farewell to her lover’s heart, and cried profusely over it.

Francesco Bacchiacca’s early painting of Ghismonda with the Heart of Guiscardo from about 1525 shows the rather distant figure crying over the heart, with her apparently disinterested ladies-in-waiting around her. In the foreground is her father’s servant who brought the chalice.

Francesco Furini made at least two similar paintings of Ghismonda, here known by her alternative name of Sigismunda, crying profusely over the chalice. This version is thought to be from about 1620-30, and remains in Prato, Italy.

Thought to date from about 1640, this version known as Sigismunda with the Heart of Guiscardo is now in Birmingham, England. It had previously been attributed to Correggio, and was the inspiration for Hogarth’s much later painting shown below. It had only just been purchased at auction by Sir Thomas Sebright.

Interestingly, Furini’s painting of Mary Magdalene from about the same time is almost identical to the earlier version now in Prato, except that a chalice of myrrh had been substituted for that containing Guiscardo’s heart. All three works are notable for their dramatic chiaroscuro.

Mario Balassi’s Ghismonda with the Heart of Guiscardo from 1650 depicts Ghismonda being taken aback, although in Boccaccio’s account her response is strong and resolute despite the horrific cruelty of her father.

It is perhaps Bernardino Mei, in his Ghismunda from 1650-59, who captures her resolute response best of all, as she stands squeezing the heart in her hand, tears still on her face.

William Hogarth’s Sigismunda Mourning over the Heart of Guiscardo from 1759 may come as something of a surprise. Hogarth seemed determined to prove that the ‘modern’ English painter could compete with the “old Italian masters” in handling such heroic narratives. This was one of his last commissions, for Sir Richard Grosvenor, in 1758. He studied Furini’s version (that now in Birmingham), which had been much admired, but when this was completed in 1759, Grosvenor rejected it.

Hogarth then exhibited it with seven other paintings at the Society of Artists in 1761. It was there savaged by the critics, who were apparently repelled by the conflict between the beauty of Sigismunda and the gruesome heart she is touching. Hogarth replaced it in the exhibition, and appears to have made changes to try to assuage its detractors. Unable to sell it or have it engraved for prints, the artist was forced to abandon it, and almost ceased painting for the remaining three years of his life.

Her ladies-in-waiting asked her why she was crying so, as they had not understood what had happened. Ghismonda then poured the deadly potion over Guiscardo’s heart, drank it, and lay down on her bed to await death. Her father was summoned, and Ghismonda asked him a final favour that she should be laid to rest beside Guiscardo. The Prince realised his cruelty and repented for it, ensuring that the two bodies were buried together in honour.

The stories told each day in Boccaccio’s Decameron follow a theme appointed by the ‘ruler’ of that day, as they decree when they are crowned with laurels at the end of the previous day’s storytelling. The theme chosen by the queen of the fifth day, Fiammetta, was the adventures of lovers who survived calamities or misfortunes and reached a state of happiness.

The eighth such story concerns the misfortunes of Nastagio degli Onesti, as told by Filomena. This appears to have been instantly successful, and by the early sixteenth century had been painted by both Botticelli and Ghirlandaio.

Nastagio degli Onesti was a young man from an old and noble family in Ravenna, who inherited a huge fortune, then fell in love with the daughter of a more noble family. His love for her wasn’t returned, though, and she was persistently cruel towards him. This caused the young Nastagio so much grief that he even contemplated suicide.

He continued to try to win her over, and in the course of that spent much of his inheritance. Friends and relatives feared for him and his future, and tried to persuade him to leave the city for a while. He was very reluctant, but finally travelled to Classe, three miles away, in May when the weather was fine.

Once there he wandered off into the local pine woods, thinking as he always did about his cruel love. As he walked in the wood, he heard the screams of a woman in distress. He then caught sight of her running naked towards him. In hot pursuit was a pair of large mastiff dogs, and behind them was a mounted knight brandishing a sword and threatening to kill her.

