The Decameron of Boccaccio. (The First Five Days).

By Giovanni Boccaccio

Printed: 1954

Publisher: Folio Society. London

Dimensions 17 × 26 × 4 cm
Language

Language: English

Size (cminches): 17 x 26 x 4

£23.00
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Item information

Description

Brown cloth binding with gilt title on the spine spine. Green and red geometric design on the front board and spine. Dimensions are for one volume.

A fine and very readable edition

As with Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (there is some debate whether Chaucer met Boccaccio in Florence) one cannot help but be drawn into the medieval cosmos

The Decameron , subtitled Prince Galehaut  and sometimes nicknamed l’Umana commedia (“the Human comedy”, as it was Boccaccio that dubbed Dante Alighieri’s Comedy “Divine“), is a collection of novellas by the 14th-century Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375). The book is structured as a frame story containing 100 tales told by a group of seven young women and three young men; they shelter in a secluded villa just outside Florence in order to escape the Black Death, which was afflicting the city. Boccaccio probably conceived of the Decameron after the epidemic of 1348, and completed it by 1353. The various tales of love in The Decameron range from the erotic to the tragic. Tales of wit, practical jokes, and life lessons contribute to the mosaic. In addition to its literary value and widespread influence (for example on Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales), it provides a document of life at the time. Written in the vernacular of the Florentine language, it is considered a masterpiece of classical early Italian prose.

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