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I tackled this book after having my Honors Western Civ professor read us an excerpt from it during class. While the length of this book is a bit daunting, the style it is written in makes it seem like a much lighter read. Essentially, it is broken up into different days, each with ten stories giving the book a very nice touch that makes it easy to leave and come back to whenever you have the time.

I recommend this book to anyone that has an interest in Italian history. It adds a colorful narrative that, while not historically accurate at times, does give insight into Boccaccio's role and position during his time.

I read portions of this book for a literature class and I really loved it. I was surprised by how secular the attitudes were while being rooted in a spiritual context. One of the things I noticed was how corrupt and sinful the clergy were portrayed in many of the stories. Nuns and monks were fornication and lying instead of upholding their vows. I think the backlash towards the clergy is understandable. The common people were told the plague was punishment for sin but with thousands of people dying, what's the point of living a pure life when you could be next. Also many people who did choose piety donated goods and money to the church where precious items were hoarded.

The Decameron is what is called a mise en abyme i.e. a story within a story. In this case it is a hundred stories within a story. It was also the structural inspiration for Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. It can be viewed quite simply as a compendium of short stories set within that period of history (15th century) .

Not a bad read ... some stories more interesting than others as is usually the case whenever you have a collection of stories.

When I was a child (in the seventie's) there was also a tv movie for children :"Calandrino e Buffalmacco" (I don't know in English) from The Decameron. I liked it very much at that time. I couldn't find it on you tube, I'm afraid. Maybe too many years are passed.

Wow impressive. I was not able to get into this one. Probably I would have liked the TV version as I love fiction set in old world Europe.

As an Italian student I must say that The Decameron is one of the masterpieces of Italian literature, even though I didn't enjoy it as much in school as I did at uni where I did a whole course on Boccaccio's tales and let me tell you, I had the opportunity of appreciating such a wonderful book. I love the structure of the Decameron, how it is divided in days and how every character tells a different story everyday, and each one of them has particular qualities in their way of story-telling. Another thing I love is the different levels of narration: the first one is the Decameron as we know it; the second one is Florence in the XIV century during a plague and the main characters feeling to the countryside and deciding to tell stories to kill the time; the third level are the stories themselves: each one represent a reality of its own. Boccaccio really was a genius!