On Courtly Love, Romance Literature, and St. Valentine's Day

When Pope Gelasius I officially recognized Valentine’s day in AD 496, it was not about love. Rather, it was established as the Feast of Saint Valentine, in honour of Valentine of Rome, a priest martyred on 14 February AD 269. It was also intwined with another Valentinus—Valentine of Terni, bishop of Interamna, who is understood to have been martyred in AD 273, under the persecution of Emperor Aurelian.

It was not until the 14th century that the celebration of Saint Valentine developed a romantic dimension. This was popularized with Geoffrey Chaucer’s “Valentine” poetry in the The Parlement of Foules, a 699-line poem likely composed around 1381-1382, possibly to honour the anniversary of his patron King Richard II’s engagement to Anne of Bohemia. The poem speaks of a parliament of birds congregating on Saint Valentine’s day to choose their mates: “For this was on seynt Volantynys day / Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.”  

It opens with the narrator reading Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis, but he falls asleep and Scipio Africanus leads him into a dream-vision. Together, they travel across celestial spheres, pass through a daunting gate and the dark temple of Venus, and emerge into the bright light where the goddess Nature has gathered a parliament of birds to choose their mates. These birds are varied and engage in a lively debate on the nature of love while Nature herself lets them pair off or stay single, as they please.

From just this brief description, it is not surprising that one of Chaucer’s main sources was Dante’s Commedia, and the Parlement does indeed include references to the Purgatorio and early cantos of the Inferno. Dante’s guide through these spheres was Virgil, while Beatrice, his great love and muse, guides him through Paradise.

Dante and Beatrice in Canto II of the Paradiso, from a remarkable copy of the first edition of Dante's collected works. A monumental achievement, supplemented with numerous plates, and with the first illustrated Commedia to be published since 1596.

Dante Alighieri (1265-1321). La Divina Commedia di Dante Alighieri Con varie Annotazioni, e copiosi Rami adornata... Tomo Primo [- Terzo]. Venice, Antonio Zatta, 1757. [Together with:] Idem. Prose, erime liriche edite, ed inedite di Dante Alighieri, con copiose ed erudite aggiunte... Tomo Quarto Parte Prima [-Seconda]. Venice, Antonio Zatta, 1758.

The great love story of Dante and Beatrice is described in his Vita Nuova of 1294, which was included in the celebrated collection of Tuscan poets published by Giunta under the title Sonetti e’ Canzoni in 1527. Dante and Beatrice first met as children when she was eight and he was nine, and he immediately fell in love with her. Although only children, they were already betrothed to other people through arranged marriages as per custom, and though they did go on to marry other people, Dante remained in love with Beatrice throughout his life. Nine years after the initial meeting, they met again in the streets of Florence and she spoke to him. He rushed home to dream about her and began composing La Vita Nuova. They never spoke again after that meeting, but he would always idealize her and of course she returned to guide him through Paradise in his great “comedy.”

The rare first edition of the remarkable collection known as the 'Giuntina di rime antiche', the first anthology in print which contains Dante's canzoniere along with lyrics composed by poets of the Dolce Stil Novo tradition.

Dante Alighieri (1265-1321). Sonetti e’ Canzoni di diuersi antichi Autori Toscani in dieci libri raccolte. Di Dante Alaghieri Libri quattro. Di M. Cino da Pistoia Libro uno. Di Guido Cavalcanti Libro uno. Di Dante da Maiano Libro uno. Di Fra Guittone d’Arezzo Libro uno. Di diuerse Canzoni e’ Sonetti senza nome d’autore Libro uno. Florence, Filippo Giunta's heirs, 6 July 1527.

Dante and Beatrice typify the medieval genre of “courtly love.” Dating back to around the 11th century, courtly love emphasized nobility and chivalry. This is the kind of love that prompted several knights to perform many great deeds in honour of the women they idealised from afar. Whereas marriage among nobility was generally based on wealth and family history, courtly love became about personal character, with valour and impressive deeds being particularly prized along with kindness and devotion. The women are passive and the men active, but generally this type of love was practiced on more of a psychological level rather than a physical one, as with Dante: it is a binding, lifelong love that is never fulfilled.

