Boccaccio, Giovanni. Il Decameron. Fiorenza: Nella Stamperia de i Giunti, 1573 .

The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio is one of the greatest works of Italian prose.It was written between 1348 and 1353. In 1350 Boccaccio met Petrarch, and devoted himself to humanist scholarship. He wrote an encyclopedic Latin work on classical mythology, De genealogia deorum gentilium, which he corrected and revised until the year of his death. His work entitled De casibus virorum illustrium (1355-1374; "On the fates of Famous Men") was part of a classical tradition of historiography dealing with famous men, as was Petrarch's De viris illustribus. Boccaccio's perspective, however, focused on the calamities inevitably awaiting all who are too favored by Fortune.

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