Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) was a prominent Florentinian writer and scholar, most known for his works, The Decameron and On Famous Women. The illegitamate son of a merchant, Boccaccio was educated in law in Naples, but did not take to the profession. He returned to Florence where he was a witness to a wave of the Black Death in 1348 that killed over 100,000 Florentines, including his step mother. This experience served as his inspiration for The Decameron, which he would go on to write between the years of 1349-1351. He spent his later years in life traveling around Italy giving lectures on another famous Florentine, Dante Alighieri. Boccaccio was also a contemporary or Petrarch and was greatly influenced by his writing.
Inspired by the 1348 Florence Plague and written in common Italian, The Decameron centers around ten people, seven women and three men, as they escape to the Italian countryside to avoid the plague. To pass the time they elect to tell stories, one story per person per day, resulting in 100 stories. Each day, a member of the party is elected leader and they choose a specific theme for the day. The tales, range from romantic to religious, moral to morose, and the monumental work has influenced other writers and artists for centuries