Long celebrated as one of “the Three Crowns” of Florence, Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–75)
experimented widely with the forms of literature. His prolific and innovative writings—which
range beyond the novella, from lyric to epic, from biography to mythography and geography,
from pastoral and romance to invective—became powerful models for authors in Italy and
across the Continent. This collection of essays presents Boccaccio's life and creative output
in its encyclopedic diversity. Exploring a variety of genres, Latin as well as Italian, it provides …

Although Francesco Petrarca (1304–74) is best known today for cementing the sonnet's
place in literary history, he was also a philosopher, historian, orator, and one of the foremost
classical scholars of his age. Petrarch: A Critical Guide to the Complete Works is the only
comprehensive, single-volume source to which anyone—scholar, student, or general reader—
can turn for information on each of Petrarch's works, its place in the poet's oeuvre, and a
critical exposition of its defining features.A sophisticated but accessible handbook that …