Stiles History 1 Primary Source Document Analysis Worksheet Primary source: Giovanni Boccaccio - The Decameron _________________________________________________1. What is the main idea Boccaccio is trying to communicate in this excerpt from The Decameron? How does he describe the reactions of the citizens of Florence? In the excerpt of The Decameron, Boccaccio describe citizens attitudes and behavior at the time when the Black Death swept through Florence. Giovanni focuses on the dehumanizing effect the plague had on the society. When citizens showed sign of any symptoms from the …show more content…
No one knew who would die next. It must have had huge impact on every citizen, including Boccaccio; who also lost his dad and stepmother during the epidemi. This might have motivated him to describe the Black Death's impact in Florence; seeing everything fall apart around him. Given that there was no guarantee for himself to live either, he took the freedom to express himself in ways not commonly accepted in the society of this time; giving us a precise description of the The Black death and its impact on society, with no religious motive. _________________________________________________ 3. What was the context in which Boccaccio was writing? Where and when was this document written, and what was going on at that time (beside the plague epidemic)? Boccaccio was probably writing his stories during the plague 1348-1351. He was writing in a villa on the country side, outside Florence, Italy; where he, among with 10 others had escaped the Black Death. During the time of the 14th century western Europe were going through many crisis. Famine, disease, and war affected the lives of European people. A climate change around year 1300 led to the great famine. Agriculture and trade were badly interrupted from cold and wet …show more content…
Can you connect The Decameron to other things you’ve learned about, either in class or elsewhere? How might this source add to our understanding of history? The Decameron can be connected to Greek art and literature. Giovanni Boccaccio was a revolutionary writer in his time, challenging the moral values and beliefs of society and culture; leading Medieval Art into the Renaissance, where a naturalistic and humanistic approach was applied. Boccaccio returned to classical ideals in art, which comes from the Greek models. Specific the medical writing of Hippocrates (ca. 470-400 B.C.E) known as “Hippocratic corpus”, where he sought natural explanations for diseases; is very similar to Boccaccio's approach to the plague he describes in The Decamero. There is no religious motives behind it. In the classical period of Greece it was political conflicts and wars, same as in the period Giovanni wrote his literature. It seem that in the turmoil of conflicts and suffering within society, it creates foundation for new revolutionary ways of thinking and looking at the world around us. Over 1000 years later, European thinkers and writers returned to the Greek arts and philosophical ideas, which we still do apply