La truce mensa di Giovenale e Boccaccio tra la Satira V e l'Epistola XIII

Boccaccio well known Juvenal’s Satirae since his early youth. Their influences on his oeuvre have been generally explored, yet the critical studies usually quote the sixth and the tenth Satira. This paper aims to analyze the role of the fifth Satira – in which Juvenal treats the relationship between patronus and cliens – in Boccaccio Epistola xiii to Francesco Nelli. Both works ex- ploit the mensa inaequalis motif to highlight the negative treatment that the rich and mighty reserve to the literati. When the Certaldese escaped from Niccolò Acciauoli’s court in Na- ples, he showed to had learned Juvenal’s moral teaching: who demonstrate to be willing to tolerate humiliation is worthy to receive it. The writing of the Epistola xiii is mostly read as the result of hatred accumulated during the Neapolitan period, yet the presence of Ju- venal as a model helps to reinterpret the Epistola as a proud literary compensation for the damages suffered.