About the Author: Franco Sacchetti

Franco Sacchetti (c. 1335 – c. 1400) was an Italian poet and novelist.

He wrote sonnets, canzoni, madrigals, and other poems; his best known works are however his Novelle (short stories). They were originally 300 in number, but today only 258 remain, the rest having been lost. They were not fitted into any framework like that of Boccaccio's Decameron. The best of them are of a humorous character; and their style is more simple and colloquial than Boccaccio's. The story given as a specimen probably exists (under one form or another) in the folk tales of every European nation.