Decameron

Decameron (Il Decamerone), written between 1348 and 1353 by Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-75), and first printed in 1521. The first German translation is that of Arigo (1472). Some stories from the Decameron are told in the Ehebüchlein (1472) of Albrecht von Eyb. Boccaccio uses the word novella for his stories, and encloses them in a framing narration which is provided by a group of Florentine men and women who tell 100 novelle in the space of ten days (giornate). This framing device was borrowed by Goethe for his Unterhaltungen deutscher Ausgewanderten (1795), which is the starting-point for the German Novelle.

In drama Lessing, in his Nathan der Weise (1779), uses a story from the Decameron (I.3) in the parable of the ring, and F. Halm's verse play, Griseldis, is a dramatization of Decameron X. 10. The translation made in 1827 by K. Witte (1800-83), and widely used in the 19th c., was superseded by the version of A. Wesselsky (1871-1939), published in 1909.