At the end of the 13th century and the beginning of the 14th, a cultural revolution was taking place in Italy. This would sweep away the old medieval order and usher in a new era of creativity and enlightenment. This period, known as the Italian Renaissance, had begun in the city of Florence and would soon spread to other regions of the Italian peninsula such as Venice and Rome. It was a rebirth of Italian culture, brought about by a renewed interest in the classical cultures of ancient Rome and Greece. It brought many of the world's greatest artists to prominence, such as Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo. In addition to the wave of new and highly skilled visual arts, a good amount of literature was also produced, such as Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince and, of course, Giovanni Boccaccio's The Decameron. Boccaccio lived during the early years of the Renaissance and was a student of one of the most influential exponents of the cultural movement, Francesco Petrarca. Petrarch was a poet and scholar who supported the philosophy of humanism, which was at the heart of the Renaissance. Benefiting from the guidance provided by Petrarch, Boccaccio became a prolific writer producing many works, most notably The Decameron, a collection of one hundred stories. While this cultural phenomenon transformed Italy and began to spread to other parts of Europe, the island nation of England remained in the Middle Ages. The old social orders were still in place and art was still primarily focused on religious matters, as opposed to the humanist art of the Renaissance. A member of an aristocratic social order in England was Geoffrey Chaucer. Chaucer was the son of a successful businessman and his father used his colleague...... middle of paper ......olume A. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, 2006.Chaucer, Geoffrey. "The Miller's Tale". Read Chaucer. Trans. Larry D. Benson. Ed. Alfred David, James Simpson. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, 2006. Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Chaucer on the riverbank. Ed. Larry Benson. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987. Brown, Peter, ed. A Companion to Chaucer. Oxford, UK. Blackwell Editori, reprint edition 2002.Boccaccio, Giovanni. The Decameron. New York City, New York. Dell Publishing Co., Inc. fourth edition 1967.Koff, Leonard Michael. Schildgen, Brenda Deen. Ed. The Decameron and the Canterbury Tales: new essays on an old question. Cranbury, New Jersey. Associated University Presses, Inc. 2000. Feinstein, Wiley. The civilization of the Shoah in Italy: poets, artists, saints, anti-Semites. Cranbury, New Jersey. Associated University Presses, Inc. 2003.