Giovanni Boccaccio - Biography

Biography

The exact details of his birth are uncertain. The majority of sources state that he was born either in Florence or in a village near Certaldo where his family was from. Giovanni Villani, a contemporary of Boccaccio and chronicler, states that he was born in Paris as a consequence of an illicit relation but others denounce this as a romanticism by the earliest biographers. He was the son of a Florentine merchant and an unknown woman, and almost certainly born illegitimate.

Read more about this topic:  Giovanni Boccaccio

Famous quotes containing the word biography:

    There never was a good biography of a good novelist. There couldn’t be. He is too many people, if he’s any good.
    F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)

    The death of Irving, which at any other time would have attracted universal attention, having occurred while these things were transpiring, went almost unobserved. I shall have to read of it in the biography of authors.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.
    Rebecca West (1892–1983)