Raffaele Morabito's valuable monograph, consisting of eight chapters and an appendix with notes on iconography, recalls themes treated by the author in previous studies and makes a substantial contribution to the study of the novella of Griselda, one of the most studied novellas from Boccaccio's Decameron (10.10). In chapter 1, Morabito focuses on the extraordinary success of the novel and its several rehashes and rewritings in various narrative and theatrical genres, as well as in popular tradition and in European literature translated into other languages. In chapter 2, “Le fonti e il corpus” (The sources and the corpus), recalling different critical interpretations, Morabito argues for the original interweaving of sources in Boccaccio's novel. By reworking elements from learned and popular traditions, Boccaccio builds a new story that has achieved broad circulation as an autonomous text with respect to the larger work to which it belongs.

In chapter 3, “Un ambiguo cominciamento: Boccaccio” (An ambiguous beginning: Boccaccio), the author highlights the ambiguous aspects of the novella, the exemplarity of which is difficult for the modern reader to appreciate. Perplexity arises from the ironic words of the narrator himself, Dioneo, who describes Gualtieri's behavior as “matta bestialità” (“insane beastliness”) and who does not appreciate Griselda's attitude of passive submission. Morabito interprets the paradoxical nature of the story in connection with the contrast between reality and appearances that ser Ciappelletto's novella puts forth in the opening of the Decameron, and does not highlight, from a Christian perspective, the demonstrated virtue of Griselda, however extreme and irrational. Faithfulness and obedience, as Morabito highlights in chapter 4, are precisely the virtues that Petrarch emphasizes in his Latin translation, the decisive link in the European dissemination of Boccaccio's novel. In this fashion, Griselda's attitude of obedience in the eyes of her husband becomes the model of the relationship between the soul and God, and the acceptance of the inscrutable nature of divine action.

Chapters 5 and 6 are devoted to the popularity of Griselda's tale in Italy and Europe, respectively. They are enriched by a very useful and updated repertoire of rewrites and new versions of this novella. In chapter 7, “Griselda a teatro” (Griselda at the theater), the author thoroughly goes through the different versions and dramatic retellings of this tale, focusing on a popular rehash that shows the long-lost symbolic meanings in Boccaccio's text and the intolerable subjugation of women: the verse drama Griseldis, by Friedrich Halm, first performed in Vienna in 1835, introduces the Elizabethan theme of gambling in order to justify Gualtieri's behavior, and it changes the ending of the story, in which the protagonist refuses to return home.

In the concluding chapter, “Le virtù di Griselda” (Griselda's virtues), the author persuasively explains the success of the novella of Griselda on the basis of its moral complexities and the principal virtues of this character: patience, humility, and obedience. The obedience and faithfulness of Griselda, as highlighted in Petrarch's version, were easily adaptable to medieval society, and particularly the fiduciary relationship between the monarch and his subjects. Moreover, if many biblical passages, and their subsequent interpretations, emphasize this virtue, patience and constancy, other virtues of Griselda, are essential attributes of the Renaissance courtier. Foregrounding social, religious, and political realities, Morabito continues with numerous relevant references to the ethical theories of thinkers of diverse periods, passing from the vicious, or intentional, the practice of the virtues explored by Gracián, La Rochefoucauld, and La Bruyère, to obedience to an absolutist political regime proposed by Malebranche, and the social utility of virtues for Enlightenment thinkers.

Morabito's excellent inquiry has the merit of giving a complete picture of the popularity of Griselda's tale and its evolution over time until the early years of the twentieth century, with reference to the concept of virtue.