thumb|200px|Giovanni Boccaccio
'''Giovanni Boccaccio''' (16 Haziran 1313 - 21 Aralık 1375) İtalyan bir yazar ve şairdi. Rönesans hümanizmi için oldukça önemliydi; eserleri arasında Decameron en fazla tanınanıydı. Döneminde realizmi, hisleri ve zekasıyla kullandığı için önemli olmuştur.

Floransalı bir bankacının; evlilik dışı bir ilişkisinden doğan Boccaccio, önceki bir biyografisinde annesinin Parisli bir kadın olduğu ileri sürülmüştür. Floransa'da büyümüş; ve Dante'den esinlenmiştir. Babasının Napoli'ye taşınması üzerine; O da taşınır ve 6 yıl burada yaşar.  Studium'da hukuk eğitimi aldıktan sonra; bankacılık yerine hukuka yönelir. 1330 yılında Mario ve Giulio isminde iki de evlilik dışı çocuğu olur.

Bu dönemde Filostrato ve Teseida şiir çalışmalarına da başlar ve Fransız edebiyatından esinlenir. Floransa'ya veba salgını sonrasında 1341'de geri döndükten sonra; Ameto'yu yazar. 1344'de tekrar evlilik dışı bir çocuğu Violante doğar. 

1348'deki kara ölüm Floransa'yı da oldukça etkiler ve bu daha sonra Decameron'da kullanılacaktır. Bu salgında nüfusun %75'i ölür.Decameron'u yazmaya 1349 yılında başlayan Boccaccio, 1352'de eserini bitir4mesine rağmen, 1370-1371 yıllarında da eserini tekrar yazar. Yazıtları hala günümüzde mecvuttur.

Giovanni Boccaccio dünya edebiyatının ilk hikayecisi olarak sayılmaktadır. (Decameron ilk hikaye)

Obezite sorunları da yaşayan Boccacio, son yıllarını hastalıkla geçirir ve 21 Aralık 1375'de ölür.

==Dış Bağlantılar==

{{Infobox Writer <!-- for more information see :Template:Infobox Writer/doc -->
 | name        = Giovanni Boccaccio
 | image       = Boccaccio01.jpg|thumb|left|200px
 | imagesize   = 150 px
 | caption     = 
 | pseudonym   = 
 | birthdate  = 1313
 | birthplace = Certaldo
 | deathdate  = 
 | deathplace = Certaldo
 | occupation  = Renaissance humanist
 | nationality = Italian
 | period      = Early Renaissance
}}

'''Giovanni Boccaccio''' (Italian author and poet, a friend and correspondent of Renaissance humanist in his own right and author of a number of notable works including the ''medieval writers and often followed formulaic models for character and plot.

==Biography==
The exact details of his birth are uncertain, a number of sources state that he was born in illegitimate,<ref name="bartlett 43"/> the son of a Florentine merchant and an unknown woman.

===Early life===
Boccaccio grew up in Florence. His father was working for the Dante. In 1326 Boccaccio moved to Naples with the family when his father was appointed to head the Neapolitan branch of his bank. Boccaccio was apprenticed to the bank, but it was a trade for which he had no affinity. He eventually persuaded his father to let him study law at the ''Studium'' in the city.<ref name="bartlett 43"/> For the next six years Boccaccio studied canon law there. Then from there he pursued his interest in scientific and literary studies.<ref>New Standard Encyclopedia 1992. ''Boccaccio, Giovanni.'' Volume B, page 316. Standard Educational Corporation (Chicago).</ref> 

His father introduced him to the Neapolitan nobility and the French-influenced court of Queen Joanna and, eventually, her ''Grand Seneschal''.

It seems Boccaccio enjoyed law no more than banking, but his studies allowed him the opportunity to study widely and make good contacts with fellow scholars. His early influences included Paolo da Perugia (a curator and author of a collection of myths, the ''Collectiones''), the humanists Barbato da Sulmona and Giovanni Barrili, and the theologian Dionigi di Borgo San Sepolcro.

===Children===
In the 1330s Boccaccio became a father of two illegitimate children, Mario and Giulio. In the 1340s Boccaccio became a father again, of another illegitimate child, Violante. He was born in Ravenna, where Boccaccio was a guest of Ostasio I da Polenta from about 1345 through 1346.

