The Decameron

The next storyteller is Filostrato. A merchant named Rinaldo d’Asti returns to his home in Florence from Bologna. While on the road, he meets a group of seemingly respectable people and travels with them. Unbeknownst to Rinaldo, the men are “brigands of a particularly desperate and disreputable sort” (263). They attack him and steal his possessions. After mocking him for praying to the patron saint of innkeepers, they abandon him in the snow. Rinaldo tries to find shelter in a nearby castle but it is closed. He shelters instead inside “a house that jutted out appreciably from the top of the castle walls” (266). The lady of the house (a widow) overhears his chattering teeth through the walls and welcomes him into the castle, whereupon they satisfy “their longings repeatedly and in full measure” (270). During his stay, the thieves are apprehended. Rinaldo's possessions are returned to him.

The next storyteller is Pampinea. Three sons inherit a fortune from their father but quickly waste it all in “a reckless orgy of spending, heedless of everything except their own pleasure” (272). They are sent to debtors' jail. At the same time, their nephew Alessandro travels back from England to Italy. He travels alongside a religious delegation, which includes a recently-appointed abbot. After speaking to the abbot and being forced to share a bed in an inn, Alessandro discovers that the abbot is actually a woman in disguise. Alessandro and the woman fall in love. They marry in secret and continue their journey to Rome to meet the Pope. There, she reveals that she is secretly the daughter of the King of England. Her father had intended to marry her to the King of Scotland but she did not want to do so. She ran away with “a considerable part of the treasures” (278) belonging to her father and now admits that she is already married to Alessandro. The Pope forgives her and performs an official marriage himself. She pays to free Alessandro's uncles from jail and then takes Alessandro back to England with her, where she repairs her relationship with her royal father.

The next storyteller is Lauretta. A merchant named Landolfo Rufolo loses his fortune due to risky business practices. As he is “determined not to return home in poverty” (283), he becomes a successful pirate but is captured by the authorities in Genoa. After stealing everything onboard his ship, they sink the boat and place him under arrest. A storm wrecks the Genovese boat but Landolfo survives by clinging to a chest filled with gems. He washes ashore on the Greek island of Corfu, where he is nursed back to health by a local woman. He stays in Corfu a while before taking his gems back home, then uses his fortune to retire and repay everyone who helped him get home.

The next storyteller is Fiammetta. Andreuccio is a young horse seller from Perugia. He travels south to Naples with his friends to buy new horses. Though he has 500 gold florins with him, no one in Naples will sell him a horse. Madonna Fiordaliso is a young Neapolitan prostitute. She sees Andreuccio flashing his money around the horse market. By chance, her older friend “lived with Andreuccio’s father over a long period in Sicily” (290). She uses her friend's knowledge about Andreuccio to trick him into visiting her house in a disreputable part of the city. Once in her home, however, she tells him that she is his secret sister and uses her friend's knowledge about his life as evidence. Andreuccio is “more than satisfied” (294) that she is telling the truth. He stays at her house during the night but, when visiting the outside toilet, he falls through a loose plank. Locked outside, covered in a “filthy mess” (296), and with his money left in the house of a prostitute, Andreuccio realizes that he has been duped. When he knocks on the front door, Madonna Fiordaliso claims she does not know him.

Andreuccio is then chased out of the neighborhood. As he makes his way to wash himself in the sea, two thieves take pity on him and offer him a role in their latest robbery. Andreuccio agrees to help the thieves but tries first to wash himself in a well. The bucket is missing from the well so he lowers himself down. When the police pass by, the thieves run away and Andreuccio is stuck down the well. The police go to the well for water and, on pulling up the rope, reveal the desperate Andreuccio. They are so frightened that they run away. Andreuccio finds the thieves and helps them rob an archbishop's tomb. Just as they are about to succeed, Andreuccio suspects that the thieves will betray him and he will be “left empty-handed” (303). He refuses to hand them the archbishop's ring, so they seal him in the tomb. Locked inside, Andreuccio hears people in the nearby church. He calls for help and, when a priest opens the tomb (part of another gang which hopes to rob the archbishop), he frightens everyone. They run away and Andreuccio slips back out of the tomb. He leaves the city having lost his florins but with the expensive ring.

The next storyteller is Emilia. Madame Beritola Caracciolo is the wife of the governor of Sicily, Arrighetto Capece. When her husband is killed by an invading army, however, Beritola must flee Sicily. At this time, she has one young son named Giusfredi and is pregnant with another child. Their ship is blown off course and they are sent to Ponza. She gives birth on the island. Her two sons are later stolen by pirates after she leaves them on the beach so that she can cry in private. Beritola is left “alone and destitute” (308). On the island, she meets a deer which has recently given birth to two offspring. Using her breastmilk, she helps to feed the young roebucks, who feed “as though she were their own mother” (309).

Many months later, the Currado of Malespina visits the island of Ponza with his wife, and the couple finds Beritola in a cave. Beritola reluctantly accepts their invitation to leave Ponza but insists that the deer come with her. While Beritola lives with Currado and his wife, her sons are taken to Genoa and sold as “slaves on household duties” (311). Their names are changed and, after years in Genoa, Beritola's oldest son—now named Giannotto—runs away when he reaches the age of 16. He works at sea and, by chance, eventually comes to work for Currado Malespina. He sees Beritola often but neither recognizes the other.

At this time, Giannotto learns that his father is not dead. Instead, he is “languishing under heavy guard in one of King Charles’s dungeons” (312). He also falls in love with Currado's daughter, Spina. When their affair is discovered, however, Currado imprisons Giannotto and his own daughter. After a year in prison, rumor reaches the jail that the army which originally drove Beritola from her home has been chased out of Italy. Giannotto reveals his true identity in the hope that he will be allowed to leave jail to search for his father. Currado realizes that his friend Beritola is actually Giannotto's mother. He arranges for Spina and Giannotto to marry and reintroduces Giannotto to Beritola. Eventually, the family is reunited and they return to rule over Sicily.

