The Decameron

Giovanni Boccaccio

W. W. Norton & Company, Sep 16, 2013 - Fiction - 947 pages

"Celebrated in the Renaissance as the foremost stylist of Italian prose, Boccaccio has seldom met his match in English translation...Wayne Rebhorn’s fluid and dynamic rendition hits the mark on every page." —William J. Kennedy, Cornell University

The year is 1348. The Black Death has begun to ravage Europe. Ten young Florentines—seven women and three men—escape the plague-infested city and retreat to the countryside around Fiesole. At their leisure in this isolated and bucolic setting, they spend ten days telling each other stories—tales of romance, tragedy, comedy, and farce—one hundred in all. The result, called by one critic "the greatest short story collection of all time" (Leonard Barkan, Princeton University) is a rich and entertaining celebration of the medley of medieval life.

Witty, earthy, and filled with bawdy irreverence, the one hundred stories of The Decameron offer more than simple escapism; they are also a life-affirming balm for trying times. The Decameron is a joyously comic book that has earned its place in world literature not just because it makes us laugh, but more importantly because it shows us how essential laughter is to the human condition.

Published on the 700th anniversary of Boccaccio’s birth, Wayne A. Rebhorn's new translation of The Decameron introduces a generation of readers to this "rich late-medieval feast" in a "lively, contemporary, American-inflected English" (Stephen Greenblatt, Harvard University) even as it retains the distinctly medieval flavor of Boccaccio's rhetorically expressive prose.

An extensive introduction provides useful details about Boccaccio's historical and cultural milieu, the themes and particularities of the text, and the lines of influence flowing into and out of this towering monument of world literature.

Contents

• Introduction: xxiii
• Headnotes: lxvii
• Preface: 1
• Ser Cepparello deceives a holy friar with a false confession and dies: 24
• abraham the Jew urged on by Giannotto di Civignì goes to the: 38
• a monk having committed a sin deserving the gravest punishment: 46
• By means of a fine quip a worthy man confounds the wicked hypoc: 54
• With sprightly words Guiglielmo Borsiere rebukes the avarice of: 63
• Conclusion: 72
• after being robbed Rinaldo dasti turns up at Castel Guiglielmo: 82
• Three young men squander their wealth and are reduced to poverty: 89
• Landolfo Rufolo is impoverished becomes a pirate and is ship: 98
• andreuccio da Perugia comes to buy horses in Naples where during: 104
• having been separated from her two sons Madama Beritola is: 119
• The Sultan of Babylon sends one of his daughters to be married to: 134
• having been falsely accused the Count of antwerp goes into exile: 157
• Deceived by ambruogiuolo Bernabò of Genoa loses his money: 174
• Paganino da Monaco abducts the wife of Messer Ricciardo di: 188
• Conclusion: 196
• Masetto da Lamporecchio pretends he is a deafmute and becomes: 204
• a groom sleeps with the wife of King agilulf When the King finds: 212
• Under the pretext of making her confession as someone with an: 218
• Dom Felice teaches Frate Puccio how to achieve blessedness by per: 228
• In exchange for giving one of his palfreys to Messer Francesco: 234
• Ricciardo Minutolo loves the wife of Filippello Sighinolfi and upon: 241
• angered by his lady Tedaldo leaves Florence but returns some time: 250
• having consumed a certain powder Ferondo is buried for dead: 268
• having cured the King of France of a fistula Giletta of Narbonne: 279
• alibech becomes a recluse and Rustico a monk teaches her how: 290
• Conclusion: 296
• Introduction: 300
• Tancredi Prince of Salerno kills his daughters lover and sends her: 308
• Frate Alberto having given a lady to understand that the Angel: 319
• Three young men fall in love with three sisters and run away with: 330
• Violating a pledge given by his grandfather King William Gerbino: 338
• After Lisabettas brothers kill her lover he appears to her in a dream: 344
• any longer and instead becomes a: 349
• Simona loves Pasquino and while they are together in a garden: 358
• Messer Guiglielmo Rossiglione slays his wifes lover Messer: 370
• Conclusion: 384
• Cimone acquires wisdom through his love for his lady efigenia: 390
• Gostanza is in love with Martuccio Gomito but when she hears: 402
• Fleeing with agnolella Pietro Boccamazza runs into a gang of: 409
• Ricciardo Manardi is discovered by Messer Lizio da Valbona with: 417
• Before he dies Guidotto da Cremona entrusts a young girl to the: 423
• having been found with the girl he loves who had been given to: 430
• Teodoro falls in love with Violante the daughter of his master: 437
• In love with a lady from the Traversari family Nastagio degli: 445
• In love with a lady who does not return his affection Federigo degli: 452
• After Pietro di Vinciolo goes out to have supper his wife invites: 459
• Conclusion: 469
• A knight offers Madonna Oretta a horseback ride in the form of a: 475
• With a ready retort Monna Nonna de Pulci silences the unseemly: 481
• Messer Forese da Rabatta and Master Giotto the painter returning: 488
• When Madonna Filippas husband discovers her with a lover she is: 494
• Fresco urges his niece not to look at herself in the mirror if as she: 497
• Conclusion: 511
• Day 7: 518
• When her husband returns home unexpectedly Peronella stashes: 526
• Tofano locks his wife out of the house one night and when she: 537
• While she is with Leonetto Madonna Isabella is visited by a certain: 551
• a man becomes jealous of his wife when he discovers that she has: 563
• Nicostratos wife Lidia is in love with Pirro who asks her to do: 572
• a woman is loved by two Sienese one of whom is the godfather of: 583
• Day 8: 592
• Calandrino Bruno and Buffalmacco go down along the banks of: 603
• The Rector of Fiesole is in love with a widow who does not return: 613
• Three young men pull down the breeches of a judge from The: 619
• a scholar falls for a widow who is in love with someone else and: 630
• Two men are close friends and when one of them sleeps with the: 655
• a Sicilian woman masterfully relieves a merchant of the goods: 677
• Conclusion: 690
• Introduction: 693
• arising hurriedly in the dark an abbess rushes out to catch one: 701
• at Buonconvento Cecco the son of Messer Fortarrigo gambles: 710
• Two young men find lodging overnight and while one of them: 724
• Talano dImolese dreams that a wolf rips up his wifes throat and: 730
• When two young men ask Solomons advice one wanting to know: 738
• Donno Gianni is prevailed upon by compar Pietro to use an incan: 744
• Day 10: 752
• Envious of Nathans reputation for courtesy Mithridanes sets out: 763
• Messer Gentile de Carisendi comes from Modena and takes the: 771
• Madonna Dianora asks Messer ansaldo for a garden in January as: 779
• The victorious King Charles the old having fallen in love with a: 785
• Upon learning that a young woman named Lisa had become ill: 792
• Sophronia thinks she is marrying Gisippus but she actually: 801
• Disguised as a merchant Saladin is honorably entertained by: 820
• Induced by the entreaties of his vassals to take a wife the Mar: 839
• Conclusion: 851
• Acknowledgments: 861
• Suggestions for Further Reading: 945

