Giovanni Bocaccio lived during the period of Black Death and wrote his masterpiece “The Decameron” which is famous around the world up to these days and would not have been created if not the tragedy inspired him. “The Decameron” tells us the story of ten people, traveled away from the city attacked by the Black Death to wait until it is over. In order to time past faster, ten people were telling stories for fourteen days within two days of a break each week. Every person being assigned to be the “king” or a “queen” for a day and tells the stories for the topic they choose all night. In the end of two-week period, group of people ended up hearing a hundred stories.
The most interesting part we will take a closer look in Bocaccio story is the introduction, which describes details and description of The Black Death. Bocaccio wrote: “ I say, then, that the ten years of the beatific incarnation of the Son of God had reached the tale of one thousand three hundred and forty-eight when in the illustrious city of Florence, the fairest of all the cities of Italy, there made its appearance that deadly pestilence, which, whether disseminated by the influence of the celestial bodies, or sent upon us morals by God in His just wrath by way of retribution for our iniquities…”(Bocaccio, 2) That’s how Bocaccio starts his description about the unknown disease that attacked the Florence. The passage gives a clear explanation and image of how people saw and interpret the Black Death during that time and that they did not have the exact answer of what the disease is, how did it start and why.
Surprisingly, Bocaccio choose Italian language to write “The Decameron” while majority of educated high class people used Latin to communicate. Rachel D Rickel in his work “The Black Death and Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron’s Portrayal of Merchant Mentality” states: “Not only does Bocaccio give a contemporary account of the main events of plague, but he also shows the immediate societal consequences as far as values and economics are concerned through his use of language and depictions of different social strata.” (Rickel 2)
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Bocaccio not only wanted the text to be available to the lower class but also by doing this he symbolized the change happened in Europe during the Black Death. The massive mortality, the horror of the apron of death and despair led to unity of the people and dispersal of class differentiation of society. That means that the social class, education or your heritage did not mean anything in front of the face of death. That’s how Bocaccio describes what he saw: “Many died daily or nightly in the public streets; of many others, who died at home, the departure was hardly observed by their neighbors, until the stench of their putrefying bodies carried the tidings; and what with their corpses and the corpses of others who died on every hand the whole place was sepulcher” (Bocaccio 11).
Because of high mortality and fright, there was nobody left to follow government rules and regulations, but those who stayed alive decided ether not to follow them and waged a life of brigandage. The law didn’t exist anymore for people who lived every day as the last one. The Black Death shifted the social inequality structure to more equal and spread one which lead to change of the Europe since then. Rachel D. Rickel concluded Bocaccio’s work: “Boccaccio sets the tone of seriousness for his readers, indicating that they should accept the inescapable societal changes wrought by plague mortality as portrays throughout the text, and prepare themselves for a new-and potentially more egalitarian- world influenced with a mercantile practicality” (37).
Because of the tragedy and extreme changes, the Europe faced during the Black Death, it didn’t have any other choice but rebuilt itself as a new region. Moreover, it led of creation of amazing literature masterpieces that are famous around the world, one of which is “The Decameron” Giovanni Boccaccio.
References
- History.com – Black Death
- Britannica – Black Death
- Live Science – How the Black Death changed the world
- UNHCR – The Black Death, leprosy and its social and political effects on Europe
- National Center for Biotechnology Information – The Black Death: A Paradigm of Emerging Infections
- Smithsonian Magazine – The Journey of Medicine in Managing the Black Death
- The Conversation – How the scars of the Black Death still showed centuries later
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – Plague
