The Decameron Ninth Day in Perspective

"The Decameron’s Ninth Day is devoted to the ‘rule of freedom,’ in the evocative phrase of this volume’s editors: the ten narrators are to speak about what most pleases them. The result is a special opacity, a resistance to interpretation, which is likely responsible for the critical tendency to marginalize Day Nine. These essays are therefore particularly valuable contributions to the Lectura Boccaccii, a project devoted to reading each story in each day, for they bring to hermeneutical life the sparkling (if at times controversial) novelle of Day Nine."

Teodolinda Barolini, Lorenzo Da Ponte Professor of Italian, Columbia University

" Combining novel interpretations of individual stories with an unprecedented cohesive reading of the　giornata, the essays collected here uncover what unifies the otherwise varied narrative of the day – the fundamental link between freedom and order – and point to a new concept of freedom in Boccaccio's　work – as not opposed to, but rather participating in an orderly recapture of social equilibrium and well-being."

Paola Ureni, Associate Professor of Italian, College of Staten Island and The Graduate Center, CUNY

" The editors have assembled a brigata of scholars who, with their learning and insights, discover new threads in the weave of Boccaccio’s masterpiece during the reign of his enigmatic Queen Emilia."

Timothy Kircher, H. Curt '56 and Patricia S. '57 Hege Professor of History, Guilford College

"The Decameron is approached not as a construction of diegetic levels, in the passing of speech from author to narrators, from narrators to novella’s characters, but as a network of verbal exchanges, a ramified discourse, in which connections and interconnections on the different levels and topics are keys."

Elsa Filosa, Assistant Professor of the Practice in Italian, Vanderbilt University