casibus

Casibus is a Latin noun form associated with misfortune, accident, or calamity. In classical and medieval Latin, casus denotes an event or circumstance that alters fortune, and casibus (often the ablative plural) appears in phrases such as in casibus, by misfortune, or as a title element in exempla and moral treatises. The term is frequently encountered in discussions of fortune, fate, and the reversals of imperial or personal power.

The best-known use of the term in literature is in the title De casibus virorum illustrium, a ten-book Latin work by Giovanni Boccaccio, usually translated as On the Fall of Famous Men. Composed in the 14th century, the collection presents biographies of eminent men from antiquity to Boccaccio’s era, organized to illustrate how Fortune and mischance can elevate or ruin even the greatest figures. The narratives treat fortune as a capricious force and emphasize moral instruction over chronological coherence, reflecting a humanist interest in exempla—the moral examples that readers might learn from.

Influence and significance: De casibus virorum illustrium helped popularize the exempla literary tradition in medieval and Renaissance Europe and contributed to changing conceptions of history, virtue, and the unpredictability of worldly success. The casibus motif—stories of rise and fall driven by fortune—persisted in later biographical and historical writing and remained a familiar device for exploring the transience of power in Western literature. In Latin scholarship, casibus continues to appear as a literary and rhetorical term describing misfortune or calamitous events in the lives of notable individuals.