It is specifically courtly love that is discussed in Chaucer’s Parlement. In the poem, three tercel eagles pay court to a beautiful female, laying the grounds for a lengthy discussion of what might lead to success in a love pursuit, with all the birds (who represent different classes of English society) contributing their opinion. Chaucer uses the premise to philosophize about love, but as a literary genre it is unclear how much courtly love actually extended into real-life practices. In the history of St. Valentine’s Day, however, related practices become quite a bit clearer.

Indeed, it was courtly love that became celebrated on St. Valentine’s day. In France, for example, as Derek Brewer explains:

A whole elaborate institution, the Cour Amoreuse was founded in the French Court in honour of women; its chief aim was the presentation of love poems to ladies in a kind of competition, with a prize for the best poem. The Cour Amoreuse first met in Paris on St. Valentine’s Day 1400…. It was ruled by a ‘Prince of Love’, who was a professional poet, and who kept with him ‘musicians and gallants who could compose and sing all kinds of songs, balades, roundels, virelays, and other love-poems, and could play sweetly on instruments’. On St. Valentine’s Day 1400, after mass, the chief ministers… met in ‘joyous recreation and conversation about love’. Love-poems were presented before ladies, who judged them, and awarded a golden crown and chaplet for the best poem. (D. S. Brewer, ed. The parlement of Foulys, 4.)

From the genre of courtly love evolved the great chivalric epic poems of the Renaissance. In Italy, chivalric romances became especially popular. Girolamo Forti’s Italian translation of the story of the knight Renaud de Montauban, one of four sons of the Duke Aymon in the French cycle Quatre fils Aymon, was published under the title Inamoramento de’ Rinaldo de monte Albano by Giovanni Tacuino in Venice in 1517 and met with great success. This chivalric poem was first composed in Alexandrine verse in the 13th century, and the narrative of the adventures and exploits of Rinaldo da Montalbano enjoyed ever-increasing popularity in Italy from the late fourteenth century, where it developed in different versions, both in verse and in prose. “Renaissance Italians loved chivalric romances as much or more than any other European people [...] Soon Italian minstrels dressed Roland and Charlemagne in Italian armor. Then they created new knights and maidens to accompany the heroes of Roncisvalle, and sent all of them forth on an endless road of adventure” (P. Grendler, “Form and Function of Italian Renaissance Popular Books”, 472).

A very rare edition of the Italian translation in verses – attributed to Teramo humanist Girolamo Forti – of the story of Renaud de Montauban, part of the French cycle of the Quatre fils of Aymon of Dordogne. The copy offered here bears a remarkable provenance, having passed through the hands of Charles Fairfaix Murray, Giuseppe Martini, Leo S. Olschki, Sylvain S. Brunschwig, and Pierre Berès.

Girolamo Forti (d. 1489). Inamoramento de’ Rinaldo de monte Albano et diuerse ferocissime battaglie leq[ua]le fece lardito et francho Paladino et come occise Ma[m]brino di Leuante et moltissimi forti pagani.... Venice, Giovanni Tacuino, 8 August 1517.

A very important text in this lineage is Matteo Maria Boiardo’s unfinished Orlando Innamorato (Orlando in Love), which follows the adventures of Rinaldo da Montalbano and his cousin, the heroic knight Orlando, along with their love and loyalty for the beautiful Angelica.

In the complete Orlando Innamorato printed by Nicolini da Sabbio in 1539, the three books originally written by Boiardo are continued and completed by three other books composed by Nicolò Degli Agostini (fl. first quarter of the sixteenth century), introduced here with a separate title-page bearing the printing date of March 1539. These supplementary books were published together with the three Libri by Boiardo up until the end of the seventeenth century.

A rare edition – in a fine copy once belonging to the libraries of the great book collectors Giacomo Manzoni and Giuseppe Cavalieri – of the complete Orlando Innamorato printed by Nicolini da Sabbio.

