Biondello

Biondello’s polished appearance and appetite for social tricks make him both Ciacco’s fellow sponger and the target of a retaliation that turns his own dinner deception against him. In Florence, a promise of a fine meal draws Ciacco in; later, a fabricated message leaves Biondello bruised, stripped, and wary of repeating the offense.

Identity and the Dinner Deception

Biondello is introduced as a small, dapper man, unusually particular about his clothes: his coif sits neatly on his head, and his yellow periwig is kept without a hair out of place. His fastidious appearance contrasts with the informal business he shares with Ciacco, a fellow who seeks the company of wealthy people for good food and sometimes dines without being invited. The two move in the same social orbit, where a meal can be both a pleasure and a pretext for a trick.

One morning in Lent, while buying two fine lampreys at the fish market, Biondello encounters Ciacco. He tells him that three still finer lampreys and a sturgeon have been sent to Messer Corso Donati, who wants the extra fish for a dinner with several gentlemen. Ciacco immediately accepts the implied invitation. Biondello’s story makes the meal sound plausible by grounding it in a specific purchase and an abundance of fish; its consequence, however, is that Ciacco expects to be fed and has reason to remember who promised him the occasion.

Ciacco’s Counter-Trick and Its Cost

After the dinner deception, Ciacco arranges a retaliation that makes Biondello the unwitting bearer of a message to Messer Filippo. The message includes the puzzling phrases “rubify me” and “minions,” which Filippo interprets as a deliberate insult. Already angered and unable to catch the huckster who delivered it, he is waiting in a rage when Biondello arrives, having been told by Ciacco that Filippo wishes to see him. Ciacco follows to watch what happens.

Filippo immediately strikes Biondello in the face, seizes him by the hair, tears off his coif, and beats him with his fists. He rolls Biondello in the mire and tears his clothes from his back. Biondello cannot explain himself: he has heard Filippo refer to the strange message but does not understand what it means. The bystanders eventually drag him free and explain why Filippo attacked him, while also rebuking him for having sent the message and for failing to know better than to jest with Filippo. Bruised and in tears, Biondello protests that he never sent wine to Filippo and concludes that Ciacco must have engineered the assault.

When the bruises have healed and Biondello begins going out again, Ciacco meets him and asks how he liked Filippo’s wine. Biondello answers by comparing it with the lampreys at Corso Donati’s dinner, directly joining the punishment to the original bait. Ciacco then makes the terms of their renewed acquaintance plain: if Biondello again arranges a meal for him and fails to deliver it, Ciacco will repay him with another such beating. Biondello recognizes that wishing Ciacco harm would be easier than carrying it out, asks him to make peace, and thereafter takes care not to affront him again.

Narrative Role and Comic Reversal

Biondello’s episode turns on an asymmetry of knowledge: he knows the dinner story he told Ciacco was a lure, but when Ciacco sends him toward Messer Filippo, he does not know that a false message has already made Filippo expect an insult. The audience can therefore see the trap closing before Biondello does. His immaculate coif and carefully arranged periwig, established at his introduction, are undone in public when Filippo tears off his coif, batters him, and rolls him in the mire. The reversal makes the punishment bodily and visible, not merely a clever verbal reply. Lauretta presents this revenge as less barbarous than the scholar’s vengeance recounted the previous day, yet still grievous to its victim; Biondello’s later agreement to leave Ciacco unprovoked closes the episode with a practical truce rather than a reconciliation based on affection.

The Plausibility of the Bait

The dinner story gains its force from being attached to a real errand. Biondello is genuinely buying two lampreys for Messer Vieri de' Cerchj when he tells Ciacco that Messer Corso Donati has received three finer lampreys and a sturgeon for a gathering of gentlemen. The contrast between the fish in hand and the richer meal described makes the invitation sound like timely news rather than an invention, while the shared habit of seeking meals among the wealthy gives Ciacco an immediate reason to believe it. Biondello’s deception thus works through ordinary market talk: a true purchase supplies the setting for a false feast.