Arriguccio Berlinghieri—Madam Sismonda

Arriguccio Berlinghieri—Madam Sismonda is a marriage defined by unequal expectations, jealousy, and a struggle over who can make an account of events seem true. Arriguccio’s increasingly close surveillance is meant to prevent his wife from meeting Ruberto, but it also drives Madam Sismonda to build a covert system around his habits. When that system is discovered, she does not confront him openly: she arranges a substitute, restores the appearance of an undisturbed household, and turns his own failed attempt at proof against him.

Identity and Marriage

Arriguccio is a very rich merchant who marries Madam Sismonda, a young gentlewoman whose rank, the narrator says, does not match his. The story presents the marriage as part of his foolish hope of ennobling himself through the match. His business keeps him away from home for long periods, and this absence becomes the circumstance in which Madam Sismonda falls in love with Ruberto, a young man who had courted her for a long time. She and Ruberto establish a secret intimacy.

The relationship between husband and wife is therefore shaped from its beginning by social ambition and physical separation, rather than by mutual confidence. Arriguccio’s commercial absences leave Madam Sismonda with opportunities to meet her lover; once he suspects what may be happening, he abandons much of his ordinary activity to watch her. Their marriage shifts from a household arrangement into a system of monitoring and evasion, with each person’s conduct increasingly determined by the other’s expectations.

Jealousy and Surveillance

The story leaves open whether Arriguccio has detected signs of Madam Sismonda’s affair or whether something else has prompted his suspicion. What is certain is the change in his conduct: he becomes, in the narrator’s description, the most jealous man alive. He devotes himself almost entirely to keeping watch over his wife and will not fall asleep until he has felt her get into bed. That nightly check turns the shared bed into a checkpoint and makes ordinary proximity part of his effort to control her movements.

For Madam Sismonda, the consequence is not merely that she must conceal her meetings more carefully. The account says that she suffers greatly because she cannot be with Ruberto. Her response is practical and closely fitted to the routine that constrains her: she observes that Arriguccio takes a long time to fall asleep but then sleeps very deeply. The scheme she devises depends on that particular pattern, so his vigilance becomes both an obstacle and the condition she learns to exploit.

The Thread and Its Discovery

Madam Sismonda arranges for Ruberto to come to the house around midnight. From the window of her bedchamber she hangs a length of thread that reaches nearly to the ground, leading its other end across the room and beneath the bedclothes to her great toe. Ruberto is to tug the thread when he arrives. If Arriguccio is asleep, she will release it and go to let him in; if he is still awake, she will draw it toward herself, warning Ruberto not to wait. The signal sometimes gives them an opportunity to meet and sometimes tells him to leave.

The device works until Arriguccio, asleep beside her, stretches out his foot and feels the thread. He finds it tied to Madam Sismonda’s toe, follows it toward the window, and suspects a trick. Quietly cutting it free, he ties it to his own toe and waits. When Ruberto pulls the thread, it comes loose from Arriguccio’s toe; Ruberto understands that he must wait rather than enter. Arriguccio, meanwhile, gets up, takes his arms, and runs to the door. Ruberto recognizes that the person opening it is not Madam Sismonda and flees. Arriguccio pursues him, but the neighborhood is roused by their disturbance, and Ruberto eventually turns to defend himself. Fearing that he will be recognized, Arriguccio lets him go without learning who he is or harming him.

The Substitution and the Disputed Account

While Arriguccio is away, Madam Sismonda realizes that he has discovered the signal. Knowing he has chased Ruberto, she anticipates what may follow and persuades her maid, who knows about the affair, to take her place in bed. The maid agrees to endure whatever blows Arriguccio may inflict without revealing herself. Madam Sismonda extinguishes the lamp, hides elsewhere in the house, and waits.

Arriguccio returns furious, mistakes the maid for his wife, beats her severely, and cuts off her hair. He then locks the bedroom door from outside and goes to fetch Madam Sismonda’s brothers, intending to hand her over to them. The bruised maid is evidence of what actually happened, but it is evidence Arriguccio misunderstands: he carries the hair he has cut as proof that he punished his wife.

After he leaves, Madam Sismonda comforts the maid, has her secretly cared for, and rewards her with money taken from Arriguccio. She then remakes her own bed, dresses as though she has not yet gone to sleep, and sits sewing on the stairs with a lamp. When Arriguccio returns with her three brothers and their mother, she is visible, composed, and showing no sign of the beating he claims to have inflicted. The brothers, initially angry, begin to doubt his account. Arriguccio himself is confounded by the sight: he remembers beating and cutting the hair of the woman in the bed, but now Madam Sismonda appears unharmed.

Consequences and Narrative Significance

Madam Sismonda does not disclose the whole truth to her family. Instead, she denies that Arriguccio came to bed or beat her, and challenges the accusation by pointing to the absence of any visible injury. His brothers-in-law rebuke him, excuse their response as a drunken man’s behavior, and warn him not to bring them another accusation of this kind. They leave him aghast and uncertain whether the events he remembers really happened or were a dream. He makes no further complaint and leaves his wife in peace.

The ending reverses the balance of power established by Arriguccio’s watchfulness. His attempt to catch and punish Madam Sismonda produces no reliable public proof; the thread, the injured maid, and the severed hair all become parts of a sequence he cannot successfully explain. Her control of the household’s appearances allows her to survive the danger and, as Neifile’s account concludes, to make her own choices thereafter with less fear of her husband. The episode’s comedy rests on a serious asymmetry: Arriguccio can monitor the bed and summon his wife’s relatives, but his authority depends on others believing his version of events. Madam Sismonda defeats that authority by controlling what they see.