The "Author’s Introduction" to The Decameron is both an important historical document of the Black Death in Europe and a significant example of the emergent conventions of plague chronicles and narratives in western culture. For example, Boccaccio proffers the by now familiar conjecture about the source of contagion, a heathen and uncivilized Other (in this case, the infidel East) and the by now common explanation for any medical catastrophe: "God’s righteous anger at our iniquitous way of life."

Most interesting is his protracted description of the display of human behavior during epidemic such as the scapegoating of groups and individuals; the abandonment of family and friends; the personal choices of isolation or dissolution; the cruel indifference to a disproportionately affected underclass. Boccaccio also comments on the deterioration of social institutions such as religion, medicine and public health, law, and customs--all of which prove to no avail in either controlling or comprehending what is happening.