Famous Women

“In a pungent new translation by Virginia Brown, [Boccaccio’s] famous women hold up very well indeed… The success of Famous Women suggests that [Renaissance] ladies read their Boccaccio as we are invited to read him: with forbearance for his foibles and delight in the tales he tells with such gusto and skill.”—Ingrid D. Rowland, The New York Times Book Review

“For good or evil, as wife, mother, or whore, these women have the splendor of clarity; their individual destinies are sharply defined.”—Tim Parks, The New York Review of Books

“Whatever his intentions—and it may be that feminism was a long-term outgrowth of the humanism that he pioneered—Boccaccio launched a lasting genre that urged women, as well as men, to reach for glory, and gave them examples to live by.”—David Quint, The New Republic