===Mature years===
In Naples, Boccaccio began what he considered his true vocation, Chaucer's ''Troilus and Criseyde'' and ''The Knight's Tale'' respectively),  ''Filocolo'', a prose version of an existing French romance, and ''La caccia di Diana'', a poem in octave rhyme listing Neapolitan women. <ref>[http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Italian_Studies/dweb/boccaccio/index.shtml Complete list of Boccaccio works at Decameron]</ref>  The period featured considerable formal innovation, including possibly the introduction of the Sicilian octave to Florence, where it influenced Petrarch. <ref>tuttotempolibero.altervista.org/poesia/trecento/giovanniboccaccio.html - Life and complete works of Boccaccio</ref>

Boccaccio returned to Florence in early 1341, avoiding the plague in that city of 1340, but also missing the visit of Petrarch to Naples in 1341. He had left Naples due to tensions between the Angevin king and Florence.  His father had returned to Florence in 1338, where he had gone bankrupt. The death of his mother occurred shortly afterward. Although dissatisfied with his return to Florence, Boccaccio continued to work, producing ''Comedia delle ninfe fiorentine'' (also known as ''Ameto'') a mix of prose and poems, in 1341, completing the fifty canto allegorical poem ''Amorosa visione'' in 1342, and ''Fiammetta'' <ref>[http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/10006 Boccaccio, Giovanni ''La Fiammetta'' (1342), Project Gutenburg]</ref> in 1343 The pastoral piece ''Ninfale fiesolano'' probably dates from this time also. In 1343 Boccaccio's father re-married, to Bice del Bostichi. His children by his first marriage had all died (except Boccaccio) and he was gladdened by the birth of a son, Iacopo, in 1344.  

In Florence, the overthrow of Walter of Brienne brought about the government of ''popolo minuto''. It diminished the influence of the nobility and the wealthier merchant classes and assisted in the relative decline of Florence. The city was hurt further, in 1348, by the Black Death, later represented in the ''Decameron'', which killed some three-quarters of the city's population. 

From 1347 Boccaccio spent much time in Ravenna, seeking new patronage, and despite his claims, it is not certain whether he was present in plague-ravaged Florence. His stepmother died during the epidemic and his father, as Minister of Supply in the city was closely associated with the government efforts. His father died in 1349 and as head of the family Boccaccio was forced into a more active role.

Boccaccio began work on the ''Italian, the only other substantial work was ''Corbaccio'' (dated to either 1355 or 1365). Boccaccio revised and rewrote the ''Decameron'' in  1370-1371.  This manuscript has survived to the present day.

From 1350 Boccaccio, although less of a scholar, became closely involved with Italian humanism and also with the Florentine government. His first official mission was to Romagna in late 1350. He revisited that city-state twice and also was sent to Brandenburg, Milan, and Avignon. He also pushed for the study of Greek, housing Barlaam of Calabria, and encouraging his tentative translations of works by Homer, Euripides, and Aristotle.

In October 1350 he was delegated to greet Francesco Petrarca as he entered Florence and also to have the great man as a guest at his home during his stay. The meeting between the two was extremely fruitful and they were friends from then on, Boccaccio calling Petrarch his teacher and ''magister''. Petrarch at that time encouraged Boccaccio to study classical Greek and Latin literature. They met again in Padua in 1351, Boccaccio on an official mission to invite Petrarch to take a chair at the university in Florence. Although unsuccessful, the discussions between the two were instrumental in Boccaccio writing the ''Genealogia deorum gentilium''; the first edition was completed in 1360 and this would remain one of the key reference works on classical mythology for over 400 years. The discussions also formalized Boccaccio's poetic ideas. Certain sources also see a conversion of Boccaccio by Petrarch from the open humanist of the ''Decameron'' to a more ascetic style, closer to the dominant fourteenth century ethos. For example, he followed Petrarch (and Dante) in the unsuccessful championing of an archaic and deeply allusive form of Latin poetry. In 1359 following a meeting with Pope Innocent VI and further meetings with Petrarch it is probable that Boccaccio took some kind of religious mantle. There is a persistent, but unsupported, tale that he repudiated his earlier works, including the ''Decameron'', in 1362, as profane.

thumb|300px|Illustration of one of the women featured the 1374 biographies of 106 famous women, ''De Claris Mulieribus'', by Boccaccio - from a German translation of 1541
In 1360 Boccaccio began work on ''De mulieribus claris'', a book offering biographies of one hundred and six famous women, that he completed in 1374. Two centuries later, approximately in 1541, this work was translated into the German language by Heinrich Steinhowel and printed by Johannes Zainer, in Ulm, Germany. The secondary title caption, a subtitle, of the German translation reads ''''. 

Following the failed coup of 1361, a number of Boccaccio's close friends and other acquaintances were executed or exiled in the subsequent purge. Although not directly linked to the conspiracy, it was in this year that Boccaccio left Florence to reside in Certaldo, and became less involved in government affairs. He did not undertake further missions for Florence until 1365, and traveled to Naples and then on to Padua and Venice, where he met up with Petrarch in grand style at Palazzo Molina, Petrarch's residence as well as the place of Petrarch's library. He later then returned to Certaldo. He met Petrarch only once again, in Padua in 1368. Upon hearing of the death of Petrarch (July 19, 1374), Boccaccio wrote a commemorative poem, including it in his collection of lyric poems, the ''Rime''.

As mentioned above, he returned to work for the Florentine government in 1365, undertaking a mission to Pope Urban V. When the papacy returned to Rome from Avignon in 1367, Boccaccio was again sent to Urban, offering congratulations. He also undertook diplomatic missions to Venice and Naples.