“Fiametta” Boccaccio in brief summary


This is a love story told by a hero named Fiametta, addressed primarily to women in love, who have a young lady looking for sympathy and understanding.

The beautiful Fiametta, whose beauty captivated everyone, spent her life in a continuous feast; loving spouse, wealth, honor and respect – all this was given to her by fate. One day, on the eve of a big celebration, Fiametta had a terrible dream, as if she was walking along a meadow on a nice sunny day, wreathed wreaths, and suddenly a venomous snake stings it under her left breast; Then the light fades, thunder rumbles – and the awakening comes. In horror our heroine grabs the bitten place, but, finding it unscathed, calms down. On this day in the temple during the festive service Fiametta first falls in love for real, and her chosen Panfilo reciprocates in her suddenly flushed feeling. It is time for bliss and pleasure. “Soon the whole world began to bother me, it seemed that I reach the sky with my head,”

admits Fiametta.

The idyll is disturbed by the unexpected news received from Father Panfilo. A widowed old man asks his son to come to him in Florence and become a support and consolation at the end of life, as all the Panfilo brothers died and the unhappy father was left alone. Fiametta, inconsolable in her grief, tries to keep her lover, appealing to his pity: “Is it really, preferring pity to the old father of legitimate pity for me, that you will cause my death?” But the young man does not want to incur severe reproaches and dishonor, so he sets out on his way, promising to return in three or four months. At farewell, Fiametta is deprived of feelings, and half-dead from grief, she tries to console her maid with her story about how Panfilo sobbed and kissed the lady’s face with tears and begged to help her lover.

Fiametta, the most faithful of the enamored women, waits for the return of the beloved with the most obedient faith, but at the same time jealousy creeps into her heart. It is known that Florence is famous for its charming women, able to lure into their networks. What if Panfilo

already got into them? Fiametta, suffering, drives these thoughts from herself. Every morning she rises to the tower of the house and from there watches the sun, and the higher it is, the closer it seems to her the return of Panfilo. Fiametta constantly talks with her beloved mentally, reread his letters, sorts out the things that belong to him, and sometimes calls the maid and talks to her about him. The day’s consolations are replaced by night ones. Who would believe that love can teach astrology? From the change in the position of the moon, Fiametta definitely could tell what part of the night she passed, and it is unclear what was more enjoyable: how time flows, or, being busy with another matter, see that it has already passed. When the time of the promised return of Panfilo approached, the lover decided that she should have a little fun, to return a few worn out sorrow beauty. Luxurious outfits and precious jewelry are prepared – so the knight prepares the armors he needs for the future battle.

But the beloved is not there. Fiametta comes up with excuses: maybe his father begged him to stay longer. Or something happened on the way. But most of all Fiametta was tormented with jealousy. “No worldly phenomenon is eternal: the new is always more like what is seen, and always a person is stronger than he who desires what he does not have,

“One day, during the meeting with the nuns, Fiametta met a Florentine merchant.” One of the nuns, young, beautiful, of noble origin, asked the merchant if he knew Panfilo. she began to ask more questions, and then Fiametta found out that Panfilo was getting married, and the nun blushed at the same time, lowered her eyes, and it was evident that she was barely holding back her tears: Fiametta’s shocked still does not lose hope, she wants to believe that this is the father made to marry Panfilo, but he continues to love her alone, but she does not want to look at the sky any more, since she is no longer sure of the return of her beloved. “In a fit of anger letters were burned and many of his things were ruined.” Once the beautiful face of Fiametta turned pale,

The husband, anxiously watching the changes taking place with Fiametta, offers her a trip to the waters that heal from all sorts of ailments. In addition, those places are famous for their hilarious pastime and exquisite society. Fiametta is ready to fulfill the will of the spouse, and they set out on their journey. But there is no escape from the love fever, especially since Fiametta has visited Panfilo several times in these places, so the rushing memories are only taking the wound. Fiametta takes part in various entertainments, with feigned tenderness, observes the lovers in pairs, but this serves only as a source of new torments. Doctors and spouses, seeing her pallor, found the illness incurable and recommended her to return to the city, which she did.

Our heroine happens to be sitting in a circle of women, talking about love, and, eagerly listening to these stories, she realizes that there was not and there is not so ardent, so secretive, so grievous love as hers. She addresses Fate with entreaties and requests to help her, protect her from blows: “Cruel, have pity on me;

Look, I’ve gotten to that point, that I became a byword in the places where my beauty was formerly glorified. “

A year has passed since Panfilo left Fiametta. Unexpectedly, a servant of Fiametta comes back from Florence, who says that Panfilo was not married at all, but his father, Panfilo fell in love with one of the Florentine beauties. Fiametta, being not in

The power to endure betrayal, trying to commit suicide. Fortunately, the old nurse guessed the intention of her pet and stopped her on time in an attempt to rush from the tower. From the desperate grief Fiametta is seriously ill. My husband is explained that his wife’s despair is caused by the death of his beloved brother.

At some point, there is a glimmer of hope: the nurse reports that she met a Florentine young man on the quay, who allegedly knows Panfilo and assures him that he must return soon. Hope resurrects Fiametta, but joy is in vain. Soon it turns out that the information is false, the nurse was mistaken. Fiametta falls into a former yearning. Sometimes she tries to find consolation in comparing her love torments with the torments of the famous jealousy of antiquity, like Phaedra, Hecuba, Cleopatra, Jocasta and others, but finds that her torment is a hundred times hotter.


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“Fiametta” Boccaccio in brief summary