In Giovanni Boccaccio's The Decameron, who tells the hundred tales?

The Decameron opens: "Beginneth here the book called Decameron, otherwise Prince Galeotto, wherein are contained one hundred novels told in ten days by seven ladies and three young men" (Rigg). What does the heading tell the reader about the book's shape?

Boccaccio's Proem begins: "'Tis humane to have compassion on the afflicted" (Rigg), and he offers the hundred tales for the comfort of ladies in love. What is he doing before any tale begins?

In The Decameron, Pampinea says: "Dear ladies mine, often have I heard it said, and you doubtless as well as I, that wrong is done to none by whoso but honestly uses his reason" (Rigg). Who is speaking?

The narrator writes: "that what each says may be apprehended without confusion, I intend to give them names more or less appropriate to the character of each" (Rigg). What does this show about his position?

In The Decameron, the reader learns that Federigo has cooked his last falcon for his guest before Monna Giovanna asks him to give her that same falcon. What does this order of telling do?

On the sixth day of The Decameron, Elissa sets the subject: people who escape danger by a quick answer. Chichibio the cook saves himself that way. What does the day's subject do to his tale?

In The Decameron, before the fourth day's tales, Boccaccio answers his critics in his own voice and tells part of a story about a boy who calls women goslings. What does this break do?

In The Decameron, Dioneo is allowed to tell the last tale of every day and to ignore the subject the ruler has set. What does this arrangement give the book?

On the first and ninth days of The Decameron the tellers may choose any subject, while the other eight days have one set for them. What does this show about the frame?

Each day in The Decameron a new king or queen is crowned and names the subject for the next day. Why does Boccaccio give his outer company this rule?

In The Decameron, the ten tellers speak from a country retreat while plague is still loose in the Florence they left. What can they NOT tell the reader?

In The Decameron, Filomena tells how Melchizedek escapes Saladin's trap by telling him a story about a father and three rings. How many levels of telling does the reader hear?

The last tale of the last day of The Decameron is Dioneo's story of Griselda. What does the frame give that tale simply by putting it there?

The ten tellers of The Decameron first meet in the church of Santa Maria Novella, and at the end they return there and part. What does this closing move give the book?

A book in which characters the reader has already met sit down and tell stories to one another is built as which of these?

In The Decameron, the company often laughs, argues, or draws a lesson from a tale once it ends. What does the reader gain from these moments between the tales?

Closing The Decameron, Boccaccio argues that tales are like wine or fire, useful or harmful according to who takes them. Where in the book does this argument come from?

In The Decameron the company rests from storytelling on Fridays and Saturdays, so their stay in the country runs longer than ten days.

Every one of the hundred tales in The Decameron is spoken aloud by a member of the company. What does that fact mean for the reader?