“A well-informed, learned, scholarly, comprehensive, ambitious, imaginative, justly critical, authoritative, accessible biography of one of the titans of Italian literature, and the founding father of modern Italian prose writing.”

Robert Black, author of 'Machiavelli: From Radical to Reactionary'

“Santagata’s Boccaccio presents us with a portrait of the great Florentine writer that is rich in historical detail, exquisitely sensitive to the particular mix of literary tradition and innovation that Boccaccio represented, and brilliantly evocative of the fourteenth-century Florentine environment out of which Boccaccio emerged. Attending to Boccaccio’s work in both Latin and the Tuscan vernacular, Santagata has produced a magnum opus that will be the standard biography for years to come.”

Christopher S. Celenza, author of 'Petrarch: Everywhere a Wanderer'

“In this engaging biography, a master scholar brings Giovanni Boccaccio to life through sensitive readings of virtually all his writings and an impressive command of both secondary and archival sources. This richly informative study offers a completely new portrait of Boccaccio that will breathe new life into our understanding of Italian Renaissance literature.”

Guido Ruggiero, author of 'Love and Sex in the Time of Plague: A Decameron Renaissance'