a
collection of 100 stories written by Italian poet and author Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375). The Decameron is composed of stories related by ten young people (three men and seven women) who, during a
plague in Florence,
Italy,
leave the city for the fresh air of a country villa. To entertain themselves, over a stretch of ten days, each tells one story a
day to the rest of the
group. The witty stories with their
alternate humorous and tragic views of
life total 100 in all. The
work, composed between 1348 and 1353, is considered Boccaccio's masterpiece and had enormous influence on the
style and
standards of European literature. (Decameron comes from the Greek words deka "ten" and hemera "
day," and means, literally, "ten days"
work.)