About the author

Although Giovanni Boccaccio was born in France and raised and educated in Naples, where he wrote his first works under the patronage of the French Angevin ruler, Boccaccio always considered himself a Tuscan, like Petrarch and Dante. After Boccaccio returned to Florence in 1340, he witnessed the outbreak of the great plague, or Black Death, in 1348. This provided the setting for his most famous work, the vernacular prose masterpiece Il Decamerone (Decameron) (1353). This collection of 100 short stories, told by 10 Florentines who leave plague-infected Florence for the neighboring hill town of Fiesole, is clear evidence of the beginning of the Renaissance in Italy. The highly finished work exerted a tremendous influence on Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dryden, Keats, and Tennyson even as it established itself as the great classic of Italian fictional prose. Although Chaucer did not mention Boccaccio's name, his Canterbury Tales are clearly modeled on the Decameron. Boccaccio's other important works are a short life of Dante and commentaries on the Divine Comedy; Filocolo (1340) a prose romance; Filostrato (1335), a poem on Troilus and Cressida; and Theseus (1340-41), a poem dealing with the story of Theseus, Palamon, and Arcite. Boccassio's only attempt at writing an epic was a work that Chaucer rendered as his "Knight's Tale." Boccaccio's last work written in Italian was the gloomy, cautionary tale titled The Corbaccio (1355). The Nymph Song (1346), as a counterpiece for the Decameron, demonstrates that it is possible to read the Decameron as an allegory, with the plague representing the spiritual plague of medieval Christianity, viewed from the vantage point of Renaissance humanism. Many of the Decameron tales are indeed paganized versions of medieval sermons about sin and damnation with the morals reversed. After 1363 Boccaccio concentrated on trying to gain enduring fame by writing, in Latin, a series of lives of memorable men and women and a genealogy of the pagan gods. Boccaccio died in 1375. Wayne A. Rebhorn is the Celanese Centennial Professor of English at the University of Texas, where he teaches English, Italian, and comparative literature. His translation of Boccaccio’s Decameron won the 2014 PEN Center USA’s Literary Award for Translation.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Decameron
• Author: Giovanni Boccaccio
• Translated by: Wayne A. Rebhorn
• Contributor: Wayne A. Rebhorn
• Edition: revised
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2013
• ISBN: 0393069303, 9780393069303
• Length: 947 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / Classics; Fiction / Historical / General; Fiction / Literary; Fiction / Places / Europe; Language Arts & Disciplines / Reference