DANTE AND BOCCACCIO--THE _VITA_--AND THE _COMENTO_
In the summer of the year 1373 when Boccaccio was sixty years old the Signoria of Florence was petitioned by a number of citizens to appoint a lecturer who should publicly expound "librum qui vulgariter appellatur el Dante," the work which is commonly called "el Dante," the _Divine Comedy_, that is to say, the work of one who little by little was coming to be known as a very great poet, as a very great man, but who more than seventy years before had been ignominiously expelled from Florence and had died in exile.
The petition, a copy of which may still be found in the Florentine _Libro delle Provvisioni_ for 1373, is as follows:--[566] "Whereas divers citizens of Florence, being minded as well for themselves and others, their fellow-citizens, as for their posterity, to follow after virtue, are desirous of being instructed in the book of Dante, wherefrom, both to the shunning of vice and to the acquisition of virtue, no less than in the ornaments of eloquence, even the unlearned may receive instruction; The said citizens humbly pray you, the worshipful Government of the People and Commonwealth of Florence, that you be pleased, at a fitting time, to provide and formally to determine, that a worthy and learned man, well versed in the knowledge of the poem aforesaid, shall be by you elected, for such term as you may appoint, being not longer than one year, to read the book which is commonly called _el Dante_ in the city of Florence, to all such as shall be desirous of hearing him, on consecutive days, not being holidays, and in consecutive lectures, as is customary in like cases; and with such salary as you may determine, not exceeding the sum of one hundred gold florins for the said year, and in such manner and under such conditions as may seem proper to you; and further that the said salary be paid to the said lecturer from the funds of the Commonwealth in two terminal payments, to wit, one moiety about the end of the month of December, and the other moiety about the end of the month of April, such sum to be free of all deduction for taxes whatsoever...."
_From a miniature in the French version of the "De Casibus Virorum," made in 1409 by Laurent le Premierfait. MS. late XV century. (Brit. Mus. Rothschild Bequest. MS. XII.)_]