Italian Renaissance Tales

For over two centuries after Boccaccio’s groundbreaking Decameron, the Italian novella exercised a crucial influence over European prose fiction. With thirty-nine stories by nineteen authors, many translated for the first time, this anthology presents tales from the whole genre and period. Here we meet a rich cast of humble peasants and shrewd craftsmen, frustrated wives, libidinous friars, ill-fated lovers, and vengeful nobles.

These works had a considerable impact in Englis…