Both Boccaccio's [Decameron](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Decameron)  and Chaucer's [Canterbury Tales](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Canterbury_Tales) are 14th-century collections of short tales set within a frame story involving a group of people taking turns to tell stories one at a time. The Decameron dates to the early 1350s, and the Canterbury Tales to the the end of the century, so if there is any connection between them, it is clear which way the inspiration goes.

**Was Chaucer directly inspired by the Decameron?** Either by reading the Decameron himself (Wikipedia claims that he "may have" read it, but with a "citation needed" note), or by meeting Boccaccio (who died in 1375, during Chaucer's adult years) - I don't count if they were both inspired by the same or similar earlier stories.

I realise this question may be impossible to answer definitively, but I'd be interested to see **evidence** one way or the other.