Title
The book's primary title exemplifies Boccaccio's fondness for Greek philology: Decameron combines Greek δέκα, déka ("ten") and ἡμέρα, hēméra ("day") to mean "ten-day [event]", referring to the period in which the characters of the frame story tell their tales.
Frame story
In Italy during the time of the Black Death, a group of seven young women and three young men flee from plague-ridden Florence to a deserted villa in the countryside of Fiesole for two weeks.
Analysis
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Literary sources
The Banquet in the Pine Forest (1482/3) is the third painting in Sandro Botticelli 's series The Story of Nastagio degli Onesti, which illustrates events from the Eighth Story of the Fifth Day.
Translations into English
The Decameron ' s individual tales were translated into English early on (such as poet William Walter's 1525 Here begynneth y [e] hystory of Tytus & Gesyppus translated out of Latyn into Englysshe by Wyllyam Walter, somtyme seruaunte to Syr Henry Marney, a translation of tale X.viii), or served as source material for English authors such as Chaucer to rework.
Notable early translations
It can be generally said that Petrarch's version in Rerum senilium libri XVII, 3, included in a letter he wrote to his friend Boccaccio, was to serve as a source for all the many versions that circulated around Europe, including the translations of the very Decameron into Catalan (first recorded translation into a foreign language, anonymous, hand-written in Sant Cugat in 1429.
Adaptations
William Shakespeare 's 1605 play All's Well That Ends Well is based on tale III, 9. Shakespeare probably first read a French translation of the tale in William Painter 's Palace of Pleasure.
How Historically Significant is the Introduction to Boccaccio’s The Decameron?
The Decameron is a collection of one hundred allegorical short stories written around 1353CE by Italian author, poet and scholar Giovanni Boccaccio (c.1313 - 1375). Boccaccio was most likely born in Florence or Certaldo and was the illegitimate son of a wealthy Florentine merchant, Bocacino di Chellino. As a youth he was trained to follow in his father’s business but he eventually chose instead to study canon law and subsequently pursued the arts.
What is the most famous document that Boccaccio has ever written?
The Decameron is one of the most famous surviving documents detailing pervasive effects of the Black Plague yet Boccaccio’s profession as novelist and poet raises questions regarding the veracity and accuracy of his account.
What is the significance of the introduction to the Decameron?
While primarily a work of fiction, the Introduction to The Decameron has emerged as an important historical record of the physical, psychological, and social effects of the aggressive spread of the previously unknown Yersina pestis bacteria. It provides a significant philosophical insight into the medieval psyche as Europe ...
What is the decameron?
The Decameron is written as framed narrative which is a literary compositional technique that allows various different stories to be related within a previously introduced main story (Rimmon-Kenan, pg 12 3-129). The Decameron tells a story of ten young Florentines who have fled from the Black Plague to reside in Naples.
What is Boccaccio's account of the adversity?
Boccaccio’s account provides valuable insight to the altered human moral behaviour during the adversity - the willingness to persecute foreigners and Jewish people, the harsh ostracism of the sick, the self imposed exile of the healthy, the ready abandonment of loved ones and family, as well as the extreme indifference towards a disproportionately affected lower class. Also mentioned is the deterioration of social institutions - medical, religious, public health and legal and their inability to affect any control on the progress of the disease.
Where was Boccaccio born?
Boccaccio was most likely born in Florence or Certaldo and was the illegitimate son of a wealthy Florentine merchant, Bocacino di Chellino. As a youth he was trained to follow in his father’s business but he eventually chose instead to study canon law and subsequently pursued the arts.
Was Boccaccio in Florence?
Whether Boccaccio was in Florence as the Black Plague swept the city is uncertain. However, he doubtless had access to authentic information on the abject suffering caused by the plague and the subsequent social ramifications. (Rigg)
How many tales are in the Decameron?
The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio is a collection of novellas that tell 100 tales. The tales are told by a group of seven women and three men who have fled Florence to escape the bubonic plague, also known as The Black Death.
What does Boccaccio feel about women?
Particularly, he feels empathy for women who do not possess the freedom of speech or the liberty a man enjoys in society.
What is the topic of the first day of tales?
The topic for the first day of tales is open, assigned by Pampinea, but as it happens, six of the tales are about one person censuring another, and the other four are satirical tales about the Catholic Church. On the second day, Filomena chooses the topic of misadventures that end both suddenly and happily.