Matteo Maria Boiardo (ca. 1441-1494). Orlando innamorato. I tre libri dello innamoramento di Orlando... Tratti dal suo fedelissimo essemplare. Nuovamente con somma diligenza revisti, e castigati. Con molte stanze aggiunte del proprio auttore, quali gli mancavano. Insieme con gli altri tre Libri compidi. Venice, Pietro Nicolini da Sabbio, March-April 1539.

Ludovico Ariosto also provided a continuation with his Orlando Furioso in 1516. A landmark of this important work was when Gabriele Giolito de' Ferrari printed his first Furioso in 1542, a publication which goes far beyond previous editions by other printers: for the first time the text of the poem is supplemented with commentary, and each canto is introduced by a woodcut vignette, as well as an argomento. The success of this innovative publication was immediate and unprecedented, and the Furioso became the 'symbol' of the printing house itself. From 1542 onwards the poem was constantly re-issued, both in quarto and, as of 1543, in the cheaper and more popular octavo format, thus proclaiming Giolito's success as a printer and businessman, and transforming the Furioso into a 'classic' of modern literature.

In 1568, Vincenzo Valgrisi published a new edition of this work edited by the well-known poligrafo Girolamo Ruscelli. The Valgrisi Furioso is one of the finest examples of multi-narrative book illustration, with the first full-page woodcuts for each canto of Ariosto's masterpiece, all newly designed.

The rare Giolito 1546 quarto edition of Orlando, in an extraordinary copy printed on blue paper: one of the finest illustrated books produced in the Italian Cinquecento.

Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1533). Orlando furioso... nouißimamente alla sua integrita ridotto & ornato di varie figure. Con alcune stanze del S. Aluigi Gonzaga in lode del medesimo. Aggiuntoui per ciascun Canto alcune allegorie, & nel fine una breue espositione et tauola di tutto quello che nell’opera si contiene... Venice, Gabriele Giolito de’ Ferrari, 1546. [together with:]

Dolce, Lodovico (1508-1568). L’Espositione di tutti i vocaboli, et luoghi difficili, che nel Libro si trouano; Con una brieue Dimostratione di molte comparationi & sentenze dell’Ariosto in diuersi auttori imitate. Raccolte da M. Lodouico Dolce.... Venice, Gabriele Giolito de' Ferrari, 1547.

The handsome and rare Furioso in quarto of 1568, edited for the Venetian printer Vincenzo Valgrisi by the well-known poligrafo Girolamo Ruscelli (1504-1566), a fine copy, once belonging to the exquisite library formed by Robert Hoe and housed in an exceptional Venetian binding of Mamluk inspiration.

Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1533). Orlando furioso di M. Lodovico Ariosto, tutto ricorretto, et di nuoue figure adornato. Con le Annotationi, gli Auuertimenti, & le Dichiarationi di Ieronimo Ruscelli. La Vita dell’Autore, descritta dal Signor Giouan Battista Pigna... Di nuouo aggiuntoui Li Cinque Canti.... Venice, Vincenzo Valgrisi, 1568.

Of course, the development of chivalric romance was accompanied by the development of court etiquette manuals, including Baldassare Castiglione’s Il libro del cortegiano published in 1537 and Giovanni Della Casa’s Galateo, first included in his Rime et Prose, published in 1558, each of which make their own statements about nobility and love.

The extremely rare Cortegiano bearing the colophon 'In Firenze per Benedetto Giunti MDXXXI', and the misspelling of Castiglione – printed as 'Gastiglione' – on the title-page: a fascinating case study for bibliographers.

Baldassarre Castiglione (1478-1529). Il libro del cortegiano del conte Baldesar Gastiglione [sic]. Florence, Benedetto Giunti, 1531 [probably Rome, 1537].

A very fine copy of the first edition of Della Casa's Rime et Prose, from the celebrated library of Italian bibliophile and bibliographer Giacomo Manzoni.

Giovanni Della Casa (1503-1556). Rime, et Prose... Con le Concessioni, & Priuilegij di tutti i Prencipi. Venice, Niccolò Bevilacqua for Erasmo Gemini, October 1558.

But we are getting too far afield.

