Forty-six lives

This book is a selection of biographical sketches drawn from Boccaccio's Latin work on famous men and women. It presents short lives of figures from the Bible, ancient legend and history, among them rulers, queens and heroines. Each portrait is meant to teach by example, showing how pride, virtue, love or ill luck shaped a life, and how fortune can raise people high and bring them down. It reflects the learned, moralising side of Boccaccio and the medieval and Renaissance habit of reading the past for lessons.