« Dans l’ordre et le plaisir » : conduites de vie et pratiques narratives dans le Décaméron de Boccace et dans les classes secondaires

Boccaccio’s Decameron, one of the founding works of Italian and European humanist culture, if read from a legal perspective and in the light of the sources of Roman and medieval law, can be interpreted as a story of palingenesis that proceeds from the legal collapse of 14th century society (caused or rather accentuated by the plague) to the constitution of a community with its own order based on natural law. The girls and boys of the “onesta brigata” who meet in the church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence and who decide from there—under the leadership of a woman—to leave the city, strengthen their ties with each other by living “in order and pleasure”, telling each other stories and listening to each other. Explaining the way in which the law is present in the Decameron aims to bring a literary monument to the common experience of the reader, and presents didactic avenues that find their justification in the choices and behaviour of the characters.