Given the emphasis on knightly endeavors in courtly love, it is not surprising that one of the most important sources for Chaucer’s Parlement was Boccaccio’s La Theseide. Produced in three redactions between the 1340s and 1350s and divided into 12 books (based on the model of Vergil’s Aeneis), the Teseida is an epic poem that combines elements from the classical epics and the contemporary tradition of love literature. Its stated subject is the story of the ancient Greek hero Theseus, but in truth it is primarily devoted to relaying what becomes a great and perilous rivalry between two royal Theban cousins Palemone and Arcita for the love of the beautiful Emilia.

The very rare edition of Boccaccio's Teseida presented here is printed, exceptionally, on blue paper, and housed in a fine binding executed for Guglielmo Libri by the renowned Parisian binder Hippolyte Duru.

Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375). La Theseide... Innamoramento piaceuole, & honesto di due Giouani Thebani Arcita & Palemone; D’ottaua Rima nuouamente ridotta In Prosa per Nicolao Granucci di Lucca. Aggiuntoui un breve Dialogo nel principio e fine dell’Opera diliteuole, & vario. Lucca, Vincenzo Busdraghi for Giulio Guidoboni, 1579.

La Theseide includes a dark description of the House of Venus (“she for whom every lasciviousness is desired, and who vulgarly is called the goddess of love”) that bears such close resemblance to the narrator’s description of the temple of Venus in the Parlement — which also includes references to Dante’s infernal circle of lovers — that Janet Smarr notes “Chaucer must have had the [Boccaccio] text open in front of him” as he was writing it (J. Smarr, “‘The Parlement of Foules’ and ‘Inferno’ 5,” 116).

Boccaccio’s story was also the main source for Chaucer’s “The Knight’s Tale” from The Canterbury Tales. “Several books occupied Chaucer's desk while he was composing The Knight's Tale [...] The most important book on that very crowded desk was the Teseida” (Coleman, The Knight's Tale, p. 87). His influence hardly stopped there, however; Day Ten in the Decameron is also considered to have inspired “The Franklin’s Tale,” while the Labirinto d’amore (also known as Corbaccio) — Boccaccio’s most misogynist work — may have influenced Chaucer’s House of Fame.

The lavishly illustrated Valgrisi Decameron, in a fine contemporary French binding possibly executed for Diane de Poitiers (1499-1566), mistress of King Henry II of France and from 1548 duchess of Valentinois.

Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375). Il Decamerone... alla sua intera perfettione ridotto, et con dichiarationi et auuertimenti illustrato, per Girolamo Ruscelli.... Venice, Vincenzo Valgrisi and Baldassare Costantini, 1557.

A finely bound copy of this extremely rare Giuntina edition of one of Boccaccio’s most influential works.

Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375). Laberinto d’amore... con una Epistola à Messer Pino de rossi confortatoria del medesimo autore. Florence, Heirs of Filippo Giunta, 1521.

And thus it was that, with the great help of Dante and Boccaccio, Chaucer gave Saint Valentine’s Day onto the world. As courtly love gave way, one’s “valentine” ultimately came to be understood as one’s “sweetheart,” and the day transitioned to one for lovers. It is also in England that the Valentine’s Day card became popular in the 18th century and subsequently mass commercialized in the 19th.

A letter in the British Library written by Margery Brews in February 1477 is probably the oldest surviving Valentine’s Day letter in the English language. It was addressed to her fiancé, John Paston, whom she describes as “my right welebelovyd voluntyne” (MS 43490, f.24). In it, Brews notes how her father has thus far not been willing to increase her dowry, but if Paston loved her they would be married regardless (and in the end, they were!).

Shakespeare, the most celebrated of British bards, also made reference to Valentine’s day as the day when birds choose their mates in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, when Theseus jests, “Saint Valentine is past: Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?” (Act IV, scene I). Of course, now he is far more readily invoked on February 14th for Romeo and Juliet, long hailed as one of the most romantic tales ever written. The tragedy is set in Verona, the “City of Love,” which now celebrates St. Valentine with four-day long festivities called “Verona in Love,” including a contest to write the most beautiful love letter to Juliet.

