Judging the judge in Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron

Taking an interdisciplinary approach the paper offers a fresh legal historical understanding of the fifth story of Day Eight in Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron. Detailed analysis of the tale reveals much about the realities of the administration of justice in fourteenth century Florence and contemporary expectations of those exercising judicial authority. In making apparent the expectation that judges would look and act in a certain manner, the paper suggests that Boccaccio’s story can be interpreted as offering an insight into the extent to which public perception of a man’s identity as a judge was dependent upon his appearance and attire.