1353 Works - 1353 Books, Summary of Decameron Tales, the Decameron (Paperback)

Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: This article contains summaries and commentaries of the 100 stories contained in Giovanni Boccaccio 's The Decameron .Each story of the Decameron begins with a short heading explaining the plot of the story. The 1903 J. M. Rigg English translation headings are used in many of these summaries. Commentary on the tale itself follows.First day The basilica of Santa Maria Novella, with a Renaissance faade that was completed about 100 years after the Decameron was written.Before beginning the story-telling sessions, the ten young Florentines, referred to as the Brigata, gather at the Basilica di Santa Maria Novella and together decide to escape Black Death by leaving the city to stay in a villa in the countryside for the next two weeks. Each agrees to each tell one story each day for ten days each. The stories are told in the garden of the first villa that the company stays at, which (although fictional) is located a few miles outside the city.Under the rule of Pampinea, the first day of story-telling is open topic. Although there is no assigned theme of the tales this first day, six deal with one person censuring another and four are satires of the Catholic Church.First tale (I, 1) Ser Cepparello, known as Ciapelletto, a notoriously wicked hired gun (or sword), travels on business to a region he is unknown in and falls terminally ill. His slightly less evil companions bring a monk from a nearby convent to confess him and give him last rites . Ciappelletto proceeds to tell him the most ridiculous lies about his life and how holy he's been the whole time, while pretending to cringe over venial sins. He is completely believed by the friar, who preaches a sermon on his life and ends with everyone there believing him a genuine saint and attributing miracles to him.Panfilo is the stor...