The Decameron: Netflix’s raunchy, raucous re-imagining of a medieval plague masterpiece

By Lucyl Harrison, PhD Candidate, School of Humanities, University of Hull

Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron (1353) is a classic plague book. It follows ten noble people quarantining together in a beautiful villa in the Italian countryside. They have fled Florence where in 1348, when the story is set, a deadly Black Death outbreak is raging. While the sick are abandoned and the lower classes suffer, this group feast, play, laugh, sing and dance, entertaining each other with stories – 100 stories, to be exact.

It’s a tale that became painfully familiar in the COVID era – in fact, sales of The Decameron soared by 288%…

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