Contamination, contagion and the animal function in Boccaccio's Decameron

This paper explores the element of contamination as contagion in Boccaccio's Decameron, presenting the hypothesis that the text establishes a conceptual connection between contagion and the contact between human and non human animals. The metaphorical quality of animal references in the Decameron, then, acquires a different dimension. Non human animals aren't just partners and effective qualifiers in human life: they become catalysts for a potential reflection on contamination and death, on alteration and illness, a reflection that, I would argue, will be part of scientific advancements to come, and will ultimately find its greatest interpreter in the sixteenth century physician Girolamo Fracastoro.