Nastagio took up a tree branch in her defence, but the knight ordered him by name to keep out, and let him and his dogs give the sinful woman what she deserved. Nastagio challenged the knight, who dismounted and introduced himself as Guido degli Anastagi. He then explained that he had fallen deeply in love with this woman many years ago, but she too had rejected him cruelly. As a result, Guido had killed himself, and was condemned to eternal punishment for that sin. The woman had died shortly afterwards, without repenting her cruelty, and she too was condemned to eternal punishment for her sin.

Their punishment consisted of Guido having to hunt her down in the woods, kill her using the same sword with which he had committed suicide, then cut her back open and remove her stone cold heart. That and her other organs he then has to feed to his dogs. After a short break, she is magically restored, and he has to resume hunting her as before.

Nastagio was horrified by this, stepped back, and watched the dead Guido kill the dead woman with his rapier, and go through the sequence of cutting out her heart and organs. A few moments later, after the ghostly dogs had eaten her organs, the dead woman jumped up and the hunt started all over again.

When he had recovered from the shock, Nastagio came up with a plan to deal with his own predicament. He summoned his friends and relatives, and agreed to stop trying to woo the woman that he loved on one condition, that she and her family should join him in the same place in the pine wood exactly one week later, for a magnificent breakfast banquet.

A week later all her family were present at the meal in the wood, and Nastagio carefully seated the woman he loved so she would get a grandstand view of the proceedings. No sooner had the last course been served, than they heard the dead woman’s screams, and she ran right in front of them.

Many of the guests tried to stop Guido from carrying out this punishment, so he explained to them what he had told Nastagio the week before. Eventually the ghostly couple rushed off again, and the guests talked avidly about what they had witnessed. But the person who was most affected by the spectacle was the cruel woman who Nastagio loved, who had perhaps already put herself in the position of the dead woman.

Nastagio’s plan paid off: the woman he loved soon sent him a servant to inform him that she would do anything he desired. She quickly consented to marriage, and they were wedded the following Sunday.

One perhaps unintended consequence of Nastagio’s breakfast demonstration was that, for some time to come, the women of Ravenna were so frightened of what could happen to them that they responded more favourably to the approaches of men.

The title page of this story in this illustrated manuscript copy of the Decameron from the fifteenth century features a small reminder of the grim human hunt scene at its head.

This gruesome story and ingenious reversal of conventional Christian values became popular and well-known through the fifteenth century, sufficient for it to be depicted in four tempera panels given on the occasion of the arranged marriage of Gianozzo Pucci and Lucretia Bini in 1483. The couple were particularly fortunate in that one of those who made the arrangement, and who had this gift made for them, was Lorenzo de’ Medici, ‘the Magnificent’, who was also Botticelli’s patron at the time, and the ruler of the Florentine Republic.

The first panel shows the two figures of Nastagio, at the left, in the pine wood, with the naked woman running towards him, a mastiff sinking its teeth into her buttock. Behind them at the right is Guido, his sword ready to kill the woman when he catches her. In the distance is a coastal landscape intended to locate this near Ravenna, which is close to the Adriatic, although that’s idealised not representative.

Botticelli continues to tell the story using multiplex (‘continuous’) narrative in the second painting. The dead Guido has now caught the dead woman, killed her with his rapier, and with her lying on her face, he is cutting her back open to remove her cold heart. His dogs are already eating her organs at the right, and Nastagio is visibly distressed at the left.

Behind that composite scene is an earlier scene of Guido and his dogs still in pursuit of the woman, preceding the image of the first painting in the series.

In the third painting, Botticelli shows the breakfast banquet a week later, with the dead woman being attacked by Guido’s dogs, and Guido himself about to catch and kill her, in front of Nastagio’s guests.

Nastagio’s love is sitting at the table on the left, from which all the women have risen in distress at the sight, spilling their food in front of them.

