VII. The amorous triangle

With the splendid backcloth of the Valley of Women the brigade tackles the theme of the hoax, conceived by female subjects for love or to elude punishment. The theme imposed by Dioneo, is partly anticipated by the affirmations with which Licisca, Filomena’s maid, derides Tindaro, in the bickering that opens the previous day. The cunning maid says she knows women well and insists that “delle maritate so io ben quante e quali beffe elle fanno a’ mariti” or that she knows full well what wives get up to at their husbands’ expense (VI, Intr., 10).

The trait d’union with day V is confirmed by the brigade’s ambition. The choice of the Valley of Women, over and above placing the accent on female individuality, exalts the positive connotations that are attributed to the protagonists of day VII, and could also be read as a clin d’oil to the female storytellers’ trip, described at the end of the preceding day[1]. This experience is felt as a hoax played by the women on the men of the brigade, as the words with which Pampinea addresses Dioneo, upon her return from the Valley, are: “oggi vi pure abbiam noi ingannati” today too have we fooled you (VI, Concl., 33). The episode can thus be seen as a foretaste to the hoaxes of day VII.

On the subject of the structural homogeneity of this decury of novellas, which elaborates anew the archetypal scheme of the amorous triangle, Cesare Segre[2] has given an opinion, noting how the narrative action is centred round the three canonical figures of the husband, the wife and the lover. Few are the exceptions in which we see an assistant help in perpetrating the hoax. Such a case is, for example, that of Sismonda, who thanks to the escamotage of having herself substituted by her maid in the bed of her beloved Ruberto, manages to avoid violent punishment from her husband, Arriguccio Berlinghieri, and have him believe she is innocent and entirely faithful (8).

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[1]A. Battistini, Il “triangolo amoroso” della settima giornata, in Introduzione al Decameron, ed. M. Picone-M. Mesirca, Florence 2004, pp. 187-201.

[2]C. Segre, Funzioni, opposizioni e simmetrie nella giornata VII del Decameron, in Id., Le strutture e il tempo, Turin 1974, pp. 117-143

Decameron, VII, 1. Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, ms. 5070, c. 244r. Boccaccio visualizzato: narrare per parole e per immagini fra Medioevo e Rinascimento, a c. di V. Branca, Turin 1999, vol. III, p. 220.