Bøker i Studies in Italian Culture-serien

Antonfrancesco Grazzini, known as Il Lasca (The Roach), was born and lived in Florence at the height of the Renaissance. He wrote prolifically in most genres, including novelle, burlesque poetry, and comedies. As a playwright he was, in his time, more popular than even Machiavelli.

Through a close scrutiny of Boccaccio's Decameron and the works of his epigones, this book presents a synthesis of the medieval and Renaissance novella and proposes a model against which subsequent works of short fiction can be tested. This analysis furthermore establishes that, with the Decameron, Boccaccio created a new genre in short narrative. It shows that throughout his work, he suggests the literary tenets of a narrative archetype and conceptualizes it in such a functional format that it could be used and imitated for centuries by his numerous followers.