It seems sufficiently clear that Shelley is here glancing at a leading incident in Keats's poem of Isabella, or the Pot of Basil, founded upon a story in Boccaccio's Decameron.

He was as familiar with Boccaccio's poetic method, as exemplified in the Teseide, as with his prose, as exemplified at much greater length in the Decameron, for he borrowed from them both.

He had the brilliant and innovating precedent of the Decameron, and yet, while adopting some of its materials, he abandoned its medium.

Only by his instinctive feeling that the technique, which Boccaccio had applied in the Decameron, belonged by right to the realm of poetry, had been learned in the practising of the poetic art, and could arrive at its highest level of achievement only in that medium.

The story of this tragedy is taken from Boccaccio's "Decameron," day 4th, novel first.

I was never tired of my rides in the pine forest: it breathes of the Decameron; it is poetical ground.

* * GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO The Decameron Or Ten Days' Entertainment Giovanni Boccaccio, the father of Italian prose literature, was born in 1313, probably at Certaldo, a small town about twenty miles from Florence, where he was brought up.

It was for her amusement, and for the amusement of the Queen of Naples, that he composed many of the stories in "The Decameron."

He returned to Florence in 1350, after the great plague, which he has described in so vivid a manner in the opening chapter of his great work, had abated; and three years afterwards he published "The Decameron," the title being derived from the Greek words signifying "ten days."

Chaucer's great contemporary Italian storyteller, Boccaccio, conceived the idea of representing some of the nobility of Florence as fleeing from the plague, and telling in their retirement the tales that he used in his Decameron.

It is not certain that Chaucer received from the Decameron his suggestions for the Canterbury Tales, although he was probably in Florence at the same time as Boccaccio.

Chaucer's plan is superior to Boccaccio's; for only the nobility figure as story-tellers in the Decameron, while the Canterbury pilgrims represent all ranks of English life, from the knight to the sailor.

These were "The Falcon," the groundwork of which is to be found in "The Decameron;" "The Cup," a tragedy, rich in action, with an incisive dialogue, borrowed from Plutarch.

It was long before Narcissus was able to fall asleep, for he kept picturing the elder woman with burning cheek and open eyes in a kind of 'listening fear' beneath the coverlet; and the oddity of the thing was so original, so like some conte of a Decameron or Heptameron, with the wickedness left out.

Dear J.P.C.,Many thanks for the "Decameron:" I have not such a gentleman's book in my collection: it was a great treat to me, and I got it just as I was wanting something of the sort.

[Collier's Poetical Decameron, in two volumes, was published in 1820: a series of imaginary conversations on curious and little-known books.

Boccaccio and other novelists are the chief relaters; and their accounts will be received accordingly with the greater or less trust, as the reader considers them probable; but the author of the Decameron personally knew some of his friends and relations, and he intermingles his least favourable reports with expressions of undoubted reverence.

Ansaldo, by the aid of a magician, accomplished the appointed task; but when the lady told him that her husband insisted on her keeping her promise, Ansaldo, not to be outdone in generosity, declined to take advantage of his claim, and from that day forth was the firm and honorable friend of Gilberto.Bocaccio, Decameron, x.5.

The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio.

The Decameron of Olovannl Boccaccio Translated by Richard Aldington; illus.

The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio.

The decameron.

Desert island decameron.

The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio.

DECAMERON, a collection of a hundred tales, conceived of as rehearsed in ten days at a country-house during the plague at Florence; are of a licentious character, but exquisitely told; were written by Boccaccio; published in 1352; the name comes from deka, ten, and hemera, a day.