85 pages • 2 hours read
Giovanni BoccaccioThe Decameron
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1353A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Gardens
In The Decameron, gardens function as symbols of wealth and prosperity. The brigata are members of the rich noble class, people whose material wealth and privilege afford them the opportunity to escape from the social collapse brought to Florence by the Black Death. While the world falls apart in the city, they sit in a garden and tell each other stories for their own amusement. The garden becomes a symbolic extension of their privilege, a physical space which indicates how removed they are from the travails of the world beyond the confines of the villa. The garden is a relaxed, bountiful space which exists in stark contrast to the corpse-filled streets of the city. The more time the members of the brigata spend in the garden, the more inured to the travails of the world they become. The garden is an opportunity for them to escape the horrors of the plague, but the opportunity is only given to them because they are wealthy.
The members of the brigata tell stories and many of these stories involve gardens which perform similar symbolic roles. In these stories, gardens are private spaces. These private spaces are removed from public scrutiny, meaning that the people who meet in the gardens can transgress social norms and expectations without the fear of censure. Since these gardens are a privilege of the rich and powerful, they symbolize the extent to which social class and wealth can provide an escape from public scrutiny by equipping characters with a garden in which they are free to transgress social norms without the difficulties faced by others outside this space.
In addition, gardens in The Decameron can be read as a more traditional symbol of growth and renewal. The contrast between the dead bodies in the streets of Florence and the blossoming flowers of the countryside gardens indicate that, while humans may be dying at an unforeseen rate, nature itself is able to endure. The brigata move from one garden to another, then to an even more natural space in the Valley of the Ladies. Each time, they are awestruck by the beauty and growth of the natural world which provides a clear juxtaposition to the death and decay in urban spaces. The gardens (and nature in general) are important symbols of the world beyond the Black Death. While individuals may die, the gardens’s existence suggests that nature will endure.
Clothing
Throughout The Decameron, clothing is used to symbolize social status. The ability to afford and wear certain materials, cut in certain fashions, is a symbolic display of membership in a social class. Characters who are wealthy or members of the nobility are expected to display their status through their clothing, while those who wear ill-fitting or low-quality garments despite a high social status are criticized and punished. Expensive clothes indicate a willing participation in the social class system, becoming elaborate examples of conspicuous consumption in which wealth is displayed at all times to reinforce and ratify social standing. Clothing—and the symbolic meaning which people invest in clothing—represents the enduring nature of the class system in The Decameron’s stratified society, in which people are divided based on their material conditions.
Certain types of clothing are symbolic indications of membership in organizations and institutions. The most obvious example of this is the clergy. Friars, priests, nuns, monks, and cardinals all have specific clothing choices which indicate their membership in a religious order, as well as their rank and ideology. Franciscan friars dress differently to Benedictine friars, while a cardinal dresses differently to a bishop. The organized regime of clothing becomes a symbolic extension of the religious social order. The corrupt clergy is as obsessed with wealth, power, and status as the lay community; their clothing choices do not represent their connection with God, but their similarities and differences from other people. The mode of clothing used by the clergy in The Decameron is a symbolic reminder of their corrupt and secular desire to improve their own standing. The clothing of the clergy is as vapid and as meaningless as the clergy itself, at least in terms of their sincere and authentic relationship with any divine power.
Clothing in The Decameron is a nuanced and complicated system of symbology. The frequency with which people change their clothing is indicative of its symbolic importance. In several stories, disreputable characters disguise themselves as members of the clergy. They are able to pass as religious people because they wear a habit or a robe. Their disreputable character remains, suggesting both that the clothing is merely a symbol rather than containing any innate power and that corruption and disreputable behavior are not alien to the clergy. Similarly, numerous wealthy, noble characters disguise themselves as servants. Throughout this time, however, they remain noble and they can return to nobility by removing their clothing. Corruption and social status are immutable; clothing is a symbol of social identity but the fundamental nature of the characters cannot be changed as easily as they change their outfits.
The Black Death
The Decameron begins in the midst of a devastating plague. As Boccaccio describes, the Black Death is sweeping through Florence. Thousands of people are dead and their corpses line the streets. So many people are dead, in fact, that the institutions and social orders which once existed have begun to disintegrate. As explained in the stories told by the brigata, however, the traditional social institutions such as the clergy were already rotten to the core. These corrupt social institutions are now falling apart. The plague is a symbol of the corruption and decay which had already taken over society. Rather than something new, the Black Death is the physical manifestation of a deeper, more profound corruption at the heart of society.
As much as the Black Death kills, however, it also offers the opportunity for social upheaval. The institutions and traditions of society are so fractured and torn apart by the effects of the plague that the world that is beginning to emerge in its stead is very different. The members of the brigata share stories about people who break rules and conventions in private. Without the scrutiny of social institutions, however, the previously disempowered are empowered by the vacuum caused by the Black Death. Simply by killing a large percentage of the population of Florence, the plague causes social upheaval. Women outnumber the men in the brigata, setting the rules in a symbolic attempt to foreshadow the rising influence of women in a brave new post-plague world. The Black Death becomes a symbol of the capacity for social change, even if that social change is never truly manifested in the book.
