Authorial Strategies and Manuscript Tradition: Boccaccio and the Decameron’s Early Diffusion

Abstract

1. The Laurenziano Pluteo 33. 31, transcribed between 1338 and 1348, containing a Miscellanea latina in which, on f. 16v., we can read: “Feliciter Iohannes [Successfully, John]”; 2. The Ambrosiano A 204 inferior, which can be dated around 1340–45, in which Boccaccio transcribed the apparatus of the glosses by Thomas Aquinas to Aristotele’s Ethics, at the end of which we read: “Iohannes de Certaldo scripsit feliciter hoc opus. Explevi tempore credo brevi et cetera. τέλος [John of Certaldo successfully transcribed this work. I have completed it in what I believe was a short time, etc. The End]”; 3. The Laurenziano Pluteo 38. 17 (1340–45), in which he copied Terence’s Comedies, with the signature on folio 84 r.: “Iohannes de Certaldo scripsit [Transcribed by John of Certaldo].”