The Decameron is a collection of short stories written by Giovanni Boccaccio. Written from 1348-1353 and released at some point around 1370, the book collects various short tales recounted by refugees from the Black Death.
Stories within[]
to be added
Publisher's summary[]
The Decameron is a collection of one hundred short stories, told in ten days by seven women and three men, who left Florence to escape the plague that infected the city in 1348. The work is therefore divided into “Days” and in the Prologue the author explains the nature of his book. Day I speaks of “what is most pleasing to each”, Day II “of someone who, infested by various things, has, beyond his hopes, succeeded in a happy ending”, Day III “of someone who with diligence has acquired something greatly desired, or recovered what was lost”… and so on. Boccaccio paints an exceptional fresco of thirteenth-century Florence, of the virtues and vices of its inhabitants: from the readiness of the servant Chichibio, who turns his master’s anger into laughter, to the cruel Tancredi, who has his daughter’s lover killed; from the melancholic generosity of Federigo degli Alberighi, who sacrifices his favorite falcon for love, to the mad jealousy of Guglielmo da Rossiglione. Free-themed stories, happy-ending novellas, successful or tragic love stories alternate with examples of greatness of soul, jokes and pranks, heroic deeds, in a grandiose secular and profane epic of medieval man.
See also[]
| Title | Author | Release date | Significance |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Divine Comedy | Dante Alighieri | ~1320 | Another major work of Medieval Italian literature, written by one of Boccaccio's contemporaries |
| The Canterbury Tales | Geoffrey Chaucer | ~1400 | A similar collection of stories written around the same time |
| Heptaméron | Marguerite de Navarre | 1558 | A similar collection of short stories |