Information
Specialist Notes
The collection is influenced by Boccaccio's lesson in at least two aspects: the fact that it opens with a Prologue and closes with a parliament of author and is made up of 5 parts, each dedicated to a topic and made up of 10 short stories; all the short stories are preceded by an introduction and are closed by a comment from the author. Unlike the Decameron, there is no exceptional opportunity for narration in the Novellino, there is no real frame. The bond that unites the short stories is the author's judgment. The world of Masuccio's short stories is populated by a varied humanity, but the taste for the macabre and a moralistic approach dominate, always combined with a ferocious invective against the corruption of the clergy. It was thus censored and put on the Index, like the Decameron, it reappeared in 1765 in Lucca, then in Naples in 1874 in an edition edited by the patriot Luigi Settembrini and heavily Florentinized.