The Decameron is set in 1348, when the Black Death was ravaging the city of Florence, as portrayed by Boccaccio in his famous description of plague's effect on people and places. While chaos reigns in the streets and every friendship or kinship is broken by the plague's fear, seven young gentlewomen gather in the church of Santa Maria Novella to pray and try to find out some way to face the situation. The oldest of the group, Pampinea, suggest to leave the city and thus avoid the sad vision of deaths, the risk of contagion and the lack of authority which eventually had weakened all social and moral controls.