Aldobrandino's wrongful imprisonment

Aldobrandino Palermini’s wrongful imprisonment turns a mistaken identity into a crisis of justice: accused of murdering Tedaldo Elisei, he faces death for a crime committed by others against a man whom everyone believes to be Tedaldo. The truth is uncovered only when the supposedly dead man returns to Florence in disguise. His intervention saves Aldobrandino, identifies the real killers, and makes the prisoner’s eventual forgiveness part of the resolution rather than an afterthought.

Identity and Background

Aldobrandino is a Florentine husband whose life is entangled with Tedaldo’s return. While Tedaldo has been away, Aldobrandino is accused of killing him and is imprisoned. The accusation rests on a compelling but false appearance: Tedaldo’s brothers have mourned and buried a stranger in his place, and they have brought Aldobrandino before the authorities believing him guilty of their brother’s death.

The case also touches the concealed relationship between Tedaldo and Aldobrandino’s wife, Ermellina. Tedaldo returns to the city secretly, still unrecognized, and learns that Aldobrandino has been condemned for a murder that never occurred. The injustice therefore binds together mistaken identity, a hidden love affair, and the peril faced by a husband who has become the apparent answer to a crime he did not commit.

The Accusation and Imprisonment

Tedaldo first hears of the accusation from a Florentine cordwainer, who explains that Aldobrandino is in prison and that Tedaldo’s brothers have proved their case to the court. The report makes plain how firmly the error has taken hold: Aldobrandino has confessed, the cordwainer says, and judgment has already been recorded. To those around him, the matter seems settled before the real Tedaldo has even revealed himself.

That night, at his lodging, Tedaldo overhears three men speaking with a young woman. They believe Aldobrandino’s conviction protects them, but their conversation exposes the truth: they were the ones who killed Tedaldo, without knowing who he was. They also fear that discovery would put them in the same danger as the prisoner. The revelation gives Tedaldo the means to act, while showing how a false confession and false testimony have redirected the machinery of justice toward an innocent man.

Tedaldo reflects on the chain of errors: his brothers have buried a stranger as though he were their own, Aldobrandino has been brought near death by an untrue accusation, and the actual killers remain at liberty. He condemns the severity of laws and rulers that claim to investigate the truth but can, through cruelty, establish what is false. Aldobrandino’s confinement is thus more than a private misfortune in the story; it exposes the danger of treating an accusation as proof and punishment as justice.

Tedaldo’s Intervention and the Discovery of the Killers

Tedaldo visits Ermellina first, appearing as a pilgrim and promising to end her distress. He then goes to the prison, where Aldobrandino is occupied more by fear of imminent death than by hope of release. Presenting himself as a comforter sent by God, Tedaldo tells him that he can be acquitted before the following night, but asks for a promise in return: Aldobrandino must forgive Tedaldo’s four brothers for having accused him, and receive them again as friends if they seek pardon.

Aldobrandino answers that he has not committed the murder, though he acknowledges that he has committed other sins. He nevertheless agrees to pardon the brothers if he survives. His consent matters to the plot’s resolution: even while unjustly imprisoned, and with vengeance understandably in view, he accepts reconciliation before he knows whether he will be freed.

Tedaldo next approaches a member of the governing body and explains that Aldobrandino is innocent. He offers to produce the murderers before midnight. With the magistrate’s cooperation, the two innkeeper brothers and their servant are arrested while asleep. They first resist questioning but then confess, individually and together, that they killed Tedaldo without recognizing him. They say they did so because Tedaldo had grievously offended one brother’s wife and had tried to force her to do his will while the brothers were away. Their confession establishes who killed the stranger and why; it also supplies the truth that the prosecution’s earlier proceedings had failed to find.

Release, Forgiveness, and Significance

After the confessions, Tedaldo returns to Ermellina with news that Aldobrandino will come home safe. The authorities discharge Aldobrandino the next day, and a few days later the killers are beheaded at the place where they committed the crime. Aldobrandino’s release corrects the immediate injustice, while the punishment of the actual murderers distinguishes the belated discovery of guilt from the earlier, mistaken conviction.

Aldobrandino publicly acknowledges that he owes his deliverance to the pilgrim and welcomes him into his house. Tedaldo then asks him to fulfill his promise to reconcile with the four brothers, who are ashamed of the acquittal and remain armed for fear of Aldobrandino’s resentment. Aldobrandino agrees. Tedaldo arranges a banquet and separately persuades the brothers to ask pardon; they accept the invitation to dine with Aldobrandino and his family. The prison episode therefore ends not only with the innocent man restored to freedom, but with the accusers brought back into a relationship with him.

The episode’s reversals are tightly connected: a stranger’s body is mistaken for Tedaldo’s, Aldobrandino’s apparent confession helps seal the mistaken case, and the returning man everyone believes dead becomes the witness who can undo it. The resolution depends on information revealed outside the court, then carried into it by Tedaldo and acted upon by a magistrate willing to listen. Aldobrandino’s agreement to forgive his accusers gives the ending a further consequence: release restores his liberty, while reconciliation answers the social rupture that the false accusation created.