Boccaccio's Heroines

In this cross disciplinary study of a seminal work of literature and its broader cultural impact, Franklin shows that the stories in Boccaccio's Famous Women were used to promote social ideologies in both Renaissance Tuscany and the dynastic courts of northern Italy. She brings needed clarification to the text by demonstrating that the moral criteria Boccaccio used to judge the lives of legendary women-heroines and miscreants alike-were employed consistently to tackle the challenge that politically powerful women represented for the prevailing social order.