The Good, the Wise, and the Lusty: Women in Boccaccio's Decameron
A Tale from the Decameron, John William Waterhouse, 1916
The Good, the Wise, and the Lusty: 
Women in Boccaccio's Decameron

Praised for feminism and condemned for misogyny, Giovanni Boccaccio’s view of women has been interpreted in various shades of gray. Shape your own opinion based on several emblematic novelle from his capital work Decameron (c.1353). The book contains 100 tales told by a group of young women and men sheltering in a secluded villa just outside Florence to escape the plague. Written in the vernacular of the Florentine language, it is considered a masterpiece of classical early Italian prose. After exploring its historical perspective we will discuss plot and characters, focusing on the ambiguity of the adjectives good, wise, and lusty.
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