| Abstract: | It is not surprising to find that the city and rulers of Naples appear in the Decameron, for Boccaccio was trained as a merchant in Naples. Sicily was also visited by Florentine merchants and Boccaccio's tales of Sicilian history range from the near-present back to the reign of the Norman King William II, who died in 1189, a figure already associated with ‘good times’ in Naples and Sicily. In one story Boccaccio describes members of William's family, real and fictitious, and weaves romance around the voyage of an African princess to Granada under this king's guarantee of protection. This tale appears to derive from real events in about 1180, when William assured the safety of the daughter of an Almohad ruler; in token of gratitude, and to gain other concrete advantages, the Almohads at last made peace with the Sicilian king. Popular legends circulating in southern Italy were clearly avialable to Boccaccio, while writers of romance often located fictitious events in Sicily, an exotic part of the Latin world. |
