Rustico and Alibech Storyby Giovanni Boccaccio

Rustico and Alibech by Giovanni Boccaccio Giovanni Boccaccio The exact dilate of his birth are uncertain. A number of sources state that he was born inParis, but others set this as romanticism by the earliest biographers. In this case his birthplace was possibly inTuscany, by chance inCertaldo, the town of his father. He was the son of aFlorentinemerchant and an unknown woman, and almost for sure born illegitimate. Boccaccio grew up in Florence.His father was working for theCompagnia dei Bardiand in the 1320s married Margherita dei Mardoli, of an illustrious family. It is believed Boccaccio was tutored by Giovanni Mazzuoli and true from him an early introduction to the works ofDante. In 1326 Boccaccio moved toNapleswith the family when his father was appointed to head the Neapolitan discriminate of his bank. Boccaccio was apprenticed to the bank, but it was a trade for which he had no affinity. He eventually persuaded his father to permit him study legal philosophy at theStud iumin the city.For the next six years Boccaccio studiedcanon law there. From there he pursued his interest in scientific and literary studies. His father introduced him to the Neapolitan nobility and the French-influenced court ofRobert the Wisein the 1330s. At this time he fell in love with a married daughter of King Robert of Naples (known asRobert the Wise) and she is immortalized as the characterFiammettain many of Boccaccios prose romances, particularlyIl Filocolo(1338).Boccaccio never married, but had cardinal children. Mario and Giulio were born in the 1330s. In the 1340s, Violente was born in Ravenna, where Boccaccio was a thickening ofOstasio I da Polentafrom about 1345 through 1346. The Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio lived through the plague as it raped the city of Florence in 1348. The experience inspired him to write The Decameron, a story of seven men and three women who escape the disease by fleeing to a villa outside the city. In his introduction to the