Giovanni Boccaccio’s One and Only Good Book

Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron
"Decameron—that’s a long book. I powered through it this past summer. I was like a self-propelled lawn mower, had to be. I had a lot of big books on my to-do list. Each one of ’em was allotted two weeks and no more. I 'had a good experience' with Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron, though I did not love it. I only liked the stuff where Boccaccio speaks in his own voice. That is, I liked the frame narrative and the interruptions. He does that thing medieval writers do: he plays dumb. And I love it when authors play dumb. But 95 percent of the book is devoted to ten young people telling their stories—you know the deal—and those I did not care for. ..."
The Paris Review
New Yorker: Renaissance Man
W - Giovanni Boccaccio
U. Chicago: Boccaccio - A Critical Guide to the Complete Works

Circes: illustration of one of the women featured the 1374 biographies of 106 famous women, De Claris Mulieribus, by Boccaccio – from a German translation of 1541