The Decameron - Softcover

Boccaccio, Giovanni

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0451621344 ISBN 13: 9780451621344

Publisher: Signet, 1982

Synopsis

A new translation of the fourteenth-century tales recounted by young citizens of Florence who have fled the city to escape the plague

About this title

About the Author

Giovanni Boccaccio (1313 –1375) was an Italian writer, poet, correspondent of Petrarch, and an important Renaissance humanist. Boccaccio wrote a number of notable works, including The Decameron and On Famous Women. As a poet who wrote in the Italian vernacular, Boccaccio is particularly noted for his realistic dialogue, which differed from that of his contemporaries, medieval writers who usually followed formulaic models for character and plot. Short Biography: The details of Boccaccio's birth are uncertain. He was born in Florence or in a village near Certaldo where his family was from. He was the son of aFlorentine merchant, Boccaccino di Chellino, and an unknown woman; he was likely born out of wedlock. Boccaccio's stepmother was called Margherita de' Mardoli. Early life Boccaccio grew up in Florence. His father worked for the Compagnia dei Bardi and in the 1320s married Margherita dei Mardoli, who was of a well-to-do family. Boccaccio may have been tutored by Giovanni Mazzuoli and received from him an early introduction to the works of Dante. In 1326, when his father was appointed head of a bank, Boccaccio moved with his family to Naples. Boccaccio was an apprentice at the bank but disliked the banking profession. He persuaded his father to let him study law at the Studium, where for the next six years he studied canon law. He also pursued his interest in scientific and literary studies. His father introduced him to the Neapolitan nobility and the French-influenced court of Robert the Wise (the king of Naples) in the 1330s. At this time he fell in love with a married daughter of the king, who is portrayed as "Fiammetta" in many of Boccaccio's prose romances, including Il Filocolo (1338). Boccaccio became a friend of fellow Florentine Niccolò Acciaioli, and benefited from his influence as the administrator, and perhaps the lover, of Catherine of Valois-Courtenay, widow of Philip I of Taranto. Acciaioli later became counselor to Queen Joan I of Naples and, eventually, her Grand Seneschal. It seems Boccaccio enjoyed law no more than banking, but his studies allowed him the opportunity to study widely and make good contacts with fellow scholars. His early influences included Paolo da Perugia (a curator and author of a collection of myths, the Collectiones), the humanists Barbato da Sulmona and Giovanni Barrili, and the theologian Dionigi di Borgo San Sepolcro.

From AudioFile

This fourteenth-century Italian book, which inspired Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Balzac, remains one of the most enjoyable anthologies of short stories ever written. Some young unmarried nobles, the "beautiful people" of the age, decide to wait out the Florentine plague in their country estates, amusing each other every evening with earthy stories, some outright bawdy, others pointing to a moral. Nine capable Brits represent the storytellers in Naxos's sampling of a graceful, uncredited translation. Well-chosen music adds to the atmosphere. Y.R. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Edition details

• Publisher: Signet
• Publication date: 1982
• ISBN 10: 0451621344
• ISBN 13: 9780451621344
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 693