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Fortune In Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron

Fortune In Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron

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The turn of the wheel of fortune, while it can be influenced, decides the fates of many of the characters in Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron. There is, in fact, not a day within the book’s ten days that goes by without a story being told where fortune plays a role. There are characters whose bad fortune turns good, good turns bad, and turns bad then good again. Even within the stories, fortune is often explicitly called on, showing that its hand is not invisible. In fact, often enough one’s fortune is changed, usually for the better, by using their own cleverness. Thus fortune is a guiding force, though not one that cannot be influenced in at least small ways. From the very first story of the book, a fortune is reversed. Ser Cepperello, a

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