Novelleja Decameronesta
In 1348, the Black Death sweeps through Florence, killing thousands daily. Ten young survivors seven women and three men flee the dying city for a secluded villa, where they vow to escape the horror through storytelling. Over ten days, they trade one hundred tales: of love found and lost, of cunning servants outwitting cruel masters, of holy men revealed as hypocrites and merchants who lose everything for desire. The collection opens with Ser Ciappelletto, a man so thoroughly wicked that even his crimes shock other criminals, yet who confesses to a naive monk on his deathbed and is buried as a saint. This audacity defines the Decameron: Boccaccio dismantles the sacred even as he celebrates the profane, weaving satire, tragedy, and ribald comedy into an extraordinary portrait of medieval life. The stories range from the heartbreaking (Federigo degli Alberighi, who kills his beloved falcon to feed his unrequited love) to the outrageously funny (the quick-witted servant Chichibio who turns his master's rage into laughter). Nearly seven centuries later, these tales remain vital because they capture something universal: humanity's capacity for cruelty, cleverness, and relentless hope in the face of death.
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“To have compassion for those who suffer is a human quality which everyone should possess, especially those who have required comfort themselves in the past and have managed to find it in others. ””
— Giovanni Boccaccio
“Nothing is so indecent that it cannot be said to another person if the proper words are used to convey it.””
— Giovanni Boccaccio
“Kissed mouth don’t lose its fortune, on the contrary it renews itself just as the moon does.””
— Giovanni Boccaccio
“Wrongs committed in the distant past are far easier to condemn than to rectify.””
— Giovanni Boccaccio
“it is obvious that all vices have a grievous effect on those who indulge them and often on others too. But I believe that the one which can transport us with the most unbridled haste into danger is anger. This is nothing other than a sudden thoughtless impulse, provoked by some perceived offence, which banishes reason and clouds the eyes of the mind, rousing the soul to blazing fury.””
— Giovanni Boccaccio
“Let this grisly beginning be none other to you than is to wayfarers a rugged and steep mountain.””
— Giovanni Boccaccio
“The scholar, as wise as he was full of wrath, knowing that threats only serve as weapons to the person so threatened, kept all his resentment within his own breast [...]””
— Giovanni Boccaccio
“No-thing less splendid than a golden sepulchre would have suited so noble a heart.””
— Giovanni Boccaccio
“Senseless creatures, you don't see how much evil is concealed under a little good appearance.””
— Giovanni Boccaccio
