The Decameron

"Celebrated in the Renaissance as the foremost stylist of Italian prose Boccaccio has seldom met his match in English translation...Wayne Rebhorns 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 Florentinesseven women and three menescape 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 storiestales of romance tragedy comedy and farceone 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 Boccaccios birth Wayne A. Rebhorns 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 Boccaccios rhetorically expressive prose. An extensive introduction provides useful details about Boccaccios 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.