The Little Hours _verified_ Site

Here is the bait-and-switch that makes The Little Hours brilliant. It is, quite faithfully, an adaptation of Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron , a masterpiece of the early Italian Renaissance.

Baena’s adaptation is surprisingly loyal to the spirit of Boccaccio, even if the language is modernized. In the original text, the gardener posing as a mute is a classic trope of trickery. Baena retains the narrative skeleton but injects it with a distinctively modern neurosis. By having the actors speak in contemporary vernacular—dropping F-bombs and discussing therapy-like grievances—he bridges the gap between the medieval and the modern. The Little Hours