The next storyteller is Panfilo. The Sultan of Babylon is named Beminedab. His daughter Alatiel is betrothed to the King of Algarve for political reasons, so Beminedab sends his daughter to North Africa for the wedding. A “raging tempest” (325) causes the ship to wreck and Alatiel and her female servants wash up on a foreign beach, where they are found by a local nobleman named Pericone da Visalgo. He immediately falls in love with Alatiel, who does not speak the same language and instructs her servants to “never disclose their identity to anyone” (328). Pericone tries to seduce Alatiel by getting her drunk. After they sleep together, Pericone's brother Marato becomes jealous. He murders his brother and kidnaps Alatiel, taking her to Corinth.

While sailing, two Genovese brothers both fall for Alatiel, so they throw Marato overboard and then fight between themselves over who gets Alatiel. One brother kills the other, though he is gravely injured. When the brother takes Alatiel to Corinth, rumors of her beauty spread through the city. The local prince hears about her and takes her from the lowly Genovese brother. He treats Alatiel “as though she were his wife rather than his mistress” (332). Rumors of her beauty continue to spread; the Duke of Athens hears about Alatiel, so he kills the prince by throwing him out of a window while visiting. He immediately finds Alatiel and is so overcome with passion that he rapes her while “still dripping with blood” (335). The duke takes Alatiel away and hides her from his wife.

The murder of the prince causes a war between Corinth and Athens. The duke calls for reinforcements from his allies, who include the Emperor of Constantinople. The emperor sends his son, Constant, who has also heard rumors about Alatiel. Constant is the duke's wife's brother, so he promises the duke's wife that he will take Alatiel away and end her husband's affair. Constant abducts Alatiel, taking her to his home. Seeing that Constant is distracted by Alatiel, a local rival—King Uzbek of the Turks—decides to attack. A war ensues between Constantinople and the Turks until, eventually, everyone who kidnapped Alatiel is dead. She is left alone with Uzbek's servant, Antico. Alatiel falls in love with Antico and they run away together to Rhodes, though Antico soon dies of an illness. In his will, Alatiel is left to a merchant from Cypress.

During this time, Alatiel is spotted by one of her father's servants. The servant is named Antigono and he speaks to Alatiel, learning what happened to her. He goes to her father, who arranges for Alatiel to be returned to Babylon. She tells him a sanitized version of her recent history in which she innocently passed her time “living with the nuns” (348). The Sultan, believing his daughter, sends her to the Algarve once again and Alatiel marries the King. They live happily ever after, once she convinces the king that she is still a virgin.

The next storyteller is Elissa. Walter is the Count of Antwerp, as well as “a noble, intelligent man and a most loyal friend and servant” (350). While the King of France is away on a military campaign, Walter refuses the romantic attention of the wife of the King's son. However, she takes offence at his refusal and accuses him of attempted rape. Worried that people will believe these “wicked lies” (354), Walter flees to England with his young family, after being exiled by the King of France.

After settling his children with foster families and new names in England, Walter then travels to Ireland to find work, performing “the usual tasks of agroom or a servant” (357). Both his son and daughter grow up to marry the children of their respective foster parents. After 18 years away, enduring “all manner of hardships” (363), Walter returns to England and finds that his children are happy. They have found their own success in his absence. Under a different name, Walter and his sons agree to help France with a military campaign. In France, the old King is dead and his son, the new King, has learned the truth about his wife's accusations as she made “a devout confession” (366) on her deathbed. The King pardons Walter and permits him to return to France with his family.

The next storyteller is Filomena. A “number of very prosperous Italian merchants” (370) visit France. While eating dinner in Paris, they discuss Italian women. They admit to one another that they have no idea what their wives do when they are away; the men are not faithful themselves as they chase foreign women when they travel abroad. The only dissenting voice is Bernabò Lomellin, who trusts his wife completely. He makes a bet with a fellow merchant named Ambrogiuolo that Ambrogiuolo cannot tempt Bernabò's wife to be unfaithful. Rather than have sex with Bernabò's wife, Ambrogiuolo steals “a purse and a long cloak from a strong-box, together with some rings and one or two ornamental belts” (376) and uses this as proof of her infidelity, as well as a description of an intimate mole on her breast. Bernabò believes Ambrogiuolo. He is so devastated that he arranges for a servant to kill his wife. Rather than kill her, the servant helps her to escape to the Sultan's court in Alexandria by disguising her as a man, where she becomes a trusted servant to the Sultan. While working for the Sultan, she learns about Ambrogiuolo's trick, as he confesses everything to her while she is still in disguise. She drags Ambrogiuolo and Bernabò in front of the Sultan, exposing the entire deceit. Bernabò forgives his wife and Ambrogiuolo is “tied to a pole in the sun, smeared with honey, and left there until he fell of his own accord” (384).

The final storyteller is Dioneo. An elderly judge in Pisa named Ricciardo marries Bartolomea, a much younger woman. Due to his old age, he cannot satisfy her. Eventually, she is kidnapped by “a notorious pirate” (388) named Paganino da Mare. Ricciardo travels to Monaco to save Bartolomea. During this time, Bartolomea falls in love with Paganino because he can satisfy her sexual desires. When Ricciardo confronts his wife and the pirate, Bartolomea insists that he is “mistaking me for someone else” (391). When she has a minute alone with him, however, she criticizes him for marrying “a fresh and vigorous young woman” (392) when there is such a large age gap between them. Ricciardo returns home alone. He dies a short time later, allowing Paganino to marry Bartolomea.