The fourth and final panel shows Nastagio’s wedding, the bride and her women sitting to the left, and the men to the right, in formal symmetry. The groom is sat on the other side of the same table as the bride.

Botticelli’s series seems to have been celebrated at the time, and shortly afterwards Ghirlandaio, another Florentine master, was asked to make not copies, but paintings in the manner of Botticelli’s series. Two have survived, and are now both in the US.

Ghirlandaio’s first panel, now in the Brooklyn Museum, is based on Botticelli’s first, with the addition of an extra scene to its multiplex narrative. Up in the right, he adds the scene from Botticelli’s second panel, showing Guido cutting out the dead woman’s heart through her back.

Ghirlandaio’s second panel shows an almost identical breakfast banquet to that in Botticelli’s third panel. This is now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I don’t know whether Ghirlandaio’s series extended to a third, completing the story with the marriage feast of Nastagio.

Boccaccio’s strange tale, twisted from source material by Dante, resulted in even more curious paintings. Today we might be only too happy to watch it in a horror movie, but seeing it come to life in a series of panels as a wedding gift? That’s surely typical of the late Middle Ages.

Many great literary works are compilations of shorter tales, set in a framing story. Among the best known are One Thousand and One Nights and Sanskrit epics including Mahabharata. Among the most enduring in post-classical Europe is Boccaccio’s Decameron, whose stories have also proved popular with painters. Over the next couple of months I’m going to summarise those that have been well depicted in this new series, and show those paintings.

Despite the number of scholars who have researched Giovanni Boccaccio’s life over the last seven hundred years, much of it remains vague. He was either born in Florence, or perhaps near the village of Certaldo to the south-west of the city. His father worked for the Bardi bank, but he is thought to have been illegitimate and his mother hasn’t been identified.

We do know that he was born on 16 June 1313, and while still a child his father married a woman from a rich family, then moved to Naples. At the time, that was a major cultural centre, and as a young man Boccaccio immersed himself in that. His father expected him to become a banker, and Giovanni started work as an apprentice in his father’s bank in the city.

Boccaccio had no interest in banking though, and persuaded his father to let him study canon (ecclesiastical) law at the city’s university. When he was in his twenties, his father introduced him to the Neapolitan court and cultural circles around Robert the Wise, King of Naples. Among Boccaccio’s most important influences at this time was the scholar Paolo da Perugia, who had amassed much information about classical myths. Boccaccio became a scholar, particularly of the classical world, a writer rather than an ecclesiastical lawyer, and his future started to crystallise when he wrote his first poetry.

His early works became sources for Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde (Troilus and Cressida), and the Knight’s Tale.

Boccaccio left Naples in 1341, as tensions were growing between its king and the city-state of Florence, and returned to live mainly in Florence, although he also spent time in Ravenna. He developed great admiration for the work of Dante Alighieri, who had died in Ravenna twenty years earlier, and the great poet Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) (1304-1374), whom he regarded as his teacher.

Giorgio Vasari is now more famous for his biographies of the important painters of the Renaissance and earlier, but was also an accomplished artist himself. His tribute to some of the greatest writers of the period is Six Tuscan Poets from 1544. From left to right, I believe these to be Dante Alighieri, Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch), Guido Cavalcanti, Giovanni Boccaccio, Cino da Pistoia, and Guittone d’Arezzo.

William Bell Scott’s undated painting of Boccaccio’s Visit to Dante’s Daughter shows the writer paying indirect homage to his illustrious predecessor. Boccaccio wrote the first biography of Dante, at about the same time he was writing the Decameron.

During the 1340s Boccaccio appears to have been developing the idea of a book in which seven characters take it in turns to tell stories. When the Black Death struck Florence in 1348, killing Boccaccio’s stepmother, this provided him with its framing story. He was already building his collection of tales to form the bulk of the book, and it’s thought he started its writing shortly after the Black Death. What is more doubtful is whether Boccaccio was living in Florence when the epidemic struck. However, as it raged through the whole of Tuscany in that year, hardly sparing a village, it’s most unlikely that he didn’t observe its effects somewhere, perhaps in Ravenna.

