Science Library | Spring 2013
Boccaccio’s Plague and the Black Death (entrance)
To escape the Black Death ravaging Florence, ten young people – seven women and three men – flee to the countryside where, to pass the time, each tells one tale per night for ten days. These one hundred novellas form The Decameron (ca. 1350-3) by Giovanni Boccaccio. The Decameron weaves a kaleidoscopic web of stories of love, vice, deception, wit, and tragedy; of lusty monks, traveling merchants, adulterous wives, lovesick suitors, and jealous lovers. The tales, meant to both instruct and delight, display Giovanni Boccaccio’s passion for a tale well told.
This Library exhibit features reproductions from Boccaccio titles in Special Collections, books from the Bartle Library stacks, and images from our Digital Image Collections relating to the themes of “Love and Sex” illustrated in the Decameron. Visit the exhibition Love and Sex in the Decameron on the second floor of the Bartle Library, Jan 28th through Summer 2013.
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While you spend the semester avoiding the flu, come to the Science Library to read about the Plague! View our Boccaccio’s Plague exhibit to learn about an illness so devastating it was termed “The Black Death.” As a tribute to the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies Conference in April, the Science Library views the plague through Boccaccio’s The Decameron written in the mid-14th century in Italy. When did the plague break out? How far did it spread? What effect did it have on Religion? And what medical techniques were used to treat the stricken? Various texts answer these question and more, and will be on display from January 28 through May 19th.
This exhibition is in support of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies Spring Conference Boccaccio at 700: Medieval Contexts and Global Intertexts, April 26-27, 2013.