Piramo e Tisbe nel Boccaccio, fra testi e immagini: nuove fonti, varianti ed “errori” nelle illustrazioni del De mulieribus claris

This essay focuses on the story of Pyramus and Thisbe told in Boccaccio’s works, with particular attention to the De mulieribus claris. This study allows to identify new sources for the Amorosa visione, the Teseida and the De mulieribus. The second section of this paper offers an overview of the illustrated tradition (manuscripts and printed editions): the in-depth analysis of the relationship between text and images made it possible to trace the influence of other texts, as well as to bring attention to some details of Boccaccio’s story which detach it from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Consequently, Boccaccio knew and used the French lai Piramus et Tisbé (perhaps through the Ovide moralisé), and that the iconography of the printed editions seems to be affected by Giovanni Bonsignori’s vernacular translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses.