In a pungent new translation by Virginia Brown, [Boccaccio's] famous women hold up very well indeed...The success of Famous Women suggests that [Renaissance] ladies read their Boccaccio as we are invited to read him: with forbearance for his foibles and delight in the tales he tells with such gusto and skill.
-- Ingrid D. Rowland New York Times Book Review
For good or evil, as wife, mother, or whore, these women have the splendor of clarity; their individual destinies are sharply defined.
-- Tim Parks New York Review of Books
Whatever his intentions--and it may be that feminism was a long-term outgrowth of the humanism that he pioneered--Boccaccio launched a lasting genre that urged women, as well as men, to reach for glory, and gave them examples to live by.
-- David Quint The New Republic