The World Boccaccio Witnessed
Giovanni Boccaccio was in Florence — or near it — when the Black Death arrived in 1348. The plague, caused by Yersinia pestis, swept through Europe with devastating speed, killing a substantial portion of the continent's population within a few years. Florence, one of the most prosperous cities in medieval Europe, was particularly hard hit. Boccaccio's Introduzione to the Decameron is one of the most vivid literary accounts of the epidemic ever written.
Boccaccio's Description of the Plague
The Decameron's preface does not ease the reader in gently. Boccaccio describes the symptoms — swellings in the groin and armpit, dark blotches on the skin — and then, with equal precision, the social collapse that followed:
- Neighbors refusing to help neighbors
- Parents abandoning sick children
- Bodies piling in streets because there was no one to bury them
- Servants demanding enormous wages to enter infected houses
- Churches unable to conduct proper funerals
This is not merely scene-setting. The collapse of social order in the Introduzione creates the moral and intellectual problem the storytelling frame is designed to address: how do human beings maintain civilization and dignity in the face of catastrophe?
Florence in the 14th Century
To appreciate the magnitude of the loss, it helps to understand what Florence was before the plague. By the early 1300s it was one of the wealthiest cities in Europe, home to banking dynasties, international wool and cloth trade, and a flourishing artistic culture. It was the city of Dante, who died in 1321 — and Boccaccio was one of Dante's greatest early champions.
| Aspect of Florentine Life | Before 1348 | After 1348 |
|---|---|---|
| Population | Estimated 80,000–100,000 | Reduced significantly; estimates vary |
| Banking & Trade | Dominant European finance houses | Multiple major banks collapsed |
| Church authority | Central to public life | Deeply questioned after clergy deaths |
| Artistic culture | Proto-Renaissance emerging | Disrupted but eventually renewed |
The Plague as Literary Frame
Boccaccio's genius was to use the plague not just as a backdrop but as a structural necessity. The ten young aristocrats who retreat to the countryside to tell stories are fleeing the city's death and disorder. Their storytelling — organized, governed by rules, elegant — is explicitly contrasted with the chaos they have left behind.
In this reading, the Decameron is an act of cultural reconstruction. By telling stories of wit, love, trickery, and human resilience, Boccaccio's narrators reassert the value of human intelligence, beauty, and social order against the arbitrary destruction of the plague.
Skepticism Toward the Church
The plague had a profound effect on religious authority. When clergy died at the same rate as laypeople — when prayer offered no protection — the Church's claim to mediate between humanity and God was visibly weakened. This context is crucial for reading the Decameron's many stories that satirize corrupt priests, hypocritical monks, and dishonest friars. Boccaccio wasn't simply being risqué: he was reflecting a genuine crisis of faith in institutions.
Reading the Preface Seriously
Students sometimes skim the Introduzione to get to the stories themselves. This is a mistake. The plague description is one of the most carefully crafted passages in the entire work, and every choice Boccaccio makes in framing the narrative — the gender of the storytellers, the pastoral retreat, the rules of the game — is a deliberate response to what the plague revealed about human society.