The Decameron

Lauren suggested we get together each week via Zoom, to read stories from the Decameron - a wonderful choice, both because of its parallel to the COVID-19 pandemic (it's an account of stories told by ten young noblewomen and men during the plague of 1348 in Italy and Europe) and because these young people escape from a place we know and love: Firenze!

The ten young Fiorentini each tell a story a day for ten days, making 100 total stories - a decameron!  We have been reading a couple stories per week and recording our observations in a Google Drive document - here we will just record our progress toward all 100 stories, but it's worth saying that the stories are generally excellent - entertaining and thought-provoking, though including a few that are strange or  forgettable. Overall, we are really enjoying them!

The Enchantress of Florence

This is a lush book, with bravura writing, that weaves a magical and captivating tale together with historical events and figures.  A charismatic and beautiful young man arrives in Mughal India from Florence with an outlandish tale of presumed relationship to Akbar, the all powerful ruler. Is his implausible story true, entitling him to become part of the ruling family, or is he a likable and immensely gifted con man, who should perhaps be put to death?

When the sword of the tongue is drawn, the emperor thought, it inflicts deeper cuts than the sharpest sword.

The power of artistic creation is a central to the book, in small ways:

the court's musical genius Tansen had gone so far as to create a raag in the two courtesan's honor, the raag deepak, so called because when he played it for the first time in the House of Skanda the sorcery of the melody made unlit lamps burst into flame.

And in major themes: The emperor, through the power of his imagination alone, creates one living, perfect wife, visible to him and a few others, who is eventually replaced by Qara KÖz, Lady Black Eyes, who had died more than a century previously.  

The book is a pleasure to read, in its historical range, bursts of humor, mordant views of  man, and celebration of artists.