BOCCACCIO
1313 - 1375
Italian Author
Boccaccio was a poet and scholar who revived Hellenistic learning in Florence and he may be considered one of the early humanists.

Giovanni Boccaccio spent most of his life in Florence where he wrote the Decameron, a work of earthy tales. He also wrote a book about the life of Petrarch, whom he met in 1350.

With Petrarch he laid the foundations for the Humanism of the Renaissance and in 1373 he began public readings of Dante's Divine Comedy.

www link :
 From the Medieval Sourcebook: Decameron - Introduction