Casa del Boccaccio

Casa del Boccaccio in Certaldo preserves the memory of Giovanni Boccaccio's final years in a house extensively reconstructed after wartime destruction. Its literary collections connect the site with the later study and reception of his work.

Why it matters

The house is both a biographical place and a monument shaped by later generations. The Ente Nazionale Giovanni Boccaccio, its library and archive extend the association beyond domestic history into literary scholarship.

What to notice

Pietro Benvenuti's fresco of Boccaccio at his desk belongs to the nineteenth-century commemoration of the writer. Its wall survived the 1944 bombing that damaged most of the house. Editions, images and documents trace the author's reception, while the later garden draws inspiration from the introduction to the third day of the Decameron.

Context and history

Boccaccio's testament of 1374 left his Certaldo house to his brother Iacopo. Carlotta de' Medici Lenzoni acquired the property in 1821, and Benvenuti's fresco followed in 1826. After the air raid of 15 January 1944, reconstruction was completed in 1954. The national institution developed in the 1950s, and later conservation brought another restoration phase in 2005–2007. The garden was inaugurated in 2011.