The Decameron, through its one-hundred tales told over the course of a ten-day adventure, taken by seven young ladies and three young men, presents the reader with examples of pre, during, and post plague societal perceptions and norms. But overall, critics do little to link the plague to the positive change in society’s acceptance of these merchants and tradesmen. While some critics interpret depictions of the plague within The Decameron, others argue that Boccaccio’s merchant portrayals are more favorable than in previous literature. He also goes on to portray the devastating effects of death on, not only the physical bodies of people and animals, but also on their mental, emotional, and spiritual states, and how this accelerated their acceptance of the rising merchant mentality of more utilitarian values. In The Decameron, Boccaccio depicts the outbreak’s high-mortality rates and how that was a catalyst for many social and cultural changes within fourteenth-century Europe. This source is a part of the Children during the Black Death teaching module.Giovanni Boccaccio was a contemporary witness to the effects of the Black Death pandemic, the Yersinia pestis bacterial pandemic in Europe between the years 1346-53, causing 75 million to 200 million deaths across the continent alone. The English translation is followed by the original in Italian. But most distressing of all, according to Boccaccio, was the collapse of families and the abandonment of children. Some people secluded themselves and restricted their diet, others recklessly gave themselves over to pleasure, and still others tried to behave temperately. Government, medical care, and neighborliness broke down. Here the author relates in precise detail the gruesome symptoms of the disease and the horrific circumstances that took place in Florence as the epidemic swept through the town disrupting all forms of normal human relations. Though the novella range from the bawdy to the pious, the story telling is light hearted in keeping with the purpose of restorative diversion.īoccaccio's introduction, however, has a very different tone. The epidemic provides the pretext for a group of young men and women to leave Florence and retire to a pleasant villa in the countryside where they entertain themselves by telling stories over 10 days.

His report on the behavior of the Florentines after plague entered their city during the spring of 1348 serves as introduction and frame for his collection of 100 tales entitled the Decameron.

Giovanni Boccaccio provided the most famous description of what happened during the Black Death in Italy.

Giovanni boccaccio decameron