Back toBoccaccioHomepage
Having withdrawn, living separate from everybody else, they settled down
and locked themselves in, where no sick person or any other living person
could come, they ate small amounts of food and drank the most delicate
wines and avoided all luxury, refraining from speech with outsiders, refusing
news of the dead or the sick or anything else, and diverting themselves
with music or whatever else was pleasant. Others, who disagreed with this,
affirmed that drinking beer, enjoying oneself, and going around singing
and ruckus-raising and satisfying all one's appetites whenever possible
and laughing at the whole bloody thing was the best medicine; and these
people put into practice what they heartily advised to others: day and
night, going from tavern to tavern, drinking without moderation or measure,
and many times going from house to house drinking up a storm and only listening
to and talking about pleasing things.
Bocaccio is most noted for writing the Decameron, a series of 100 stories
set in Florence during the Black Death that struck the city in 1348. Boccaccio
explores, in these stories, the traditions and viewpoints of various social
classes, greatly based on actual observation and study.
(Excerpt from the Decameron)
The Decameron (1350)
This book represents the first biographical compendium of women's
lives. Boccaccio
prepared 106 brief lives of women...covering both the virtuous
and the infamous...
In 1362, Boccaccio...wrote specifically "for the ladies," this time in Latin...
"Famous Women" by Giovanni Boccaccio,the first collection of biographies
devoted exclusively to women, influenced the work of many other writers,
including Geoffrey Chaucer. Today, Boccaccio's "Decameron," which
he composed in Italian, is still well-known, but "Famous Women," along
with his other Latin works, is all but forgotten.
Concerning Famous Women(1361)
Certaldo_Info
