Giovanni Boccaccio born near Florence

April 1313

The illegitimate son of a Florentine merchant arrived in this world, later claimed fatherhood was Parisian. Raised in Naples among Angevin courtiers and the city's thriving literary culture, he would write the Decameron, a hundred tales told by young Florentines fleeing the plague to a country villa. Prose fiction, racy and humane, found its European charter in Boccaccio.