(1313–75). One of the greatest figures in Italian literature, Boccaccio was, with his older friend, the poet Petrarch, a founder of the humanism that played such a meaningful and important role in the Italian Renaissance (see Renaissance). Humanism, which is an attitude emphasizing human beings and their values, included the revival of appreciation for the classical style of the authors of ancient Greece and Rome. Giovanni Boccaccio was born at Paris, France, in 1313, of a French mother and Italian father. Giovanni grew interested in literature, a career for which the father had no sympathy. When he was about 12 years old Giovanni was sent to Naples to learn business at a banking house. During his 12 or 15 years in Naples he met and fell in love with a woman he called “La Fiammetta” (the Flame). Her real identity has never been discovered, but she dominated most of his early writings—poems on chivalry and love. Boccaccio moved to Florence in 1340. It was in Florence, birthplace of the Renaissance, that he met Petrarch in 1350 and began to study the Greek and Roman classics. It was there, also, that he wrote his ‘Decameron', one of the most noted and readable books in all literature. Written in the years 1349 to 1351, the occasion of the book was the appearance of the bubonic plague in Florence in 1348. The book tells of ten young people who escape the city into the countryside and spend ten days simply telling stories—100 in all—hence the title of the book, which means ‘Ten Days Work'. Boccaccio retired to Artaldo, near Florence, in 1363. He died there on Dec. 21, 1375. |