Incorporating the most recent research by scholars in Italy, the UK, Ireland and North America, this collection of essays foregrounds Boccaccio's significance as a pre-eminent scholar and mediator of the classical and vernacular traditions, whose innovative textual practices confirm him as a figure of equal standing to Petrarch and Dante. Situating Boccaccio and his works in their cultural contexts, the Companion introduces a wide range of his texts, paying close attention to his formal innovations, elaborate voicing strategies, and the tensions deriving from his position as a medieval author who places women at the centre of his work. Four chapters are dedicated to different aspects of his masterpiece, the Decameron, while particular attention is paid to the material forms of his works: from his own textual strategies as the shaper of his own and others' literary legacies, to his subsequent editorial history, and translation into other languages and media.

‘… this new book enlightens readers from different disciplines and backgrounds about the works of Boccaccio. It offers a picture of him at the crossroads of media, political commitments, and a literary career, underlines his modernity, and explains why his genius continues to live - even through media he had no opportunity, for reasons of chronology, to exploit …’

Johnny L. Bertolio Source: Renaissance and Reformation

'These essays, all well and clearly written, knowledgeable and thoroughly grounded in up-to-date scholarship, combine a quick review of previous work on their topics with an offering of valuable new insights and suggestions for diverse approaches to Boccaccio’s texts. Both readable by students and useful to scholars, this will long remain a necessary and worthwhile volume for anyone venturing into Boccaccio studies.'

Janet Levarie Smarr Source: Speculum