Boccaccio (1313-1875) was the son of a Florentine merchant; he early gave evidence of superior talents, and his father vainly attempted to educate him to follow his own profession. He resided at Naples, where he became acquainted with a lady celebrated in his writings under the name of Fiammetta. It was at her desire that most of his early pieces were written, and the very exceptionable moral character which attaches to them must be attributed, in part, to her depraved tastes. The source of Boccaccio's highest reputation, and that which entitles him to rank as the third founder of the national literature, is his "Decameron," a collection of tales written during the period when the plague desolated the south of Europe, with a view to amuse the ladies of the court during that dreadful visitation. The tales are united under the supposition of a party of ten who had retired to one of the villas in the environs of Naples to strive, in the enjoyment of innocent amusement, to escape the danger of contagion. It was agreed that each person should tell a new story during the space of ten days, whence the title Decameron. The description of the plague, in the introduction, is considered not only the finest piece of writing from Boccaccio's pen, but one of the best historical descriptions that have descended to us. The stories, a hundred in number, are varied with considerable art, both in subject and in style, from the most pathetic and sportive to the most licentious. The great merit of Boccaccio's composition consists in his easy elegance, his _naïveté_, and, above all, in the correctness of his language.
The groundwork of the Decameron has been traced to an old Hindu romance, which, after passing through all the languages of the East, was translated into Latin as early as the twelfth century; the originals of several of these tales have been found in the ancient French _Fabliaux_, while others are believed to have been borrowed from popular recitation or from real occurrences. But if Boccaccio cannot boast of being the inventor of all, or even any of these tales, he is still the father of this class of modern Italian literature, since he was the first to transplant into the world of letters what had hitherto been only the subject of social mirth. These tales have in their turn been repeated anew in almost every language of Europe, and have afforded reputations to numerous imitators. One of the most beautiful and unexceptionable tales in the Decameron is that of "Griselda," the last in the collection. It is to be regretted that the author did not prescribe to himself the same purity in his images that he did in his phraseology. Many of these tales are not only immoral but grossly indecent, though but too faithful a representation of the manners of the age in which they were written. The Decameron was published towards the middle of the fourteenth century; and, from the first invention of printing, it was freely circulated in Italy, until the Council of Trent proscribed it in the middle of the sixteenth century. It was, however, again published in 1570, purified and abridged.