12 selected short stories rewritten in easy and modern Italian for beginners and intermediate learners (A2-B1)
by Laura Tegazzin, Simplicio Stella
Questo libro è stato scelto dal gruppo di lettura
Read one of the great classics of Italian literature
Would you like to discover Boccaccio’s Decameron without struggling with the language of the fourteenth century? These are not stories invented especially for students of Italian: they are twelve original tales by Boccaccio, selected from the Decameron and rewritten in clear, modern Italian. Love, desire, clever tricks, unexpected reversals, hypocrisy and human weakness fill stories that can still be funny, surprising and provocative more than six centuries after they were written. You are not reading summaries: you are reading Boccaccio’s stories in an accessible form.
The short stories
The Decameron begins during the terrible plague that struck Florence in 1348. Ten young people leave the city and take refuge in the countryside, where they spend their days telling stories to one another. Their tales are filled with people from every part of society: merchants and nobles, monks and nuns, husbands and wives, lovers, tricksters and ordinary men and women trying to get what they want.
Boccaccio observes them with humour and remarkable freedom. Some stories are romantic, others comic or ironic; some show intelligence overcoming difficulty, while others expose greed, hypocrisy, jealousy or foolishness. This edition brings together twelve selected stories, offering a varied introduction to the world of the Decameron.
Why read this edition?
Boccaccio’s original Italian is very different from the language spoken and written today and can be difficult even for advanced students. In this edition, the selected stories have been rewritten with simpler sentence structures and modern vocabulary while preserving their plots, characters, humour and essential meaning.
Because each novella is a complete story, you can read the book at your own pace, one tale at a time. It is an opportunity to discover a major work of Italian literature while reading in a form that is easier to understand.
Boccaccio and the Decameron
Giovanni Boccaccio wrote the Decameron in the fourteenth century, and the work became one of the foundations of Italian prose. His novellas offer an extraordinarily lively portrait of medieval society and human behaviour, exploring love, money, religion, sexuality, intelligence and social ambition with a freedom that can still feel surprisingly modern.
The Decameron has been read, translated and adapted throughout the world for centuries. Behind its historical importance, however, remains something much simpler: Boccaccio was a remarkable storyteller.
Read the free preview and see if these stories are right for you.
