Meet the Cast
The Brigata
The members of our brigata are too good to be true. All the women are smart, beautiful, witty, charming, and proper. The men are all handsome, witty, intelligent, and articulate. Everyone can dance...
Pampinea
Blossoming QueenBoccaccio tells us that he won't give the real names of the storytellers, because they might be embarrassed by the bawdy nature of some of the tales they either told or heard. Inste...
Dioneo
Dioneo has two possible namesakes: Dione, mother of Aphrodite (goddess of love and beauty), and Dionysus, the god of wine, partying, and reckless abandon. Either way, he's a good-time guy. He's som...
Filostrato
Don't Go Breakin' My HeartFilostrato, like Panfilo, gets his name from the Greek: it's a portmanteau (combo) word meaning "one crushed or shot down by love." It's also the title of Boccaccio's epic...
Filomena
Filomena's name means "lover of song" or "beloved," and we can see the connection to Filostrato. Because Boccaccio's work Il Filostrato, about the ill-fated love of Troilus and Cressida, was dedic...
Fiammetta
Carrying a TorchFiammetta's name in Italian means "little flame," and like most of the other storytellers' names, it's a recycled one. Boccaccio uses the name in Il Filocolo, where Fiammetta's als...
Panfilo
Fool for LovePanfilo's totally different from the more troubled characters like Filostrato, Fiammetta and Elissa. After all, his name's derived from the Greek words for "all-loving" or "full of lov...
Elissa
Unhappy LoveIt seems that Elissa's doomed from the beginning. She's named for Dido, Queen of Carthage ("Elissa" is a variant name for Dido), who was abandoned by her lover Aeneas, and threw herself...
Neifile
"I am so young..."She really is. At 18, Neifile is a stereotypically inexperienced young woman who blushes when she's elected queen (hey, everyone's looking at her). She's also just as sweet and lo...
Lauretta
Mystery WomanLauretta is named in homage to Petrarch, whose beloved Laura was the subject of many beautiful canzoniere. We don't get much more insight into Lauretta's personality, since she speaks...
Emilia
Take a Look at Me...Now!In some ways, Emilia is much like Neifile: both are young and shy and find themselves blushing on their coronation days. But the similarities pretty much end there. Emilia,...