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Its in-depth study exemplifies the care and consideration given to the original text and meaning. By invoking the name Prencipe Galeotto in the alternative title to Decameron , Boccaccio alludes to a sentiment he expresses in the text: The Wall Street Journal. Other jurisdictions may have other rules, and this image might not be in the public domain outside the United States. In other projects Wikimedia Commons Wikisource. March Learn how and when to remove this template message. Explicitly omits tales III.
Dante's description of Galehaut's munificence and savoir-faire amidst this intrigue impressed Boccaccio. By invoking the name Prencipe Galeotto in the alternative title to Decameron , Boccaccio alludes to a sentiment he expresses in the text: He contrasts this life with that of the menfolk, who enjoy respite in sport, such as hunting, fishing, riding, and falconry. 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, every 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 stories.
Each of the ten characters is charged as King or Queen of the company for one of the ten days in turn. This charge extends to choosing the theme of the stories for that day, and all but two days have topics assigned: Only Dioneo, who usually tells the tenth tale each day, has the right to tell a tale on any topic he wishes, due to his wit. These frame tale interludes frequently include transcriptions of Italian folk songs.
The basic plots of the stories include mocking the lust and greed of the clergy; tensions in Italian society between the new wealthy commercial class and noble families; and the perils and adventures of traveling merchants. 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 economic system beyond the traditional rural feudal and monastery systems which placed greater value on piety and loyalty. Beyond the unity provided by the frame narrative, the Decameron provides a unity in philosophical outlook.
Throughout runs the common medieval theme of Lady Fortune , and how quickly one can rise and fall through the external influences of the " Wheel of Fortune ". Boccaccio had been educated in the tradition of Dante's Divine Comedy , which used various levels of allegory to show the connections between the literal events of the story and the Christian message.
However, the Decameron uses Dante's model not to educate the reader but to satirize this method of learning. The Roman Catholic Church , priests, and religious belief become the satirical source of comedy throughout. This was part of a wider historical trend in the aftermath of the Black Death which saw widespread discontent with the church. Many details of the Decameron are infused with a medieval sense of numerological and mystical significance.
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Boccaccio himself notes that the names he gives for these ten characters are in fact pseudonyms chosen as "appropriate to the qualities of each". The Italian names of the seven women, in the same most likely significant order as given in the text, are Pampinea, Fiammetta, Filomena, Emilia, Lauretta, Neifile, and Elissa. The men, in order, are Panfilo, Filostrato, and Dioneo. Boccaccio focused on the naturalness of sex by combining and interlacing sexual experiences with nature.
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, Persia, Spain, and other places. Some were already centuries old. The frame narrative structure though not the characters or plot originates from the Panchatantra , which was written in Sanskrit before AD and came to Boccaccio through a chain of translations that includes Old Persian , Arabic , Hebrew , and Latin.
Even the description of the central current event of the narrative, the Black Plague which Boccaccio surely witnessed , is not original, but based on the Historia gentis Langobardorum of Paul the Deacon , who lived in the 8th century. Some scholars have suggested that some of the tales for which there is no prior source may still not have been invented by Boccaccio, but may have been circulating in the local oral tradition, with Boccaccio simply the first person known to have recorded them.
Boccaccio himself says that he heard some of the tales orally. In VII, 1, for example, he claims to have heard the tale from an old woman who heard it as a child. The fact that Boccaccio borrowed the storylines that make up most of the Decameron does not mean he mechanically reproduced them. Most of the stories take place in the 14th century and have been sufficiently updated to the author's time that a reader may not know that they had been written centuries earlier or in a foreign culture.
Scholars have even been able to verify the existence of less famous characters, such as the tricksters Bruno and Buffalmacco and their victim Calandrino. Still other fictional characters are based on real people, such as the Madonna Fiordaliso from tale II, 5, who is derived from a Madonna Flora who lived in the red light district of Naples.
Boccaccio often intentionally muddled historical II, 3 and geographical V, 2 facts for his narrative purposes. Within the tales of The Decameron , the principal characters are usually developed through their dialogue and actions, so that by the end of the story they seem real and their actions logical given their context. Another of Boccaccio's frequent techniques was to make already existing tales more complex.
A clear example of this is in tale IX, 6, which was also used by Chaucer in his " The Reeve's Tale ", which more closely follows the original French source than does Boccaccio's version. In the Italian version, the host's wife in addition to the two young male visitors occupy all three beds and she also creates an explanation of the happenings of the evening. Both elements are Boccaccio's invention and make for a more complex version than either Chaucer's version or the French source a fabliau by Jean de Boves.
The table below lists all attempts at a complete English translation of the book. The information on pre translations is compiled from the G. McWilliam's introduction to his own translation. 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 French, Catalan — translated by Bernat Metge — and Spanish.
The famous first tale I, 1 of the notorious Ser Ciappelletto was later translated into Latin by Olimpia Fulvia Morata and translated again by Voltaire.
Since The Decameron was very popular among contemporaries, especially merchants, many manuscripts of it survive. The Italian philologist Vittore Branca did a comprehensive survey of them and identified a few copied under Boccaccio's supervision; some have notes written in Boccaccio's hand. Two in particular have elaborate drawings, probably done by Boccaccio himself. Since these manuscripts were widely circulated, Branca thought that they influenced all subsequent illustrations. In Branca identified Codex Hamilton 90, in Berlin's Staatsbibliothek, as an autograph belonging to Boccaccio's latter years.
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The Decameron: Illustrated [Giovanni Boccaccio, John Florio] on www.farmersmarketmusic.com * FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. BOCCACCIO, Giovanni (). The Decameron. Illustrated Navarre edition. Volume I [Giovanni Boccaccio, Louis Chalon, J M Rigg] on www.farmersmarketmusic.com *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers.
For other uses, see Decameron disambiguation. Illustration from a ca. Summary of Decameron tales. This article possibly contains original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding inline citations. Statements consisting only of original research should be removed. January Learn how and when to remove this template message. This section does not cite any sources.
Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. March Learn how and when to remove this template message. Retrieved 18 December Boccaccio, Decameron, Ferrara, c.
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This image is in the public domain because under the Copyright law of the United States , originality of expression is necessary for copyright protection, and a mere photograph of an out-of-copyright two-dimensional work may not be protected under American copyright law. This image is in the public domain in the United States.