Niccolo Argento

Niccolo Argento is an Italian prince and self-described adventurer whose brief, intense relationship with Daisy Jones becomes a marriage. To Daisy, he first appears to offer an unfamiliar combination of romance and companionship; their life together instead brings drug use, jealousy, and a crisis that prompts her to leave him and take responsibility for her own safety.

Meeting and Marriage

Niccolo meets Daisy at a hotel pool. He challenges her assumption that her beauty will get her what she wants, and she answers yes; he accepts her response, introduces himself, and buys her a drink. They share drugs by the pool before Daisy realizes he does not recognize her, a novelty when most people already know her through “Honeycomb.” He tells her that he travels from place to place, rarely staying long, and describes himself as an adventurer seeking a full life of experiences. Daisy then learns that he is an Italian prince.

Their first night together moves quickly from flirtation to declarations of love. By four in the morning, they are listening to records at full volume in Daisy’s hotel room, while hotel staff ask them to quiet down. Niccolo has LSD, tells Daisy he loves her, and she says she thinks she loves him too. The scene’s speed and intensity establish the attraction, but not the lasting security Daisy hopes to find in it.

Daisy later recalls that she and Niccolo were in the Boboli Gardens in Florence when he proposed. They flew to Rome and married in a ceremony conducted by a family friend of his who was a priest. Daisy claimed to be Catholic, though she was not telling the truth. Her memory of the wedding holds two judgments together: she regrets the marriage, but not the ivory, off-the-shoulder lace dress with its large bell sleeves.

The Marriage and Its Strains

Daisy’s friend Simone Jackson understood why marriage appealed to her: Daisy wanted someone to share her life, care for her, and notice if she failed to come home when expected. Simone wanted that security for her, too, but believed Daisy had chosen the wrong person for the wrong reasons. Daisy’s later account reveals the gap between the stability she sought and the relationship she entered.

The couple’s drug use did not make Niccolo a source of recovery or restraint. Daisy says he was more deeply involved in drugs than she was; she was the one telling him to slow down and turning down heroin. She also noticed how much they were charging to her credit cards. Niccolo was threatened by Billy Dunne and jealous of Daisy’s former partners, people she had feelings for, and even people he thought she might sleep with. Daisy initially classified these warning signs as ordinary newlywed problems.

Her understanding of love was itself part of the difficulty. Daisy believed love should feel like upheaval—like bombs, tears, blood, and heartbreak—and wanted drugs, sex, and angst. She imagined that the gentler kind of love belonged to women such as Camila Dunne, not to someone like herself. In retrospect, she recognized that she had mistaken turmoil for intimacy and did not yet know that love could make a person feel lighter rather than heavier.

Departure and Significance

The marriage ends in a crisis of care. Daisy recalls that Niccolo put her in the shower while her husband believed she might die, but did not even call the concierge. She came to see the distinction that made the moment decisive: she did not think he would kill her, but believed he would let her die. Her realization shifts the immediate question from whether the marriage can be repaired to whether she can protect herself within it.

Daisy thanks Niccolo for watching her, tells him he must be tired, and suggests he take a nap. When he is asleep, she packs her belongings, takes both plane tickets, and goes to the airport. There, she uses a pay phone to call the hotel and leave a message for him in room 907. The escape is deliberate: rather than confront him while still vulnerable, she creates the opportunity to get away.

Niccolo’s role in Daisy’s story is defined by the contrast between the security she hoped marriage would bring and the danger and instability she experienced. His jealousy and deeper drug involvement contribute to that mismatch; his failure to summon help becomes the clearest evidence, for Daisy, that she must leave. The relationship also marks a change in her understanding of love: wanting intensity had led her to accept suffering as proof of attachment, while leaving begins with recognizing that she must take care of herself.