Giovanni Boccaccio

June 1313 – 21 December 1375

Giovanni Boccaccio was an Italian writer, poet, and humanist, best known for the Decameron, a collection of one hundred novellas framed by the Black Death of 1348. Together with Dante and Petrarch he is counted among the three crowns of Italian literature, and his prose set a lasting model for Italian narrative writing. He was also an early champion of Dante studies.

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Well-documented people whose lives overlapped with Giovanni Boccaccio.

Life events

Born in Tuscany
June 1313

Boccaccio was born in June 1313, in Certaldo or Florence, the illegitimate son of the merchant Boccaccino di Chellino.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
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Moved to Naples to train in banking
c. 1327

Around 1327 Boccaccio was sent to Naples, where his father worked for the Bardi bank, to be apprenticed in commerce and later to study canon law.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
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Turned to literature at the Angevin court of Naples
c. 1335

During the 1330s Boccaccio abandoned banking and law for literature, writing early works such as Filocolo and Filostrato in the ambit of the Neapolitan court.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
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Returned to Florence
c. 1341

Around 1341 Boccaccio returned from Naples to Florence following his father's financial difficulties.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
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Witnessed the Black Death in Florence
1348

Boccaccio lived through the plague of 1348 in Florence, which killed his father and stepmother and provided the frame story of the Decameron.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
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Wrote the Decameron
c. 1349 – c. 1353

Boccaccio composed the Decameron, his masterpiece of one hundred tales, in the years following the Black Death, roughly between 1349 and 1353.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
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Met Petrarch in Florence
1350

In 1350 Boccaccio welcomed Petrarch to Florence, beginning a close friendship and scholarly correspondence that lasted until Petrarch's death.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
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Served Florence on diplomatic missions
c. 1351

From the 1350s Boccaccio undertook several embassies for the Florentine commune, including missions to the papal court.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
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Began public lectures on Dante's Divine Comedy
October 1373

In October 1373 Boccaccio began the first public lectures on Dante's Divine Comedy, delivered in the church of Santo Stefano di Badia in Florence.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
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Died in Certaldo
21 December 1375

Boccaccio died in Certaldo, Tuscany, on 21 December 1375.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
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