fying . . . the appetites, as best one could, laughing and making light of everything that happened was the best medicine for such a disease. . . . Doing their best to avoid the sick, leaving them die unattended,” they did, however, often party in deserted houses, treating them as if they were “common property. . . .” This sort of behavior, Boccaccio says, left everyone “free to do as they pleased . . . while the revered authority of the laws, both divine and human law had fallen” by the wayside. Ultimately, many people died needlessly in Florence that could have been saved.
Boccaccio’s most distinguished critic, Vittore Branca, has rightly called The Decameron a masterpiece for the author’s use of vernacular prose, his middle-class attitudes, and his psychological approach to a “very human picture of a decisive period in history.”10 But for today’s informed reader, Boccaccio appears to be more than a man of his times, since his words, thoughts, and realistic observations still have relevance today in addressing the behaviors and approach to the present pandemic.
- Giovanni Boccaccio, “Introduction,” in The Decameron. trans. and ed. Mark Musa and Peter E. Bondanella (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1977), 3-17.
- Boccaccio, “Introduction,” 3; Boccaccio knew that the Black Death originated in the East and that it had arrived in northern Italy earlier in 1348, moving east to “westerly” toward Florence.
- Boccaccio, “Introduction,” 3. It is now known today that the miasma theory actually originated in ancient times. See Joseph Byrne, The Black Death (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press: 2004), 42.
- Boccaccio, “Introduction,” 3. The author never mentions the miasma himself. But by traditional necessity he does briefly mention God and the “influence of heavenly bodies.” At the end of this discussion, however, he more realistically turns his attention to the city’s filth.
- For the medical history of the Y. pestis as the real cause of the Florentine plague we are dependent on the direct quotes and summary provided by: Jay Sanford, “Section 157,” in The Textbook of Medicine, ed. Paul B. Beeson, Walsh McDermott, and and James B. Wyngaarden (Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1975), 462-63.
- Boccaccio, “Introduction,” 4. Here we find an admirable description of buboes.
- Boccaccio, “Introduction,” 4. Boccaccio is clearly suspicious of medical care in his era and is aware of the many charlatans pretending to be doctors
- Boccaccio, “Introduction,” 7-8. With multiple direct quotes by the author.
- Boccaccio, “Introduction,” 5-7. This section on Florentine behavior in the 1348 plague is easily the most significant part of the Introduction since today’s reader, enduring the 2020 pandemic, can in no way avoid relating to it.
- See Vittore Branca’s words in his brilliant study, Boccaccio. The Man and His Works, trans. Richard Monges (New York: New York University Press, 1976), 247.
List of References
- Boccaccio, Giovanni. “Introduction.” In The Decameron, translated and edited by Mark Musa and Peter E. Bondanella, 3-17. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1977.
- Branca, Vittore, Boccaccio. The Man and His Works, translated by Richard Monges. New York: New York University Press, 1976.
- Byrne, Joseph, The Black Death. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press: 2004.
- Sanford, Jay. “Section 157.” In The Textbook of Medicine, edited by Paul B. Beeson, Walsh McDermott, and James B. Wyngaarden. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1975.
CONSTANCE MARKEY, PHD, has enjoyed two careers. While working as a registered nurse (1957-79) she also studied Italian, and in 1970 earned an MA in Italian at the University of Chicago, and a PhD in Italian literature at the University of Illinois in Champaign/Urbana in 1980. In 1984 she accepted a position at DePaul University in Chicago where she was named head of the Italian Section. She continued to teach at DePaul until her retirement in 2004.