Alatiel—Pericone da Visalgo

Alatiel and Pericone da Visalgo’s relationship begins as a rescue and becomes a passionate but unequal liaison, shaped by shipwreck, captivity, and the absence of a shared language. Pericone first receives Alatiel as a stranded foreign noblewoman and hopes to make her his wife; when she refuses his advances, he engineers her intoxication at a feast. Their intimacy thereafter takes a different course, as Alatiel begins to invite him to her bed. The relationship is cut short when Pericone’s brother Marato kills him and abducts her, turning a private romance into one passage in Alatiel’s succession of forced transfers.

Rescue and First Impressions

After contrary winds drive Alatiel’s ship onto the shore of Majorca, Pericone happens upon the wreck while returning from one of his properties with servants. He sends a man aboard, and the survivors, unable to understand one another, make their distress known by signs. Pericone has Alatiel and the surviving women brought ashore, retrieves what precious goods can be saved, and takes them to his castle, where they are given food and rest.

Alatiel’s fine clothing and the deference shown her by the other women lead Pericone to recognize that she is a woman of high standing. Though exhausted and disordered by the voyage, she appears beautiful to him. He considers seeking her in marriage if she has no husband; if marriage proves impossible, he hopes to obtain her favors. His intentions therefore begin in a mixture of attraction and possession, before he knows her identity or can speak with her.

Desire, Refusal, and the Feast

Pericone has Alatiel cared for until she recovers. Her beauty intensifies his desire, but the pair cannot communicate verbally: he cannot understand who she is, and she cannot understand him. He tries to win her through gestures of affection, but she rejects his approaches. The more firmly she refuses, the more his desire grows.

Alatiel recognizes that she is among Christians and believes that making herself known would not help her. She fears that she will eventually have to submit to Pericone, whether through force or through love, but resolves to meet her misfortune with dignity. She instructs her three surviving women not to reveal her identity unless they encounter a real prospect of regaining their freedom. She also urges them to preserve their chastity and declares that she means to be enjoyed by no one but her husband. Their promise to obey her underscores the precariousness of their situation: the women are guests only in appearance, dependent on the man who has rescued them.

When his affectionate gestures fail, Pericone turns to artifice, keeping force in reserve. He has noticed that Alatiel enjoys wine, though her law forbids it, and arranges a special supper. He tells her cupbearer to serve her several kinds of wine mixed together. Unwary and drawn by the drink’s pleasantness, Alatiel drinks more than is proper; she becomes merry, forgets her troubles, and dances in the Alexandrian manner while other women dance according to the customs of Majorca.

Intimacy and Reversal

Pericone prolongs the supper with abundant food and wine until late at night. When the other guests have departed, he enters Alatiel’s chamber. Intoxicated, she undresses before him without reserve and goes to bed. Pericone follows, extinguishes the lights, and lies beside her. The encounter follows from a carefully arranged situation in which her restraint has been weakened by drink, rather than from any clearly expressed agreement between them.

The relationship’s subsequent pattern differs from this first encounter. Once Alatiel has experienced sexual intimacy, she no longer waits for Pericone to solicit her. Though she does not know how to make herself understood in words, she invites him by her actions, and the two repeatedly share nights together. The narrative thus presents a change in her conduct without erasing the circumstances under which the liaison began: Pericone’s desire first overcame her resistance through deception, while later Alatiel herself takes the initiative in seeking the pleasure she has discovered.

Marato’s Intervention and the End of the Affair

The liaison ends through the intervention of Marato, Pericone’s twenty-five-year-old brother. He too desires Alatiel and interprets her gestures as evidence that she favors him. In his view, only Pericone’s close watch prevents him from obtaining what he wants. He makes an arrangement with two Genoese merchants whose vessel is bound for Chiarenza, planning to take Alatiel aboard during the night.

Marato and trusted companions secretly enter Pericone’s house. After part of the night has passed, they go to the chamber where Pericone and Alatiel are sleeping. They kill Pericone in his sleep and take Alatiel away, threatening to kill her if she cries out. They also carry off much of Pericone’s most precious property before reaching the shore, where Marato and Alatiel board the vessel. The romance therefore ends not through reconciliation or a freely chosen departure, but through murder and abduction. In the wider course of Alatiel’s story, Pericone is her first lover after the shipwreck; his death marks the start of another forced change of protector and place.