**I’ll be here all week millennium! **
One of me wishes this would be required reading for sex-ed. At least that way students would learn something while attending the class!
Second I wish I had read this during the pandemic, when it would have been a great shared experience to read whilst sheltering in place .
I appreciate that like Durant , Decameron really humanizes the late Middle Ages. In the same way that late night comics rip monks and nuns today, Boccaccio pokes fun at the holier than thou traditions of the day. Many of the plots are overtly ridiculous, but done so in a way that is humorous and not overbearing.
Perhaps what is interesting about Decameron is the way in which Boccaccio’s mind conceived the world: humans are both cunning and gullible, and with the right connections, every sort of magic is possible. Each class acts disingenuously all trying to find some form of self interest, but forgiveness and atonement are easily achieved. This is a book I’d love to read to my kids someday.