Giovanni Boccaccio
Facts about Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375)
1. He was an illegitimate son of Florentine Boccaccio di Chellino di Buonaiuto and an unknown lady from France. His father deserted the lady but took care of the son.
2. Birthplace of Giovanni Boccaccio is unknown too. It could be somewhere near Florence, where he spent his early years, or maybe even in Paris where his real mother probably resided.
3. His father wanted to introduce him to banking business or at least make him a merchant, but he persuaded him to enroll him in a school for lawyers.
4. Giovanni studied law for six years. While he didn’t like that profession either, he made many valuable connections and spent many years in different public positions.
5. Boccaccio’s true call was poetry. He also wrote prose, he translated works from Aristotle and Homer and signed several biographies.
6. He lived in times of plague and left Florence and Naples due to the epidemic at least once. This situation (as many other biographic moments) can be recognized in several of his works, especially in Decameron.
7. Decameron is most known work by Boccaccio and it is one of the most influential literary works in history.
8. Frame story about three men and seven women telling stories to each other inspired thousands of artists all over the world. One of Boccaccio’s specialties was his usage of dialogues. They are witty, lively and much more realistic than dialogues of his contemporaries.
9. Boccaccio is today considered as one of three most important writers in the 14th century when literature was probably revolutionized as much as with the invention of printing. Other two are Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) and Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374) also known as Petrarch.
10. Boccaccio spent his last years of life in poor health with weak hearth and other problems. His complete works are in the monastery of Santo Spirito, Florence, Italy.
One of illustrated English translations of Decameron which is in Public Domain is available at https://archive.org/details/decameron01boccuoft.
