This article contains summaries and commentaries of the 100 stories within Giovanni Boccaccio's The Decameron.
Each story of the Decameron begins with a short heading explaining the plot of the story. The 1903 J. M. Rigg translation headings are used in many of these summaries. Commentary on the tale itself follows.
Before beginning the story-telling sessions, the ten young Florentines, seven women and three men, referred to as the Brigata,[1] gather at the Basilica di Santa Maria Novella and together decide to escape the Black Death by leaving the city to stay in a villa in the countryside. Each agrees to tell one story each day for ten days. The stories are told in the garden of the first villa that the company stays at, which is located a few miles outside the city.