In 1349, Boccaccio’s father died, leaving Giovanni as the head of the household. In spite of that, he pressed on and had largely completed the first version in 1352. He revised it in 1370-71, and ever since it has been widely read, translated into all major languages, and its stories have inspired many works of art.

Egide Charles Gustave Wappers painted Boccaccio Reading from the Decameron to Queen Johanna of Naples in 1849. Queen Joanna I of Naples (1328-1382) had a reputation that was more than controversial, but Boccaccio was a supporter, and wrote a complementary account in his collection of biographies of famous women, De Mulieribus Claris (On Famous Women).

This miniature by the Master of 1482 and Follower conflates Boccaccio, the Black Death in Florence, and the framing story of the Decameron: Giovanni Boccaccio and Florentines who have Fled from the Plague was painted in about 1485 on vellum, in what must have been one of its first illustrated editions.

The Decameron opens with a description of the horrific conditions and events that overwhelmed Florence when the Black Death struck, then takes us to a group of seven young women who are sheltering in one of its great churches. They decide to leave the city rather than waiting amid its rising pile of corpses, to spend some time in the country nearby. They take some servants and three young men to accompany them there.

Once settled in an abandoned mansion, the ten decide that one of the means they will use to pass their self-imposed exile is to tell one another stories. Over the next two weeks, each tells one story on every weekday, delivering a total of one hundred, hence the title of the book.

Raffaello Sorbi show the group of ten during one of the story-telling sessions in The Decameron from 1876, with the city of Florence in the distance.

Salvatore Postiglione’s undated, ornate and almost illustrative Scene of the Narration of the Decameron is unusual for omitting one of the seven young women, but links visually to their other musical and craft activities.

Relatively few of the hundred tales in the Decameron have been committed to paint. Some are little more than brief fables, or what used to be known as shaggy dog stories. Others are more lengthy novellas with intricate twisting plots. But many have been painted from the Renaissance until well into the twentieth century, and were particularly popular with the Pre-Raphaelites.

The tale of Griselda has cropped up in folk stories across Europe before it was told as the final tale (Day 10, Story 10) of the Decameron. It was then taken up by Chaucer in the Clerk’s Tale, and by Charles Perrault. Francesco Pesellino painted it in this Scene from the Life of the Griseldis from around 1450.

One of the most significant series of paintings of the Decameron is Sandro Botticelli’s Story of Nastagio Degli Onesti, of which this is the first. Boccaccio includes this horrific tale as the eighth story on Day 5, shown by Botticelli in four panels that were commissioned as a wedding gift for a couple whose marriage was partly arranged by Lorenzo the Magnificent (Lorenzo de’ Medici), ruler of the Florentine Republic in the late fifteenth century, and Botticelli’s patron.

One of the earliest and greatest examples of Pre-Raphaelite painting is John Everett Millais’ Isabella (Lorenzo and Isabella) from 1848-49. When exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1849, it was accompanied by lines from John Keats’ poem Isabella or the Pot of Basil, referring to the story of the ill-fated love of Lisabetta for Lorenzo, the fifth told on Day 4.

Later in the nineteenth century, Marie Spartali Stillman painted The Enchanted Garden of Messer Ansaldo (1889), showing a scene from the fifth story of Day Ten. This was also painted by John William Waterhouse in 1916-17.

Perhaps the most popular of all the stories in the Decameron with visual artists has been the romance of Cymon and Iphigenia, here shown in Frederic, Lord Leighton’s luscious and languid painting from 1884.

I hope that you will join me in looking at many more wonderful paintings exploring Boccaccio’s stories from the Decameron in the coming weeks.