Decameron Summary

It's Florence, Italy, 1348, and the Black Death has ravaged the city. Whole families have died. Neighborhoods are empty. Chaos reigns and the routines of daily life have been abandoned. In the church of Santa Maria Novella, a group of seven young gentlewomen gather to pray and discuss their sad life, hoping to find some way of alleviating their suffering. The oldest of the group, Pampinea, hits on a solution: road trip.

It seems like a good idea to get out of a city filled with contagion. There's nothing to do but watch the bodies pile up and hear the news about who died. Plus, it's dangerous to stay somewhere where all social and moral controls are gone and people are succumbing to "carnal pleasures." Better to leave for the country and enjoy the beauty of nature where the houses are far enough apart that you're not watching your neighbors die every time you look out the window. The prevailing medical advice at the time suggested that healthy air and a cheerful frame of mind could decrease your chances of catching the deadly disease.

But the ladies are afraid of traveling alone. After all, women are irrational and fickle, and without a man in charge they won't be able to get anything done. Fortune is kind in that moment and sends three young men of their acquaintance into the church. The ladies seize the opportunity—and the young men—and they have their posse (brigata in Italian) ready to go.

They don't have to travel far to escape the horrors of the city, and in about two miles they reach a lovely palace where they've arranged to stay. It has all the amenities: ample living space, servants, beautiful gardens, nature everywhere in the form of singing birdies, gentle breezes and clear flowing water. Once they arrive, they realize that all kinds of mischief might happen if they get bored, so they invent a storytelling game to occupy their time. They set the rules, choose a "Queen" to rule them for the first day, and the structure of their two-week stay is set in motion.

The ten young people spend the next two weeks (except for four days of religious observances) telling one story per day each on a chosen theme. Each day has a new king or queen that chooses the theme and makes arrangements for their meals and entertainment. It's the regimen of storytelling, they say, that refreshes them and keeps them on the straight and narrow path while they're away from the city, so that no one will gossip about them.

After telling a hundred stories on themes like the Power of Fortune, Unhappy Loves and Pranks Played by Wives on Their Husbands—and one relo to a new palace just to mix things up—the brigata return to the city to face their fate.

Note: In Boccaccio's day, chapter titles were really just brief descriptions of the chapter's content. (Remember those "Friends" episodes like "The One Where Chandler Can't Remember Which Sister?") For your comfort and convenience, Shmoop has thoughtfully shortened the names of the chapters in our Detailed Summary. For example, "Tancredi, Prince of Salerno, kills his daughter's lover and sends her his heart in a golden chalice; she besprinkles the heart with a poisonous liquid, which she then drinks, and so dies" helpfully becomes, simply, "Tancredi, Prince of Salerno."

Prego.

Shmoop's Handy Pocket Guide to the Decameron