Ovid

Boccaccio’s The Decameron is set within the framework of a group of ten men and women who have taken refuge from the plague in a country villa outside Florence for ten days. Throughout these ten days, the group tells hundreds of stories that reveal characteristics of fourteenth century lifestyle. By using ironical story telling, the author takes on a non-judgmental view in revealing the shockingly immoral characteristics in order to allow the reader occasion …

…be morally reprehensible in our society today. Boccaccio would have wanted us to reflect on values present in other cultures, not to judge them, but to apply principles that we drew from the reading to our own lives. Should we be moral relativists or not? I believe that Boccaccio would answer “no” to that question. He would have argued the advantages of evaluating other civilizations, but would not have approved of passing judgment on them.