Editorial criteria

Salvatore Battaglia’s edition of Boccaccio’s Teseida (Accademia della Crusca, 1938) was based largely on the editorial principles that Michele Barbi had adopted for his Società Dantesca edition of Dante’s Vita Nuova (1932). Battaglia’s edition established an editorial standard that was largely followed in the two subsequent, widely circulated critical editions of the Teseida by Aurelio Roncaglia (1941) and Alberto Limentani (1964). A fundamental quality shared by these three 20th century editions is that, with minimal differences, they normalized the spelling of the autograph to modern usage.

The present edition of the Teseida takes a different position.The edition strives to preserve the characteristics of Boccaccio’s scripta that reflect the author’s natural phonetics (i.e. Tuscanisms) and his literary culture (i.e. Latinisms) without reproducing the elements and qualities that can be attributed to mere spelling differences. Our work toward this goal has benefitted from the model provided by Gianfranco Contini’s edition of Petrarch’s autograph of the Rerum vulgarium fragmenta (1949; 1964). The edition is particularly useful since the Petrarch and the Boccaccio autographs, which were composed at approximately the same time, present similar editorial questions and challenges.

Like the Rerum vulgarium autograph, Aut continued to accumulate added and revised text for several years after its original composition. Besides revising many of the readings in the poem, Boccaccio added another 220 glosses to the c. 1100 glosses in the original copying of the manuscript. In addition to Boccaccio’s revisions and additions, Aut contains many examples of over-traced text, particularly in the marginal glosses.The over-tracing was the work of a later, often unreliable hand, C3. As a result, a number of misreadings, particularly those in the glosses, appear in the modern editions of the Teseida.

Where a faded and over-traced reading is illegible, we have used the Mondo Nuovo infra-red /ultra-violet apparatus in an attempt to recapture Boccaccio’s original text. Although this process has been generally successful, some readings are uncertain, while others cannot be deciphered. In such cases, we have consulted NO, the 15th century copy of Boccaccio’s beta version of the Teseida. (In each instance the source of the reading is indicated in the textual notes to the edition.)

Several other examples can be seen in Aut where Boccaccio has revised, corrected, or added to the text of Aut. In such cases, we have adopted Boccaccio’s latest reading for the final version of the edition and have noted the earlier reading in the textual apparatus. In those instances where Boccaccio-scribe unmistakebly makes a copying error, this is emended and noted in the apparatus.

Therefore, text has been emended where (1) Boccaccio’s hand is not legible, even under ultra-violet light, (2) NO and the short-commentary manuscripts agree against the reading in the hand C3, and (3) the text is inconsistent with Boccaccio’s usage.

Concerning rhymes, some anomalous rhymed endings are normalized. e.g.:
intendieno = intendeano : temeano 1.78.7/8
combattieno = combatteano: voleano : faceano 5.82.2/4/6
ameno : ripieno : surgeano = surgeno 7.51.2/4/6
vedeansi = vediensi : rodiensi : sentiensi 7.97.1/3/5