Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375), was one of the greatest poets and writers of the Middle Ages (counted, alongside Petrarch and Dante, as one of Italy's Three Crowns'). His many works, including his masterpiece, the Decameron, played a fundamental role in the history of literature and ideas throughout the Renaissance and influenced other famous writers, such as Chaucer, Cervantes and Shakespeare.

Giovanni Boccaccio's fatal disease and cause of death have long remained a mystery. Now, for the first time, a thorough multidisciplinary reassessment has finally been carried out. By combining philological and clinical approaches, the authors have at last offered a solid retrospective diagnosis based upon a study of his correspondence, poetry and iconography, as well as references to his physical decay in contemporary and later sources. In so doing they cast a light not only on Boccaccio's life and death but on living conditions, health and medical knowledge in late Medieval and early Renaissance Europe. The authors also address the enigma of the whereabouts of Boccaccio's remains, which they hope to locate and examine in future.