What is the tenth day of Panfilo?
On the tenth and final day, Panfilo is elected king . He chooses stories about deeds of munificence, or the quality of being generous. As the tenth-day tales are told, they feature greater and greater generosity.
What day does Lauretta tell the story of tricks?
He selects tales featuring wives who play tricks on their husbands. On the eighth day, Lauretta charges everyone to tell stories about tricks that women play on men—or tricks men play on women. It’s Emilia’s turn on the ninth day, and she chooses not to assign a theme.
Where does the title of the Decameron come from?
It also provides insight into the way people lived in the fourteenth century. The title of the work comes from the Greek for “Ten Days.”. The tales are told over the course of ten days in the villa. The Decameron has a subtitle, too— Prencipe Galeotto —which translates to Prince Galehaut, and refers to a fictional king.
Who is the decameron?
The Decameron has a subtitle, too— Prencipe Galeotto —which translates to Prince Galehaut, and refers to a fictional king. Before becoming a king, he was a knight in Arthurian legend; he is ambitious and craves the chance to rule over Arthur’s domain. He’s powerful and his followers are loyal.
How many stories are there in the Decameron?
While in the country, the ten people decide to tell stories to distract themselves from the horrors of the plague--each person tells ten stories, which equals 100 stories and is how the book came to be called the Decameron (deca meaning 10). The stories range from the funny to the raunchy to the ridiculous. Their purpose was to entertain the ten ...
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Who wrote the Decameron?
Page Citation. Share Link. The Decameron was written by Giovanni Boccaccio, an Italian writer who lived from 1313-1375. It is the story of seven young women and three men who flee the city to go to the countryside to escape the deadly effects of the Black Plague, which was tearing through Italy at that time. While in the country, the ten people ...
What is the dance of death?
The Dance of Death, or Danse Macabre, by Michael Wolgemut, 1493. (Wikimedia Commons) Such works portraying the inexorable universality of death were a common motif in urban centers throughout medieval Europe. In the Decameron, Boccaccio’s young story tellers escape death literally and literarily by fleeing to the countryside. Boccaccio lived in a period of transition, when a new and powerful mercantile class had emerged as economic prosperity took cities like Florence by storm. The intellectual currents were running high, with a vibrant university culture in Naples and Bologna and a new enthusiasm for Ancient Greek and Roman culture that was aided by the rediscovery of many lost texts of the ancient world. Naples was, furthermore, a highly important center for trade and a cultural crossroads that undoubtedly served as an important resource for Boccaccio’s wide-ranging tales in the Decameron . Robert d’Anjou, the king of Naples during Boccaccio’s day, was a powerful figure in Italian politics and an important patron of the arts. He cultivated a court culture that perhaps served as a practical model for Boccaccio’s literary valuing of courtliness in the Decameron .
How did Boccaccio escape death?
In the Decameron, Boccaccio’s young story tellers escape death literally and literarily by fleeing to the countryside. Boccaccio lived in a period of transition, when a new and powerful mercantile class had emerged as economic prosperity took cities like Florence by storm.
What is the significance of the introduction to the first day of the Decameron?
The introduction to the first day of the Decameron represents an important historical account of the devastation of the city and the chaos that ensued. The rediscovery of ancient texts such as Cicero’s letters and reacquaintance with Ancient Greek literature in the early 14 th century led to an important shift in the arts and intellectual life.
What was Boccaccio's influence on the Decameron?
The strength and far-reaching influence of Italian commerce can be measured by the success of the Bardi banking house, which employed Boccaccio’s father.
How many people died in the Black Plague?
While accounts vary, it is estimated that the plague claimed the lives of 40,000-60,000 of the city's inhabitants (about half of the total population of the city), ...
What are the early humanistic tendencies?
These early Humanistic tendencies, seen in Dante as well as Boccaccio and Petrarch, are important precursors to the explosion of artistic and literary production during the Renaissance. Written by Akash Kumar (Department of Italian, Columbia University)
Why was Naples important to Boccaccio?
Naples was, furthermore, a highly important center for trade and a cultural crossroads that undoubtedly served as an important resource for Boccaccio’s wide-ranging tales in the Decameron . Robert d’Anjou, the king of Naples during Boccaccio’s day, was a powerful figure in Italian politics and an important patron of the arts.
