Summary of Decameron tales
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This article contains short summaries of the one hundred stories in Giovanni Boccaccio's The Decameron.
A Tale from The Decameron (1916), by John William Waterhouse
The basilica of Santa Maria Novella, with a Renaissance façade that was completed about 100 years after The Decameron was written
Equestrian statue of Can Grande della Scala
The Ponte Vecchio, which was brand new in Boccaccio's time, in Florence. The city is the setting of many stories of the Decameron.
The Golden Ass
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The Metamorphoses of Apuleius, which Augustine of Hippo referred to as The Golden Ass, is the only ancient Roman novel in Latin to survive in its entirety.
Summary of Decameron tales
…As is custom among the ten storytellers, Dioneo tells the last and most bawdy tale of the day. This story is taken from Lucius Apuleius's 2nd-century The Golden Ass. During the sixth day of storytelling, Elissa is queen of the brigata and chooses for the theme stories in which a character avoids attack or embarrassment…
Title page from John Price's Latin edition of Apuleius' novel Metamorphoses, or the Golden Ass (Gouda, Netherlands, 1650)
Lucius takes human form, in a 1345 illustration of the Metamorphoses (ms. Vat. Lat. 2194, Vatican Library).
Lucius spies Milo's wife transforming into a vulture. Illustration by Jean de Bosschère
Charitë embraces Tlepolemus while Lucius looks on. From an illustration by Jean de Bosschère