A work by Boccaccio, written between 1348 and 1358, containing a hundred tales supposedly told in ten days by a party of ten young people who had fled from the Black Death in Florence.
The stories in The Decameron range from stories about bawdy intrigues to stories about bourgeois merchants to stories about the pains and tragedies of love to stories of religious capers with monks with farce, comedy, and tragedy all included. Boccaccio's 100 stories are highly structured and may be metaphorically viewed as his gift of order on a disordered world. In these structured stories, Boccaccio celebrates two thematic ideas. The first theme is, as he writes in his dedication, is womanhood and love. The second theme is the intelligence of humankind. The Decameron (From the Greek: δέκα - ten & μέρα - day) (Italian: Decameron [deˈkaːmeron] or Decamerone [dekameˈroːne]), subtitled Prince Galehaut (Old Italian: Prencipe Galeotto [ˌprentʃipe ɡaleˈɔtto]), is a collection of novellas by the 14th-century Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375). Boccaccio probably conceived the Decameron after the epidemic of 1348, and completed it by 1353. The various tales of love in The Decameron range from the erotic to the tragic. Tales of wit, practical jokes, and life lessons contribute to the mosaic. In addition to its literary value and widespread influence (for example on Chaucer 's The Canterbury Tales), it provides a document of life at the time Dioneo narrates what is by far the most obscene and bawdy tale in the Decameron. Alibech, a naive young woman, wanders into the desert in an attempt to become closer to God. She happens upon the monk Rustico, and he deflowers her under the pretense of teaching her how to better please God. This tale is originally found in Hitopadesha, a Sanskrit collection of tales. Boccaccio, though, may have directly taken the tale from The Seven Wise Masters, which, although oriental in origin, was widely circulating in Latin at the time the Decameron was written. By invoking the name Prencipe Galeotto in the alternative title to Decameron, Boccaccio alludes to a sentiment he expresses in the text: his compassion for women deprived of free speech and social liberty, confined to their homes and, at times, lovesick. Boccaccio probably conceived the Decameron after the epidemic of 1348, and completed it by 1353. The various tales of love in The Decameron range from the erotic to the tragic. Tales of wit, practical jokes, and life lessons contribute to the mosaic. In addition to its literary value and widespread influence (for example on Chaucer 's The Canterbury Tales), it provides a document of life at the time The attention devoted to the tales of the Decameron among English poets of the Romantic period is indicative of a certain fundamental yet complex relationship between the aspirations and the themes of Boccaccio's text and those of the poetry of that revolutionary generation of writers. (It is interesting to note that Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem . The Garden of Boccaccio , a piece specifically about the spirit of Boccaccio and the Decameron, presents a perfect example of the mesh of naturalism and medievalism. In the last tale of the second day Dioneo begins his pattern of telling the last tale of the day, which he will continue until the end of the Decameron. The moral of the story – that a young woman should not marry an old man – is common in late medieval vernacular literature. This tale is originally found in Hitopadesha, a Sanskrit collection of tales. Boccaccio, though, may have directly taken the tale from The Seven Wise Masters, which, although oriental in origin, was widely circulating in Latin at the time the Decameron was written. a collection of a hundred tales, conceived of as rehearsed in ten days at a country-house during the plague at Florence; are of a licentious character, but exquisitely told; were written by Boccaccio; published in 1352; the name comes from deka, ten, and hemera, a day.  Therefore finding a central meaning to Boccaccio's The Decameron depends on understanding Boccaccio's thematic purpose. Boccaccio had witnessed in Florence the plague of the Black Death begun in 1347. Boccaccio's 100 stories are highly structured and may be metaphorically viewed as his gift of order on a disordered world. In these structured stories, Boccaccio celebrates two thematic ideas. The first theme is, as he writes in his dedication, is womanhood and love. The second theme is the intelligence of humankind. Definition of Decameron in English: A work by Boccaccio, written between 1348 and 1358, containing a hundred tales supposedly told in ten days by a party of ten young people who had fled from the Black Death in Florence. 
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