Overview
The Decameron , subtitled Prince Galehaut (Old Italian: Prencipe Galeotto [ˈprentʃipe ɡaleˈɔtto, ˈprɛn-]) and sometimes nicknamed l'Umana commedia ("the Human comedy", as it was Boccaccio that dubbed Dante Alighieri's Comedy "Divine"), is a collection of short stories by the 14th-century Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375). The book is structured as a frame story containing 10…
Title
The book's primary title exemplifies Boccaccio's fondness for Greek philology: Decameron combines Greek δέκα, déka ("ten") and ἡμέρα, hēméra ("day") to mean "ten-day [event]", referring to the period in which the characters of the frame story tell their tales.
Boccaccio's subtitle, Prencipe Galeotto, refers to Galehaut, a fictional king portrayed in the 13th-century Lancelot-Grail who was sometimes called by the title haut prince "high prince". Galehaut …
Frame story
In Italy during the time of the Black Death, a group of seven young women and three young men flee from plague-ridden Florence to a deserted villa in the countryside of Fiesole for two weeks. To pass the evenings, each member of the party tells a story each night, except for one day per week for chores, and the holy days during which they do no work at all, resulting in ten nights of storytelling over the course of two weeks. Thus, by the end of the fortnight they have told 100 stori…
Analysis
Throughout the Decameron the mercantile ethic prevails and predominates. The commercial and urban values of quick wit, sophistication, and intelligence are treasured, while the vices of stupidity and dullness are cured, or punished. While these traits and values may seem obvious to the modern reader, they were an emerging feature in Europe with the rise of urban centers and a monetized eco…
Literary sources
Boccaccio borrowed the plots of almost all his stories (just as later writers borrowed from him). Although he consulted only French, Italian and Latin sources, some of the tales have their origin in such far-off lands as India, the Middle East, Spain, and other places. Some were already centuries old. For example, part of the tale of Andreuccio of Perugia (Day II, Story 5) originated i…
Papal censorship
Despite its enduring popularity, the Decameron's overtly anti-clerical stances frequently brought the work into conflict with the Catholic church. The first instance occurred when the Dominican Friar Girolamo Savonarola incited a bonfire of 'sinful' art and literature in the centre of Florence known later as the "Bonfire of the Vanities". The Decameron was among the works known to have been burned that day.
Notable early translations
It can be generally said that Petrarch's version in Rerum senilium libri XVII, 3, included in a letter he wrote to his friend Boccaccio, was to serve as a source for all the many versions that circulated around Europe, including the translations of the very Decameron into Catalan (first recorded translation into a foreign language, anonymous, hand-written in Sant Cugat in 1429. It was later retranslated by Bernat Metge), French and Spanish.
Adaptations
• William Shakespeare's 1605 play All's Well That Ends Well is based on tale III, 9. Shakespeare probably first read a French translation of the tale in William Painter's Palace of Pleasure.
• Posthumus's wager on Imogen's chastity in Cymbeline was taken by Shakespeare from an English translation of a 15th-century German tale, "Frederyke of Jennen", whose basic plot came from tale II…
How Historically Significant Is The Introduction to Boccaccio’s The Decameron?
- The Decameron is a collection of one hundred allegorical short stories written around 1353CE by Italian author, poet and scholar Giovanni Boccaccio (c.1313 - 1375). Boccaccio was most likely born in Florence or Certaldo and was the illegitimate son of a wealthy Florentine merchant, Bocacino di Chellino. As a youth he was trained to follow in his fa...
Historical Significance
- While primarily a work of fiction, the Introduction to The Decameron has emerged as an important historical record of the physical, psychological, and social effects of the aggressive spread of the previously unknown Yersina pestis bacteria. It provides a significant philosophical insight into the medieval psyche as Europe faced the alarming and unprecedented epidemic of the 1348 Black …
Interpretation - Placement, Meaning Or Difficulties
- Boccaccio’s account provides valuable insight to the altered human moral behaviour during the adversity - the willingness to persecute foreigners and Jewish people, the harsh ostracism of the sick, the self imposed exile of the healthy, the ready abandonment of loved ones and family, as well as the extreme indifference towards a disproportionately affected lower class. Also mentio…