From Black Death to New World: Giovanni Boccaccio’s "Decameron"

Written in the wake of the plague that devastated Europe between 1346 and 1353, Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron is a remarkable book that served both to fix the calamity in his fellow Florentine’s collective memory and to point the way to a wide range of possibilities for imagining the future. This talk will first take into consideration Boccaccio’s eye-witness account of the ‘Black Death’ in Florence (that killed upwards of two-thirds of the city’s population over eight months in 1348) and then explore one of the ten days of narrated stories around which the Decameron is organized, in order to provide a glimpse of the new world Boccaccio sought to frame from the ruins of the old order.
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[@mortalclown3812]

Wonderful talk. Just finished The Decameron for the second time: the first was decades ago. I'm old now and appreciated it in deeper ways - and loved it before.

[@stuartbennett5268]

Brilliant (sparklingly intelligent) & in these times "Every[person] I go with thee and be thy guide, & in thy most need be by thy side". THANK YOU! :)

[@cdfanto6094]

Thought provoking !! Phenomenally insightful.

[@NHHumanities]

Thanks! So glad to hear you enjoyed the presentation ❤️

[@cycodevilboy]

Great video!! The amount of “ah” full words was painful, though. Nonetheless, thank you very much for putting this out.

[@AudioPervert1]

this is a great lecture. having seen Piere Pablo Passolins's Decameron, this lecture adds whole other dimension to what life would have been back then