Boccaccio was born in 1313, probably in Florence, and spent his life in a variety of ecclesiastical and diplomatic positions, which left him time to be a prolific writer. He greatly admired Dante and Petrarch. With Petrarch, whom he met on numerous occasions, he enganged in an epistolary debate on the merits of publishing in the vernacular (rather than in Latin) in 1364-1365. He composed the Decameron in 1349-1351.