Dekameron – Boccaccio Giovanni (2025)

The Italian city of Florence is ravaged by a deadly plague in the fourteenth century. Some people shut themselves in their homes as the disease spreads very quickly. Others have the opposite remedy for this illness: to enjoy themselves, drink a lot, and joke around. Thousands of people are dying, and the grave diggers carry the dead on stretchers from the lower class, with hardly anyone mourning for the deceased.

At that time, seven ladies gathered in the church of Santa Maria Novella. The author claims he did not want to reveal their real names, so he named them: Pampinea, Fiammetta, Filomena, Emilia, Lauretta, Neifilie, and Elisa. In the church, they coincidentally meet three young men (Pamfineo, Filostrato, and Dioneo), whom they persuade to leave the city with them to a certain estate.

They agree that each day a king or queen will be chosen, and every day everyone will prepare a story on a given theme for the others. Thus, 10 stories are told each day. They stay at the estate for ten days and return to Florence on the eleventh, where the young men leave the ladies at Santa Maria Novella, at the spot where they first met.

This immortal, centuries-old work remains a beloved satire on religious asceticism, the church, and the nobility.