Barbara Newman reviews two Boccaccio books for the LRB (Vol. 47 No. 14 · 14 August 2025; archived): Histories of Italian literature begin with the Tre Corone or Three Crowns: Dante (1265-1321), Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-75) and Francesco Petrarca, or Petrarch (1304-74), Boccaccio’s intimate friend. All three exalted the Italian vernacular but, to the puzzlement of […]
