Short stories
Il Novelliere
Not translated into English
Giovanni Sercambi · 1399
Synopsis
A company of Lucchese flees the plague of 1374 and, instead of shutting themselves away like Boccaccio's storytellers, takes to the road and crosses Italy from town to town. Over the course of the journey one hundred and fifty-five tales are told, borrowing their framework from the Decameron and mixing the manners of the Italian towns of the late fourteenth century with stories drawn from tradition.
Context
The collection remained in manuscript and has come down to us only through a late copy of the fifteenth century, kept in Milan in the Trivulziana library. Printing came late: Bartolomeo Gamba published part of it in Venice in 1816, in one hundred and thirteen copies, then Rodolfo Renier in 1889; Giovanni Sinicropi produced the first critical edition in 1972. Its author also wrote the “Croniche” of Lucca.
Who it is for
Short stories, to be read separately, in the tradition of the fourteenth-century Tuscan tale.
Prizes and reception
Having remained in manuscript, the collection was only rediscovered in the nineteenth century, starting from Gamba's partial edition.
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