DECAMERON - FAIRYTALES - EROTIC ART Illustration by Louis Chalon for the J. M. Rigg translation of Giovanni Boccaccio's The Decameron, 1903. Seventh Day: Ninth Story. Pyrrhus desporting himself with Lydia, the wife of Nicostratus, while the latter looks on from the pear tree. The couple convince Nicostratus that what he had seen was not real. Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375), probably born in Certaldo, in Val d'Elsa. His Decameron is a collection of one hundred stories, told by young men and women who were avoiding Florence during the Plague of 1348. Many of the tales are erotic in nature, and many were adopted by Boccaccio, rather than being original.