But we must here limit ourselves to the less
serious side of social intercourse--to the side which existed only for
the sake of amusement.
Social Etiquette
This society, at all events at the beginning of the sixteenth century,
was a matter of art; and had, and rested on, tacit or avowed rules of
good sense and propriety, which are the exact reverse of all mere
etiquette. In less polished circles, where society took the form of a
permanent corporation, we meet with a system of formal rules and a
prescribed mode of entrance, as was the case with those wild sets of
Florentine artists of whom Vasari tells us that they were capable of
giving representations of the best comedies of the day. In the easier
intercourse of society it was not unusual to select some distinguished
lady as president, whose word was law for the evening.
Everybody knows the introduction to Boccaccio's 'Decameron,' and looks
on the presidency of Pampinea as a graceful fiction. That it was so in
this particular case is a matter of course; but the fiction was
nevertheless based on a practice which often occurred in reality.
Firenzuola, who nearly two centuries later (1523) pref- aces his
collection of tales in a similar manner, with express reference to
Boccaccio, comes assuredly nearer to the truth when he puts into the
mouth of the queen of the society a formal speech on the mode of
spending the hours during the stay which the company proposed to make
in the country.
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