In this course, we will read Boccaccio’s Decameron, a collection of 100 tales told by young Florentine men and women escaping the plague of 1348, and Machiavelli’s Mandragola, from almost 200 years later. The focus of the class will be on love, marriage, and adultery in the late medieval Italian urban context. The latter part of the course will consider Boccaccio’s influence on Renaissance drama, particularly Machiavelli’s Mandragola, a play about the calculated conquest of another man’s wife, with explicit and implicit parallels to the arts of politics and warfare in Renaissance Italy.

An intermediate knowledge of Italian is expected. Original texts will be supplemented with translations as needed. This course is an opportunity to improve your Italian while becoming familiar with two monumental classics of European literature.

Intended Audience:

Italian Concentrators and Minors or other students with an intermediate preparation in Italian looking for ways to improve their linguistic skills while learning about the most influential works of medieval and early modern Italian culture.

Class Format:

Recitation, two days a week.