BOCCA TIGRIS

(22° 48’ N., 113° 43’ a forts at mouth of Canton R., S.H. hin a.; Ital. author; was the natural son of a merchant, and was b., according to his Own statement, at Certaldo, near Florence, though much doubt exists upon this point. Disliking commerce he was trained for the law, but eventually went to Naples, commenced to write poetry, became a hanger-on of the court, and fell deeply in love with Maria, the illegitimate dau. of King Robert of Naples and Sicily, whom he afterwards celebrated in his writings under the name of ‘Fiammetta.’ His love for this lady undoubtedly inspired his best work, and it was at her desire that some of his earlier works were written—Fiocolo, the Ameto, and Fiammetta. B. disliked Florence, and spent most of the years of his early manhood about the Neopolitan court, during which period he produced many works in prose and verse. In 1350 however, he returned to Florence, and largely devoted the next fifteen years of his life to the public service, formed a close friendship with Petrarch, and acted as Florentine amba ador to Rome, Avignon, Ravenna, and Brandenburg. In 1358 he completed his great prose masterpiece, the Decameron, upon which he had been engaged for ten years. This work—which in its style combines both the cla ic and the medizval—sets forth how, during the plague of 1348, seven court ladies and three gentlemen seek refuge in a country villa, where, to while away the time, they relate tales. These tales number one hundred, and though many of them are very indelicate in subject, the masterly Italian in which they are written serves to give the Decameron a place.amongst the greatest books the world has seen.