After 1350 Boccaccio became a diplomat entrusted with important public affairs, and a scholar devoted to the new learning. During this period, in which he formed a lasting friendship with Francesco Petrarch, Boccaccio, as Florentine ambassador, visited Rome, Ravenna, Avignon and Brandenburg. Boccaccio and Petrarch, also were two of the most educated people in early Renaissance in the field of archaeology. 

Boccaccio's originality lay in his narrative skill and in the rich poetical sentiments which adorns his borrowed materials. The two great tendencies which run through European literature, the classical and the romantic, work together in the Decameron. 
In 1358 he completed his great work, the Decameron. The work consists of 100 stories told by a group of ten friends during a ten-day stay at a house near Florence, Italy. Boccaccio revised and rewrote the Decameron in 1370-1371. This manuscript has survived to the present day. 

Boccaccio died at the age of sixty-three in Certaldo on 21 December, 1375, where he is buried.

From Decameron

Pray, speak, Love, go speak to my Lord;
Tell him if one who lives in sorrow,
Of one who’ll never see tomorrow-
She trembles, and will utter ne’er a word.

In pity go, Love, and my heart
Take with you to my Master’s hall.
God, how desire holds me in thrall!
And yet this craving dare I not impart
For shame and fear: thus to my death I go
How hard, alas, if he should never know.

He has my heart, Love, but I dare
Not make my passion clear to him.
And yet I might be dear to him
If he could only see my love laid bare
And watch, the pain and anguish in me grow
Till death’s your only blessing to bestow.

Speak to my Lord, Love, be my voice;
Go tell him how I watched him prance,
Great warrior, with bright shield and lance
In festive tourney, and I had no choice:
My heat, Love, craved my Lord, to him did flow.
How bitter ‘tis to die and he not know.

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If I might love possess
With jealousy untainted,
There’d be no woman born 
With bliss like mine acquainted.

If any woman’s heart
To buoyant youth responded,
To manly valour, pluck,
And strength with prowess bonded;

If wisdom earned my grace
And gallantry and verve,
Then let me be the one
These riches to deserve.

But I am not alone
In aiming at perfection,
For other women too
Aspire to his affection.
I tremble with alarm,
For that which makes my joy
May, slipping from my grasp,
My comfort quite destroy.

If I could but perceive
In my beloved’s soul
A loyalty to match
His virtues as a whole….
But with so many ladies
For him to pick and choose
I’m heartsick with mistrust
For fear my love I’ll lose.

So sisters, pray forbear
To catch my loved one’s eye,
For should I come to know of it
You’ll rue your smallest sigh.
I’d sooner lose my radiance
And chill my heart to ice
Than let you steal my gallant
And not exact the price.

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Fain would I turn back to the day
Before you upped and went away!
So great the love, dear lord, so great
The passion that consumes me,
I would to God I knew the road
That led me back to Love’s abode;
My heart, ensnared, its master needs;
Show me the way, my spirit pleads,
Before despair quite dooms me.
Preserve me for a happier fate.

I have no words that may express
The radiance he sheds:
It haunts my eyes, my ears assails,
Upon my every sense prevails.
And lights new fires at every hour
And rings me with obsessive power
That leaves my soul in shreds.
Come save me, Lord, in my distress.

Is it to be, are we again
To find ourselves united?
Am I once more to kiss those eyes
Whose magic all my peace defies?
Will you return? Will it be soon
That I may hope for such a boon?
My love must be requited.
Come, therefore, come, dispel my pain.

Now if the future keeps in store
That I am yet to hold you,
I’ll not again repeat my blunder
And let us two be torn asunder:
I’ll feast my treasure, on your lips
The way the bee a flower sips-
Come let my arms enfold you!
Such hope can make my spirits soar.

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