Is Netflix's 'The Decameron' Based on a True Story?

Hold onto your hearts and holy relics, people, because history is about to get a lot more heated. With the success of summer hits like Bridgerton Season 3 and Prime Video’s My Lady Jane, Netflix is treating audiences to their latest dose of period drama with this week’s release of The Decameron. Created by Kathleen Jordan and produced by Orange is the New Black creatorJenji Kohan, the streamer’s latest series promises all the sinful lust and offbeat humor that’s helped to make the genre popular, featuring a cast of debauched characters led by Tony Hale and Sex Education‘s Tanya Reynolds. Yet, while the show’s medieval aesthetic and old-fashioned quirks might suggest otherwise, part of what makes Jordan’s series so unique is the fact that The Decameron is not, in fact, based on a true story.

Set in the Italian countryside in the year 1348, The Decameron follows a group of eccentric Italian nobles who retreat to a countryside villa in order to escape the bubonic plague sweeping the city of Florence. Accompanied by their lavish servants and possessions, these aristocrats soon revel in their opulent excursion, gorging themselves on feasts and gossip to avoid a time of rampant pestilence. As the series’ trailer shows, however, the pleasure of The Decameron‘s aristocratic cast contrasts with the plight of its common subjects, drawing attention to the inequality at the heart of the show’s feudal time period. And while Jordan doesn’t base her story on a strict historical record, the series does take inspiration from an even more captivating source material.

The Decameron (2024)

Release Date

July 25, 2024

Cast

Amar Chadha-Patel , Lelia Farzad , Lou Gala , Karan Gill , Tony Hale , Saoirse-Monica Jackson , Zosia Mamet , Douggie McMeekin

Main Genre

Drama

Seasons

1

Creator(s)

Kathleen Jordan

Netflix’s ‘The Decameron’ Is Loosely Based on a Classic of the Same Name

Taking its name from the same literary classic that inspires its premise, Netflix’s newest period piece is roughly based on The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio, a collection of short stories published by the accomplished Florentine author in the middle of the fourteenth century. Like Jordan’s series, the book revolves around seven aristocratic women and three men who flee to the countryside in order to escape Florence’s disease-rampant streets, with the group eventually resolving to tell each other stories in order to pass the time and frame Boccaccio’s collection. Over the course of ten days — a time frame which gives Boccaccio’s Decameron its title — the runaway nobles riff on a variety of themes and conjure tales as romantic as they are scandalous, with the group ultimately learning to live through the uncertainties of their horrific time through storytelling.

Over time, Boccaccio’s collection has become a staple of literary history due largely to his tales’ unique circumstances and colorful variety. In The Decameron, the group of nobles selects a King or Queen each evening to determine the night’s theme, which only the group’s most sensational member, Dioneo, frequently shuns, and afterward, each member of the party gets to put their own spin on the night’s narrative festivities. What results is a wild web of 100 chronicles ranging from tales of chivalry to deliciously filthy stories, such as Dioneo’s innuendo-filled response to the character Neifile’s theme of fortunes lost and recovered. In a collection filled with corrupted nuns, devilish deceivers, doomed love, and other staples of medieval storytelling, Boccaccio’s balance of moral righteousness with downright depravity gives The Decameron a refreshingly honest, exhilarating tone.

‘The Decameron’ Was Originally Inspired by Relatable Real-World Problems

Aside from how the stories feel as a whole, however, the honesty of Boccaccio’s narrative content acts as more than playful entertainment for The Decameron‘s main characters. Unable to ignore the harsh realities of living in a plague-laden time period, Boccaccio’s characters in The Decameron introduce more realistic elements to their tellings as the collection progresses, deviating from lofty fables of knights and lusty religious symbolism in favor of drawing stark portraits of the group’s social surroundings. Not only is the Black Death mentioned in multiple stories, but later stories are even set in Florence and throughout Tuscany, sometimes even poking fun at corrupt fixtures of the law, like a local judge. Since Boccaccio himself was undoubtedly exposed to the plague’s horrific consequences on his fellow citizens, The Decameron allows the writer to capture the uneasiness and terror of his time period while also creating a sympathetic premise for modern society.

As a collection founded on a group of people struggling to co-exist in the shadow of a looming epidemic, Boccaccio’s The Decameron possesses several insightful parallels to the world today. Being forced to find ways to pass time in a confined quarantine is an unfortunately relatable experience for almost everyone who lived through the shutdowns of the early 2020s, while the constant threat of a potentially fatal virus is all too familiar for those still vulnerable to the worst symptoms of COVID-19. Moreover, the social hierarchy introduced and interrogated throughout The Decameron draws attention to how inequality flourishes during times of crisis. Similarly to how Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, “The Masque of the Red Death,” illustrates how wealth can shield aristocrats from the most brutal aspects of a communal crisis, The Decameron depicts nobles removing themselves from the plight of commoners, showcasing a feudal inequality that seems to have drawn Kathleen Jordan even closer to Boccaccio’s story.

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Netflix’s ‘The Decameron’ Is the Collection’s Most Modern Adaptation Yet

Netflix isn’t the first — or even the most well-known — entity to take inspiration from The Decameron. In the centuries since the book’s popularity first spread from Florence, Boccaccio’s lurid tales have influenced literary works as iconic as Geoffrey Chaucer‘s Canterbury Tales and a play from William Shakespeare,All’s Well That Ends Well. The Decameron also inspired some of England’s romantic poets, such as John Keats, and Netflix isn’t even the first time Boccaccio has shown up in Hollywood. Director Jeff Baena adapted some of the stories from the group’s first day at The Decameron‘s villa for his 2017 comedy, The Little Hours, but Jordan’s take on these classic stories is set to premiere the most expansive and modern adaptation of Boccaccio’s work yet.

By mixing elements of the pre-existing narrative with an increased focus on The Decameron’s social themes, Netflix’s newest series is set to honor its source material and expand The Decameron‘s relevance. Jordan is already embracing the book’s eccentric tone by naming her show’s characters after their book counterparts, including Dioneo and Neifile and countless others from Boccaccio’s masterpiece. Moreover, by highlighting the story’s servant characters in the show’s trailer and examining their role in The Decameron through a more modern lens, Jordan is set to use her long-form format to her advantage, fleshing out the complexities of 1300s inequality with more screentime than Baena had at his disposal. Mike Flanagan’s adaptation of The Fall of the House of Usher has also already demonstrated how Netflix’s format can effectively be utilized for anthology storytelling inside a frame narrative, setting the stage for Jordan to create her own unique take on Boccaccio’s classic hit.

Without relying too much on historical fact or Boccaccio’s vivid fiction, Netflix’s The Decameron is therefore the rare piece of media that blends the best of both. Inspired by Giovanni Boccaccio’s innovative take on privileged living in a time of plague, Jordan’s series builds on a legacy of multi-faceted, layered storytelling that encapsulates multiple genres and comments directly on the social circumstances of what is now a historical era. The tragedies and quarantine of Boccaccio’s characters relate directly to viewers in the modern day, and as the creative at the helm of The Decameron’s latest adaptation, Jordan is set to put her own spin on this Italian classic by combining the social insights of literature with the steamy antics of Bridgerton. As a result, with a comedic premise and hilarious cast, The Decameron seems ready to treat the world to a truly entertaining and timely story.

The Decameron will be available to stream on Netflix on July 25 in the U.S.

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