I have a vague memory of reading a book called Delirium in middle school wherein love is considered a disease, much like how lovesicknesses is treated by Boccaccio’s author voice in The Decameron. (An “affliction,” Professor Shemek calls it in her first lecture, "The Decameron's World in a Frame." Something to recover from.) In Delirium, scientists have found a cure for love, injected once one turns eighteen. Though we have not yet discovered such a thing, there are presumably salves for the aftermath of a particularly sharp heartbreak. Drawing a parallel between Boccaccio’s author voice and the brigata, both of who are attempting to escape pain, it is reasonable to name storytelling as one of such medications, though a temporary one from which we must eventually part. In this case, is it really an absolute salve, or an aid to revelation? 

YOUNG, HOPELESS, AND rich, the seven women and three men of the brigata squat in luxurious palaces that have been abandoned by their previous owners, presumed escapees or dead. They become somewhat hedonistic in their desperateness to escape their plague-torn world, and more specifically, that of Florence, where they’ve seen families and friends, servants and lords alike fall victim to the merciless hands of death. “How can it be wrong, provided no one is harmed, for us or for anyone else to use whatever remedies we can find in order to preserve our lives?” Pampinea, one of the ladies, cries out before they set off on their journey. “[We should be] having as much fun as possible, feasting and making merry, without ever overstepping the bounds of reason in any way” (Day 1 Introduction, Boccaccio). Thus begins their ten days of storytelling, in which they exchange tales related to love, betrayal, deceit, death, life, and honor, to name a few. 

To the brigata, such a departure is meant to provide them an escape from reality, both physically and emotionally. Not only do they leave behind their city and surround themselves with opulent nature and the remains of their once lush lives, but they dream up worlds in which they can better process and understand aspects of their humanity that at the present have been dashed by the collapse of reason and order. At the supposed loss of their Sicilian hierarchy, they create their own miniature political structure, which Professor Shemek outlines in her first lecture as a rotational, daily monarchy, wherein all members of the group are equal (Shemek, "World in a Frame"). 

What they are attempting to do by fleeing Florence is, at the forefront, not a method of processing, but rather chosen ignorance. They wish to ignore what is happening at home, even requesting that their servants and maids not relay any information about the “outside” world unless it is positive (Day 1 Introduction, Boccaccio). Yet, as the days progress, and they come closer and closer to the understanding that their locus amoenus ("pleasant place") cannot last forever, it becomes clearer that their efforts at forgetting have only made the tragedy more central to their lives. This realization that they must return to Florence is not one doused in blood, however, but hope. As Professor Shemek puts it, “the brigata’s mental journey to re-create [the] compassion and humanity [lost during the pandemic] is a physical journey,” a fact that arguably only becomes clear to the brigata themselves after their endeavors to forget (Shemek, "World in a Frame"). Their journey was never meant to help them forget and restart, but rather become perhaps subconsciously intimate with all that makes us human.