Giovanni Boccaccio wrote “The Decameron” in the aftermath of the Black Death pandemic of 1348, which carried away somewhere around one-third of the European population.

The book is set in a monastery, where seven young women and three young men, the Millennials of the day, self-quarantine themselves for ten days to avoid the plague and while away their days (there was no internet in those days, you see) telling each other stories, ten each day, all based around a chosen theme, such as love that ends happily or the tricks that women play on men.