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Which Italian author was a major source for Jean de La Fontaine’s Contes?
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Jean de La Fontaine
Jean de La Fontaine, oil painting by François De Troy; in the Bibliothèque Publique et Universitaire, Geneva
A major source for Jean de La Fontaine’s Contes et nouvelles en vers was the 14th-century Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio. While La Fontaine drew from various Italian influences, Boccaccio is cited as the primary source from which he borrowed these tales.1