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"Judicious ladies, there are those who have said, after reading these tales, that I am all together too fond of you, that it is unseemly for me to take so much delight in entertaining and consoling you, and, what is apparently worse, in singing your praises as I do" (Boccaccio, Decameron, Introduction to the Fourth Day, p. 284).

The Decameron

Author: 

Boccaccio

1313 CE – 1375 CE
Dates are approximate

Giovanni Boccaccio, poet, writer, erstwhile banker and lawyer, was the illegitimate son of a prominent Tuscan merchant.  The date of his birth, 1313, is an approximation, and it remains disputed whether he was born in Florence or in the nearby town of Certaldo.  He was finally recognized by his father shortly before 1320, and was given a good Latin education before being sent to Naples to apprentice at the prominent Bardi banking house at the age of 13.

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