The Decameron Giovanni Boccaccio

Summary

The Decameron is a collection of stories within a story. Written in the 14th century by Italian author, poet and scholar Giovanni Boccaccio, it is a masterpiece of moral philosophy, and is generally viewed as the work that confirmed his reputation as the founder of Italian prose literature. It is also one of the world's great literary masterpieces.

The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio

With a new foreword. Written in the fourteenth century by Italian author, poet and scholar Giovanni Boccaccio, the Decameron contains stories told by ten young Florentines who have fled the city to escape the Plague. Presented within the sophisticated structure of a surrounding frame story, the one hundred allegorical tales are shared through the voices of these people as they spend their nights regaling the company with tales intended to guide and comfort, from the erotic, sensual, and bawdy to the intellectual, philosophical and tragic. The work's fundamental purpose is one of ethical instruction through the means of beautiful and entertaining prose, touching on themes of morality, fortune, human will, wit, virtue, female agency, and love won and lost. This is Boccaccio's masterpiece and is generally viewed as the work that confirmed his reputation as the founder of Italian prose literature. It is also one of the world's great literary masterpieces.

Dr Susanna Barsella (Foreword) graduated from The Johns Hopkins University and is Professor of Italian for the Modern Languages and Literatures Department and the Center for Medieval Studies at Fordham University, NYC. Dr Barsella's main area of research is in Italian Medieval literature with a specific interest in the literature of Early Humanism. She has published on Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Michelangelo and the idea of work from antiquity to the Middle Ages. Dr Barsella's interests also embrace twentieth-century literature with publications on Pirandello, Gadda and twentieth-century poetry. Her books include In the Light of the Angels: Angelology and Cosmology in Dante's Divina Commedia (Olschki, 2010); Niccolo Acciaiuoli, Boccaccio e la Certosa del Galluzzo: Politica, religione ed economia nell'Italia del Trecento (as co-editor, Viella, 2020); and The Decameron Ninth Day in Perspective (co-edited with Simone Marchesi, University of Toronto Press, 2022). She has served as a member of the Council of the Dante Society of America and as Treasurer and Vice-President of the American Boccaccio Association. She is currently a co-organizer of the ABA-ENGB (American Boccaccio Association - Ente Nazionale Giovanni Boccaccio) Summer School in Latin Paleography.

The Decameron Giovanni Boccaccio

The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio

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The Decameron Summary

The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio

About Giovanni Boccaccio

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