Giovanni Boccaccio was an Italian writer, poet, correspondent of Petrarch, and an important Renaissance humanist. Born in the town of Certaldo, he gained sufficient notoriety to be known simply as "the Certaldese". Boccaccio ranked among the most important figures in the European literary panorama of the fourteenth century. Some scholars define him as the greatest European prose writer of his time, a versatile writer who amalgamated different literary trends and genres, making them converge in original works, thanks to a creative activity exercised under the banner of experimentalism. June 24, 1313 – 1375; died at about 61. Alive at the same time as Marco Polo, William of Ockham, Giotto, Bayezid I, and Ibn Taymiyyah. Wiki link