BOCCACCIO, Giovanni.
Decameron.
“Let us not waste the little time we have in idle lamentation": Shakespeare Head Press limited Edition of Boccaccio's Decameron
London: Shakespeare Head Press, 1934-1935.
$850.00
Out of Stock
Item Number: RRB-148566
* Custom Clamshell Boxes are hand made by the Harcourt Bindery upon request and take approximately 60 days to complete
The Shakespeare Head Press limited edition of Boccaccio’s masterpiece. Quarto, two volumes, bound quarter black morocco with gilt titles to the spine, blue silk moire covered boards and end leaves, frontispieces and vignette titles, illustrated with wood engravings. One of 325 numbered copies, this is number 32. In fine condition. The wood engravings were re-cut by R.J. Beedham and E. Joyce Francis. Housed in a custom morocco edged slipcase.
Giovanni Boccaccio’s Il Decameron, composed between 1348 and 1353 in the shadow of the Black Death, stands as a seminal work in the development of European prose fiction and a pivotal text in the emergence of Renaissance humanism. Structured around a frame narrative in which ten young Florentines—seven women and three men—withdraw from plague-stricken Florence to a secluded villa in the countryside, the work offers one hundred tales that traverse the full spectrum of human experience. In both form and content, Il Decameron marks a decisive departure from the didacticism of medieval literature, privileging instead a literary ethos grounded in observation, wit, and psychological nuance. Boccaccio’s elevation of the vernacular Tuscan dialect helped to standardize Italian as a literary language, aligning his prose with the aspirations of civic humanism and placing him in dialogue with figures such as Dante and Petrarch.
Decameron.
$850.00
Out of Stock
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