The «Decameron Web», twenty years later: an assessment and new prospectives

Abstract

The ongoing pandemic has brought Boccaccio’s masterpiece back into the limelight on account of its portrayal of the «deadly plague [...] that began somewhere in the Orient» and its descriptions of the isolation suffered by the «genteel company» of narrators whose story provides the frame tale fiction. Because the Decameron Web is vicariously sharing in this period of renewed interest, we take this opportunity to evaluate the project, an experiment that began partly as a digital edition and partly as a workspace intended for reading and pedagogic collaboration. After a brief review of ‘what is living and what is dead’ (i.e., obsolete) in the Decameron Web, we sketch out the contours of its potential relaunch, giving particular attention to two concerns: current plans for restructuring it into an online resource for a wider community of readers, scholars and students; and the implementation of new tools for enhancing the visualization of Boccaccio’s world.