Reference
- Boccaccio, GiovanniBoccaccio was an Italian poet and writer of prose fiction, largely influenced by Dante and his close friend Petrarch, and with those two is considered one of the three great writers of the Italian trecento (i.e., 14th century). His Decameron is one of the seminal works of world literature, and the most important work of prose fiction to come out of the Italian Middle Ages...
- Black DeathThe advent of the Black Death followed hard upon the Great Famine (1315–22), the worst famine in the history of Europe, in which at least 10 percent of the population died over the course of seven years. The Black Death itself was a combination of three related diseases: bubonic plague, pneumonic plague, and septicemic plague. The name “black death” probably originates from one of the common signs of infection: The lymph nodes of victims, usually those in the groin, would swell and darken. These swellings were also called buboes, hence the term “bubonic.”...
- The DecameronThe Decameron is the most widely read and highly acclaimed work of Giovanni Boccaccio. Consisting of 100 short stories or novelle told within a frame story set in Florence during the Black Death of 1348, The Decameron is famous for its humor, its vitality, its realism, and its variety of tone and subject. The text is universally revered as the most significant contribution to prose fiction from the European Middle Ages, and influenced the development of narrative for centuries...
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Credo Reference is an easy-to-use tool for starting research. Gather background information on your topic from hundreds of full-text encyclopedias, dictionaries, thesauri, quotations, and subject-specific titles, as well as 500,000+ images and audio files and over 1,000 videos.
Literary Reponses to the Black Death
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The events of the Black Death inspired some of history’s greatest literary masterpieces. In this lecture, uncover the range of textual responses to the plague, highlighting William Langland’s dream-vision poem Piers Plowman and Boccaccio’s Decameron. Learn how the plague set Geoffrey Chaucer on the path to literary immortality.
Online Resources
- The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio: BritannicaIt was probably in the years 1348–53 that Boccaccio composed the Decameron in the form in which it is read today. In the broad sweep of its range and its alternately tragic and comic views of life, it is rightly regarded as his masterpiece. Stylistically, it is the most perfect example of Italian classical prose, and its influence on Renaissance literature throughout Europe was enormous...
- Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375): Harvard UniversityGiovanni Boccaccio is, with the older Dante and his contemporary Francis Petrarch, one of the three great poets of the Italian fourteenth century. Chaucer knew the works of all three, and it has been speculated that he may even have met both Petrarch and Boccaccio (but see below)...
- Giovanni Boccaccio: BritannicaGiovanni Boccaccio, (born 1313, Tuscany—died Dec. 21, 1375, Certaldo, Tuscany), Italian poet and scholar, best remembered as the author of the earthy tales in the Decameron. With Petrarch he laid the foundations for the humanism of the Renaissance and raised vernacular literature to the level and status of the classics of antiquity...
Wondrous Boccaccio
- Kanopy This link opens in a new windowFlorence, Thirteenth Century. The "Black Death" is spreading. Ten kids (three boys and seven girls) decide to escape and to seek shelter in the countryside, away from the horrible consequences of the plague. In order to kill time, each kid tells a particular story, but no matter how different their stories may be, they all have one aspect in common: love. A love that will help the characters cope with the numerous uncertainties of a very arduous age. It is loosely based on stories from The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio.
Perspectives
The Decameron
The Decameron (c.1351) is an entertaining series of one hundred stories written in the wake of the Black Death. The stories are told in a country villa outside the city of Florence by ten young noble men and women who are seeking to escape the ravages of the plague. Boccaccio's skill as adramatist is masterfully displayed in these vivid portraits of people from all stations in life, with plots that revel in a bewildering variety of human reactions.
Famous Women
After the composition of the Decameron, and under the influence of Petrarch's humanism, Giovanni Boccaccio(1313-1375) devoted the last decades of his life to compiling encyclopedic works in Latin. Among them is Famous Women, the first collection of biographies in Western literature devoted exclusively to women. The 106 women whose life stories make up this volume range from the exemplary to the notorious, from historical and mythological figures to Renaissance contemporaries. In the hands of a master storyteller, these brief biographies afford a fascinating glimpse of a moment in history when medieval attitudes toward women were beginning to give way to more modern views of their potential. Famous Women, which Boccaccio continued to revise and expand until the end of his life, became one of the most popular works in the last age of the manuscript book, and had a signal influence on many literary works, including Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Castiglione's Courtier. This edition presents the first English translation based on the autograph manuscript of the Latin.
Decameron Nights
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This 1953 film combines an adaptation of stories from Giovanni Boccaccio's bawdy medieval classic The Decameron with a storyline featuring the author himself. The film is known for its beautiful setting and overall visual appeal. Starring Joan Fontaine, Louis Jourdan, and Joan Collins. Directed by Hugo Fregonese.
The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio | In-Depth Summary & Analysis
- The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio | In-Depth Summary & AnalysisGiovanni Boccaccio's The Decameron explained with story summaries in just a few minutes! Course Hero Literature Instructor Russell Jaffe provides an in-depth summary and analysis of Giovanni Boccaccio's short story collection The Decameron.