In a short preface, Boccaccio explains that he wrote The Decameron after a brief but intense romantic relationship taught him about the importance of compassion. Only by talking to his friend and sharing stories did he deal with the intensity of his love for the unnamed woman. Boccaccio wants to help those in a similar situation, especially women. He regrets that women lack many of the freedoms that men enjoy. In the novel, he explains, seven women and three men will tell each other 100 stories, each telling one story a day for ten days. He hopes the stories will offer guidance.

The Decameron is set in Florence, Italy. The city is suffering greatly from the Black Death, a bubonic plague which spread through Europe in the mid-14th century and killed millions of people. Traditional morals have fallen by the wayside and people feel as though the world is ending. As the plague is spreading through the population of Florence, seven young women—none “older than twenty-seven or younger than eighteen” (186)—gather together. The eldest of the friends, Pampinea, suggests that they escape to a villa in the countryside where they will “have a clearer view of the heavens” (189).