literary fame. For many years she remained his faithful friend, and the
poet returned her favour with grateful devotion. Even when the charge of
having instigated, or at least connived at, the murder of her husband
was but too clearly proved against her, Boccaccio was amongst the few
who stood by her, and undertook the hopeless task of clearing her name
from the dreadful stain. It was by her desire, no less than by that of
Fiammetta, that he composed (between 1344 and 1350) most of the stories
of his _Decameron_, which afterwards were collected and placed in the
mouths of the Florentine ladies and gentlemen. During this time he also
composed the _Filostrato_, a narrative poem, the chief interest of
which, for the English reader, lies in its connexion with Chaucer. With
a boldness pardonable only in men of genius, Chaucer adopted the main
features of the plot, and literally translated parts of Boccaccio's
work, without so much as mentioning the name of his Italian source.

In 1350 Boccaccio returned to Florence, owing to the death of his
father, who had made him guardian to his younger brother Jacopo. He was
received with great distinction, and entered the service of the
Republic, being at various times sent on important missions to the
margrave of Brandenburg, and to the courts of several popes, both in
Avignon and Rome. Boccaccio boasts of the friendly terms on which he had
been with the great potentates of Europe, the emperor and pope amongst
the number. But he was never a politician in the sense that Dante and
Petrarch were. As a man of the world he enjoyed the society of the
great, but his interest in the internal commotions of the Florentine
state seems to have been very slight. Besides, he never liked Florence,
and the expressions used by him regarding his fellow-citizens betray
anything but patriotic prejudice. In a Latin eclogue he applies to them
the term "Batrachos" (frogs), by which, he adds parenthetically--_Ego
intelligo Florentinorum morem; loquacissimi enim sumus, verum in rebus
bellicis nihil valemus._ The only important result of Boccaccio's
diplomatic career was his intimacy with Petrarch. The first acquaintance
of these two great men dates from the year 1350, when Boccaccio, then
just returned to Florence, did all in his power to make the great poet's
short stay in that city agreeable. When in the following year the
Florentines were anxious to draw men of great reputation to their
newly-founded univers