A decidedly obscene connotation is reserved to the stories that act as a frame to the days and mark out the confines of the novellas with an evident comical intent. The episode of Masetto da Lamporecchio (1), who pretends he is dumb so as to “lavorare l’orto” work the nuns’ vegetable patch, and, who thanks to this handicap, judged a positive requisite, is so appreciated by the religious ladies as to have to defend himself from their appetites, recalls a parody already used in gatto rosso or red cat by Guglielmo IX d’Aquitania (Farai un vers pos mi sonelh). For the education imparted by the monk Rustico to Alibech, who learns how to “rimettere il diavolo in Inferno” or send back the devil to hell, the precedent would seem to be the elegiac comedy Alda, by William of Blois, which Boccaccio transcribed into the Zibaldone laurenziano XXXIII 31.
The courtly environment acts as a backcloth to disguise of Agilulfo’s horse groom, who, so as to have the queen one night pretends to be the king (2). A change of identity is also the successful expedient used by Ricciardo Minutolo (6), bent upon having the wife of Filippello Sighinolfi. The change from subject to king, in the second novella, would however also seem to evoke the popular theme of the prince and the pauper so common to all forms of literature.
Also inspired to courtly ethic is novella 5, in which a palfrey is what Zima exploits to be able to declare himself to his beloved (5), getting round her miserly husband, pacified by the precious gift. The consultancy of Don Felice to Puccio (4), in which the man achieves celestial beatitude through penitence, whilst Don Felice contents himself with more worldly pleasures together with the man’s wife, like the purgatorial practice inflicted upon the simpleton Ferondo (8), during which the abbot takes advantage of his wife, are all hoaxes at the expense of bigot married couples.
Decameron
