Visualizing Boccaccio
Studies on Illustrations of the Decameron, from Giotto to Pasolini

A 1997 study of visual and verbal interpretations of Boccaccio's The Decameron.

Jill M. Ricketts (Author)

9780521496001, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 28 March 1997

228 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.51 kg

"As rich and multi-faceted as the works of Boccaccio are, it is not surprising that they have been the impetus for hundreds of studies over several centuries." MANUSCRIPTA Vol 42 1998 Historical Review Dec 2001

Originally published in 1997, Visualizing Boccaccio represents an intriguing approach to the interpretation of Boccaccio's classic book of erotic tales, The Decameron. Using literary, critical, psychoanalytic, and film theories, Jill Ricketts offers a feminist critique of these stories, exposing tensions generated by sexual difference that motivate privilege and investigating the possibilities of change in power relations associated with that privilege. In a comparison of selected tales from The Decameron with works by Cimabue and Giotto, fifteenth-century manuscript illumination, a series of paintings by Botticelli, and Pier Paolo Pasolini's cinematic interpretation of the tales, Ricketts also demonstrates how the juxtaposition of verbal and visual renditions permit new interpretation of each of these works.

1. Beastly Gualtieri: another audience for the Tale of Griselda
2. Illuminating metaphors: the tale of Tancredi, Ghismunda and Guiscardo
3. Boccaccio, Botticelli and the tale of Nastagio: the subversion of visuality by painting
4. Imaginative artistry: Giotto, Boccaccio and Pasolini
5. Living pictures: high art pastiche and the cruising gaze in Pasolini's Decameron.

Subject Areas: History of art & design styles: c 1400 to c 1600 [ACN]