Ambrogiuolo and Bernabo’s Wager

The wager between Ambrogiuolo of Piacenza and Bernabo Lomellini turns a dispute about women’s constancy into a perilous test of a particular wife’s honor. Ambrogiuolo’s hidden entry into Ginevra’s bedchamber gives him details with which to claim victory, but those details expose the weakness of Bernabo’s judgment rather than proving that Ginevra betrayed him.

The Dispute and Its Stakes

At an inn in Paris, a group of Italian merchants, gathered after supper, discuss the wives they have left at home. Several speak as though husbands and wives alike are likely to seek pleasure elsewhere during separation. Bernabo alone insists that his wife is exceptionally accomplished, discreet, and chaste, and would remain faithful even if he stayed away for years.

Ambrogiuolo mocks this confidence. He argues that desire and persistent solicitation can overcome a woman just as they can a man, and claims that secrecy allows infidelity to go undiscovered. His argument turns Bernabo’s praise of Ginevra into a challenge: Ambrogiuolo boasts that he could bring her to yield, although he has never met her.

The Terms of the Wager

Bernabo first offers his head against a thousand gold florins if Ambrogiuolo can prove his claim. Ambrogiuolo, unwilling to stake his life, proposes five thousand florins against a thousand of his own. He promises to travel to Genoa and, within three months, return with precious belongings and other signs that Bernabo himself will accept as proof. Bernabo must pledge not to go to Genoa or write to Ginevra during that period.

The other merchants try to prevent the wager, foreseeing that it may bring serious harm. But the two men are too heated by their argument to withdraw. They bind themselves by written agreements, giving Ambrogiuolo a fixed term and a way to reach Ginevra without warning from her husband.

The Manufactured Proof

In Genoa, Ambrogiuolo learns about Ginevra’s household and way of life. He finds a poor woman who frequents the house and, by paying her, persuades her to bring a chest of his own design into Ginevra’s bedchamber. The woman leaves it there in her care, presenting the arrangement as though she needs to go away for a few days.

After nightfall, Ambrogiuolo opens the chest with tools and comes out while Ginevra and a little girl in the room are asleep. He studies the chamber, its paintings, and its furnishings. Approaching the bed, he uncovers Ginevra and discovers a mole beneath her left breast, surrounded by several reddish-golden hairs. He does not approach her sexually; instead, he waits in the room and steals a purse, a night-rail, rings, and girdles from a coffer. He repeats the concealment for two nights, then leaves when the woman comes to retrieve the chest on the third day.

Victory Claimed, Trust Broken

Back in Paris before the deadline, Ambrogiuolo summons the merchants who witnessed the dispute. He describes Ginevra’s chamber and displays the belongings he has taken. Bernabo recognizes the room and the objects, but points out that a servant might have supplied such information or helped obtain the possessions. Ambrogiuolo then names the mole and its distinctive hairs. Bernabo’s reaction confirms that the detail is true; he accepts Ambrogiuolo’s claim and pays him the full amount the next day.

The wager’s apparent proof is a deception: Ambrogiuolo has demonstrated that he entered Ginevra’s room and learned intimate details while she slept, not that she consented to an affair. Yet Bernabo treats the hidden mark as decisive and leaves for Genoa with a deadly intention toward his wife. In this reversal, a contest ostensibly designed to establish Ginevra’s character instead reveals how readily her husband lets secret access masquerade as evidence of betrayal.