Il Decamerone di Messer Giovanni Bocchaccio Nuovamente Stampato et Ricorreto Per Messer Lodovico Dolce.

BOCCACCIO, Giovanni. Edited by Lodovico Dolce.

Item Number: 120493

Venegia: Francesco Bendoni & Mapheo Pasini, 1541.

First edition of Lodovico Dolce’s publication of Boccaccio’s masterpiece. Octavo, bound in full vellum, all edges red, woodcut printer’s device of the Curzio Troiano Navò lion to the title page. In near fine condition. Exceptionally clean internally and exceptionally rare.

The Decameron is a collection of novellas by the 14th-century Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375). The book is structured as a frame story containing 100 tales told by a group of seven young women and three young men sheltering in a secluded villa just outside Florence to escape the Black Death, which was afflicting the city. Boccaccio probably conceived the Decameron after the epidemic of 1348, and completed it by 1353. The various tales of love in The Decameron range from the erotic to the tragic. Tales of wit, practical jokes, and life lessons contribute to the mosaic. In addition to its literary value and widespread influence (for example on Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales), it provides a document of life at the time. Written in the vernacular of the Florentine language, it is considered a masterpiece of classical early Italian prose.