“Cin, cin!” Dante Alighieri and Giovanni Boccaccio exchanged as they clink their raised glasses of beer. Dante looked down into his mug before he stated:
“You know, Boccaccio, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this country of ours’. It seems like things are always changing; sometimes I think we have a new foreign king just about every week! First we had the Normans, then the French. When will Italy be Italian?! In my opinion, we all need to get behind the Pope. He is the one who should have all the power. Besides, a country is only as good and prosperous as it is virtuous; if we all practiced religious virtuosity we wouldn’t have so many problems.”
“Easy for you to say, Dante. You were born into nobility and always had it easy. I, on the other hand, am the illegitimate son of a merchant! I have always been looked down upon. I studied in Napoli, but my life wasn’t easy. I got ahead in life on my wit and intellect. If you ask me, that’s what will keep Italy together, even while this Black Death wreaks complete havoc on our cities. And you know what I think? I think maybe the Church is part of the problem. There’s so much hypocrisy, what with all these wealthy friars who have supposedly given their lives to charity and chastity. Why do you think I set the Decameron in the Tuscan countryside? The cities are just outposts of religious hypocrisy,” Boccaccio stated. “I wanted my characters to get out where they could breathe clean air, literally and figuratively.”
“Boccaccio! What you speak of is heresy! How can you go against the Church? Maybe the problem is that we were writing almost 30 years apart, and times were different. But we must live our lives for God. Otherwise you will descend into Hell! Don’t you remember what I said about the time I visited Hell? ‘…the grim terrain shook violently; and the fright it gave me even now in recollection makes me sweat. Out of the tear-drenched land a wind arose which blasted forth into a reddish light, knocking my senses out of me completely, and I fell as one falls tired into sleep.’”
“As terrifying as Hell sounds, I think this pestilence is hell enough. I prefer to enjoy life now, while I know that I still have life. Besides, there are many reasons for a man to fall to the ground, as you did in Hell. Why, take Ser Ciapelletto from my own opera. ‘He was a great glutton and phenomenal drinker, so much so, in fact, that sometimes he suffered in a, well, less than polite way.’ He had a great many other vices, but in the end, his wit got the best of everyone, and he became a saint! He’s not so unlike some of the saints and friars I know of these days,” Boccaccio declared before gulping down the last of his beer.
“Giovanni Boccaccio! You are a lost cause! I’ve lost my taste for this drink now, not only because of the way you gluttonously slurped yours down but also for all the blasphemy you’re preaching,” said Dante with a huff.
“So, uh…I guess you won’t be finishing that…?” And with that, Boccaccio reached across the table for Dante’s beer and finished it in one swallow.
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