Exceedingly rare separate edition of the thirty-third tale from a masterpiece of Italian popular literature, the Novellino by Masuccio Salernitano (born Tommaso Guardati), a collection of fifty novellas – each dedicated to prominent contemporary figures – first published in Naples in 1476. This tale is understood to be one of the sources of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

Masuccio Salernitano (1410-1475). Nouella di Marioto Senese. [Italy, 1530s?].

Notably, Shakespeare too sought inspiration from Italian literature, this time in the form of the Novellino by Masuccio Salernitano (born Tommaso Guardati), a collection of fifty novellas – each dedicated to prominent contemporary figures – first published in Naples in 1476. More specifically, Shakespeare seems to have been interested in the thirty-third tale: written in the Italian vernacular, this piece narrates the unfortunate story of the lovers Mariotto Mignanelli and Ganozza (or Giannozza) Saraceni, each hailing from warring Sienese families. Owing to the basic elements of the plot (the rivalry of the families, the clandestine marriage of the protagonists, the role played by a friar, the apparent death of Ganozza, and a misunderstanding which leads to the tragic death of both lovers), Masuccio’s novel is considered one of the sources for Romeo and Juliet.

We could mention many more examples in this vein of tragic romance, arguably an outcrop of the valorization of unattainability developed through courtly love, but will restrict ourselves to but one: Ugo Foscolo’s Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis (The Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis), published in Bologna in 1799, though with a very troubled publishing history. Foscolo's Ultime lettere is a semi-autobiographical work; in epistolary form, it narrates the impossible love of the young patriot Jacopo Ortis for a girl named Teresa, set against a backdrop of the Napoleonic wars in northern Italy. The epilogue is tragic as sentimental disappointment and political disillusionment lead the young Jacopo to commit suicide.

The extremely rare first edition – in the 'Austrian' issue known as '1799A' – of Foscolo's masterpiece, which is considered the first Italian epistolary novel.

Foscolo, Ugo (1778-1827). Vera storia di due amanti infelici, ossia Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis.… [Bologna, Jacopo Marsigli, 1799].

In our time, Pablo Neruda’s love poetry is among the most sought after for marking romantic occasions like St. Valentine’s day. Los versos del capitan is one of the masterpieces of the celebrated Chilean poet and 1971 Nobel Prize winner, who may also be considered something of a modern-day knight. Owing to his protests against President González Videla's authoritarian policy, Neruda was forced to flee Chile for Europe. The poetic collection Los versos del capitan was written in 1952 during his exile on the island of Capri and published in Naples on 8 July 1952 by Arte Tipografica, the press led by his friend Angelo Rossi. It contains Neruda's passionate love songs addressed to his muse, Matilde Urrutia (1912-1985), who became his third wife in 1963, and ultimately his widow. The first edition was published without mention of Neruda's name as their love affair was still a secret at the time.

The first edition of one of the rarest twentieth-century books, issued anonymously – or, as the colophon states, “de autor desconocido” – in only forty-four copies printed for friends and subscribers.

Pablo Neruda (1904-1973). Los versos del capitan. Naples, Arte Tipografica, 8 July 1952.

Of course, there is much more to be said about the history of celebrating love, but we shall leave it here for now and wish you all a Happy Valentine’s Day!

References: F. N. Robinson, The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer (Boston, 1957); D. S. Brewer, ed., The parlement of Foulys (Manchester, 1972); Piero Boitani, Chaucer and Boccaccio (Oxford, 1977); Kurt Olssen, “Poetic Invention and Chaucer's ‘Parlement of Foules’,” Modern Philology 87, no. 1 (August 1989): 13-35; Janet Smarr, “‘The Parlement of Foules’ and ‘Inferno’ 5,” The Chaucer Review 33, no. 2 (1998): 113-122.

How to cite this information

Julia Stimac and Margherita Palumbo, "On Courtly Love, Romance Literature, and St. Valentine's Day," 12 February 2020, https://www.prphbooks.com/blog/valentinesday. Accessed [date].

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