SERCAMBI, GIOVANNI. — Apothecary, soldier, distinguished citizen, writer, favored by the Guinigi family, born in Lucca on 18 February 1347, died there on 27 May 1424.
He wrote a Monito for Lazzaro Guinigi, a Cronaca di Lucca covering the years 1164 to 1424, and a Novelliero. He shows good sense and a noble spirit in the first two works; in the other, he is almost continually crude and indecent, despite his protests in defense of virtue and his punishments of those who do evil. The Novelliero gathers stories told by a group of people who fled Lucca during the plague of 1374: 100 stories divided into 10 days with interludes at the end, in a first version; 155 not divided into days but linked by interludes, in a second version. The first concerns only events in Lucca, and the pilgrims do not cross Tuscany; the second extends the events to all of Europe, and the pilgrimage to all of Italy.