Boccaccio is one of the most familiar, well-loved and loveable authors of our tradition. In this book, based on his lectures given at the University of Basel, Mario Lavagetto has two main aims. One is to apply to a fourteenth-century text the most effective instruments of literary theory that were produced in the twentieth century, without ignoring the letter of the text. The other is to see if it is possible to save the Decameron from the sometimes misleading and censorious critical ‘translations’ that have been made over the centuries, from the time of its composition to the present day. The analysis concentrates on some particular novellas, taken as representative of the whole work, and the author frequently re-examines the same novella from different angles and perspectives.