Selections from The Decameron

Here are 16 tales from one of the great works of the Middle Ages. Ten young people have fled for a while the terrible effects of the Black Death in Florence and, in an idyllic setting, tell a series of brilliant stories, by turns humorous, bawdy, tragic, and provocative. This celebration of physical and sexual vitality is Boccaccio’s answer to the sublime other-worldliness of Dante’s Divine Comedy.

A complete list of narrators includes Giovanni Boccaccio, Teresa Gallagher, James Goode, Polly Hayes, Jonathan Keeble, Siri O'Neal, Alison Pettit, Daniel Philpott, Nickie Rainsford and Stephen Thorne.