Named for the 14th-century work by Giovanni Boccaccio, Netflix’s The Decameron tells the story of a group of Italians trying to escape the torments of the bubonic plague. The Decameron on Netflix isn’t the streaming service’s first foray into the Middle Ages, and it veers from what Boccaccio wrote in many ways. However, there are echoes of truth and honesty in The Decameron that attest to the spirit of its namesake. The Decameron does not recount exactly what happened in Boccaccio’s work. Rather, the show adapts the source material to be relevant and eerily familiar to viewers who have their own experiences with life during a pandemic.