ABSTRACT

In 1373, only two years before he died, Boccaccio wrote a letter to his friend and patron, Mainardo Cavalcanti, in which he requests that female readers be forbidden access to his works: ‘Quod inclitas mulieres tuas domesticas nugas meas legere permiseris non laudo, quin imo queso per fidem tuam ne feceris’ [I do not approve that you allow your illustrious women to read my domestic trif les; in fact, on the contrary, I beg you not to do this on your honour].1 This advice seems an appropriate starting point for a study of Boccaccio’s reception because it exemplifies many of the issues which inform research aimed at recovering the inf luence exerted by an author and his works. Although this is one of the few instances where Boccaccio comments on his work outside a literary text, and is therefore often cited as evidence for the author’s attitude towards his own texts, as well as for the interests of contemporary readers, it highlights some of the primary difficulties associated with reconstructing such an ephemeral activity as reading. Notwithstanding the fundamental problem of a lack of primary sources for tracing a history of reading, issues of interpretation are numerous and complex.