The Renaissance Man
“To have compassion for those who suffer is a human quality which everyone should possess, especially those who have required comfort themselves in the past and have managed to find it in others” (Boccaccio). There is not a definition of a perfect human, and many come in different shapes and sizes. One thing that everyone has in common is the struggle of life. In this specific quote, Giovanni Boccaccio refers to the treatment of women in society, which leads to a lifetime of internal suffering. In times of struggle, the Bubonic Plague showed compassion in those who were comforted by the empathy of others. Giovanni Boccaccio and Petrarch, the leading humanists during the Renaissance, wrote, “...in Italian, not Latin, which elevated the literary status of the vernacular, or common, language” (Wilhelm and Fisher 926). Through writing The Decameron, business opportunities, and his fascination for meeting new people, Giovanni Boccaccio’s writings were greatly influenced by his life experiences.
The Decameron, Giovanni Boccaccio’s greatest work, was written due to the many encounters he had during his lifetime. This well known book, centered around Bubonic Plague, is “a story of seven men and three women who escape the disease by fleeing to a villa outside the city” (“The Black Death” 1348). Throughout their escape, the men and women tell one hundred stories that make up The Decameron. In particular, one story, “Federigo’s Falcon”, resembles the loss that