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 ...
Decameron
The Decameron (subtitle: Prencipe Galeotto) is a collection of 100 novellas by Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio, probably begun in 1350 and finished in 1353. It is a medieval allegorical work best known for its bawdy tales of love, appearing in a...
Genealogy of the Pagan Gods
Genealogy of the Pagan Gods
The Decameron
With a new foreword. Written in the fourteenth century by Italian author, poet and scholar Giovanni Boccaccio, the Decameron contains stories told by ten young Florentines who have fled the city to escape the Plague. Presented within the sophisticated structure of a surrounding frame story, the one hundred allegorical tales are shared through the voices of these people as they spend their nights regaling the company with tales intended to guide and comfort, from the erotic, sensual, and bawdy to the intellectual, philosophical and tragic. The work’s fundamental purpose is one of ethical instruction through the means of beautiful and entertaining prose, touching on themes of morality, fortune, human will, wit, virtue, female agency, and love won and lost. This is Boccaccio's masterpiece and is generally viewed as the work that confirmed his reputation as the founder of Italian prose literature. It is also one of the world's great literary masterpieces. Flame Tree Gothic Fantasy,
The Downfall of the Famous
Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-75) is best known as the author of the Decameron, for which he created a lieta brigata of young men and women narrating a series of popular stories in Italian. Yet during his lifetime and long afterward Boccaccio was celebrated as a leading figure in the revival of classical Latin in such literary and historical works as his Eclogues, The Genealogy of the Gods, and On Famous Women. In The Downfall of the Famous (De casibus virorum illustrium) Boccaccio also composed a work that followed classical models and provided civic and ethical guides for his readers. In this he joined the efforts of his role model, Francesco Petrarch, whose own Latin De viris illustribus and unfinished Africa set the standard for early modern humanists. Boccaccio began The Downfall of the Famous circa 1355 and completed his authoritative version in 1374. In all he presented over ninety biographies of famous men and women in nine books. These ranged from Adam and Eve through biblical,