"Not Like an Arab": Poetry and Astronomy in the Episode of Idalogos in Boccaccio's Filocolo‪.‬

With the autobiographically based character of Idalogos in the Filocolo (1336), Boccaccio portrays his own educational initiation as instruction in astronomy by a teacher he calls "Calmeta," to whose lessons Idalogos devoted himself "not like an Arab." This paper addresses the possible meaning of that phrase by considering the associations of Arabs with science and learning, within the Filocolo and in its cultural context. The paper suggests that, because Arabs were considered primary sources of science, Boccaccio is here describing study with the aid of intermediaries, in keeping with his lifelong engagement with gloss, apparatus, commentary, and vernacularization. **********