Cisti the baker

Cisti the baker is a prosperous Florentine whose deft hospitality turns a courteous offer of wine into a lesson in judgment and social respect. By inviting Messer Geri Spina to recognize the worth of a modest host without presuming upon him, and later correcting an indiscreet request through a single pointed reply, Cisti shows how wit can preserve dignity while changing a relationship.

Identity and Introduction

Cisti appears in a story told by Pampinea, who presents him as a townsman of Florence with a lofty spirit whom Fortune has placed in the comparatively humble occupation of baker. The story’s framing questions the mismatch between noble qualities and low social condition: it imagines that Nature and Fortune sometimes conceal their most precious things in mean places, where they may be kept safe and later brought into view. Cisti’s conduct gives that image a practical form. His station does not prevent him from possessing discernment, wealth, good manners, or the capacity to instruct a gentleman.

His material success is substantial. Although he never chooses to leave his trade, Cisti lives splendidly and owns some of the finest white and red wines available in Florence and its neighboring countryside. He continues to ply his craft in person, so his riches do not erase the occupational identity by which others know him. The story makes that contrast visible in his freshly washed white doublet and apron, clothes that suggest a miller even as they frame the performance of a host of exceptional taste.

An Invitation Made Without Presumption

Pope Boniface sends gentlemen to Florence on an embassy concerning important affairs, and Messer Geri Spina receives them into his household. The company passes Cisti’s bakehouse nearly every morning. Seeing them go by in the heat, Cisti decides that it would be courteous to offer them his excellent white wine. Yet he judges that it would not be seemly for a baker to presume to invite Messer Geri and his distinguished guests outright. Instead, he arranges the invitation so that Messer Geri can initiate it himself.

Each morning Cisti places a newly tinned pail of clean water, a small pitcher of wine, and two beakers so bright that they seem silver outside his door. He sits nearby and drinks with such relish that the pleasure of the wine becomes part of the offer. After seeing this on successive mornings, Messer Geri asks whether it is good. Cisti rises and replies that the only way to convey how good it is would be for Messer Geri to taste it. The response is an invitation, but one that leaves the gentleman free to accept without either host or guest having to disregard the difference in their social positions.

Messer Geri smiles and invites the ambassadors to join him in sampling the wine. Cisti brings out a settle from the bakehouse and seats them, then politely but firmly declines the servants’ attempt to wash the beakers. He knows how to pour wine as well as handle a baking peel, he says in effect, and performs the service himself. He washes four clean beakers, serves the company from a little pitcher, and gives the servants no share. The ambassadors find the wine exceptionally good; for as long as their business keeps them in Florence, Messer Geri returns with them to drink at Cisti’s nearly every morning.

The Flagon and the Correction

When the embassy’s business is finished, Messer Geri gives a magnificent banquet and invites many prominent citizens, including Cisti. Cisti declines to attend. Messer Geri then sends a servant to the bakehouse for some of the wine, intending that each guest receive half a beaker with the first course. The servant, who has never been allowed to taste it, arrives carrying a great flagon rather than the small vessel suited to the wine.

Cisti tells him that Messer Geri has not sent him to Cisti. The servant insists that he has, but Cisti repeats his denial. When asked where Messer Geri could have sent him instead, Cisti replies that he has sent him to the Arno. The answer makes the scale of the mistake plain: a great flagon is no proper measure for wine that Cisti has offered and served in small pitchers. The joke also reminds Messer Geri that his earlier enjoyment depended on recognizing the wine as a special vintage, not treating it as ordinary household drink.

Messer Geri understands the rebuke. On seeing the flagon, he acknowledges that Cisti is right and orders the servant to take a suitable flask. Cisti then fills it cheerfully. His correction is effective because it identifies the error without turning the exchange into an open quarrel: the servant’s inappropriate measure is corrected, and Messer Geri is given the chance to show that he has understood the distinction Cisti is making.

Generosity, Friendship, and Narrative Significance

That same day Cisti sends a little cask of the wine to Messer Geri’s house. He explains that the great flagon did not frighten him; rather, he feared that his demonstrations with the little pitchers had failed to make clear that this was not wine for ordinary household use. Since he no longer intends to serve as Messer Geri’s steward of it, he has sent him all that he has, to use as he pleases. The gift does not cancel the earlier correction. It completes it: Cisti first insists that the wine be treated according to its worth, then gives it freely once Messer Geri has shown that he understands.

Messer Geri values the present, thanks Cisti appropriately, and thereafter regards him as a man of great worth and as a friend. The change is both social and personal. Cisti does not acquire standing by abandoning his trade or imitating a gentleman’s rank. Instead, his judgment, courtesy, and generosity lead Messer Geri to recognize the worth already present in him. His wealth matters, but the story’s emphasis falls on how carefully he manages its use: a measured invitation, his own hands at the wine service, a tactful refusal of the oversized flagon, and finally a gift without reservation.

The episode belongs to a sequence of stories that considers the force of well-timed speech. Its surrounding commentary praises Cisti’s reply alongside Madam Oretta’s and distinguishes a pointed saying that bites like a sheep from one that bites like a dog: wit should correct rather than become an affront. Cisti’s answer fits that measure. Its sting is unmistakable, but it leaves room for Messer Geri to recognize the mistake, respond properly, and become Cisti’s friend. Elsewhere in the collection, Guglielmo Borsiere’s brief counsel prompts Ermino de' Grimaldi to reform his notorious avarice; Cisti’s story likewise gives a few words the power to expose a failure of conduct. Here, though, the correction grows out of a sustained exchange of hospitality, and its final proof is not merely that Messer Geri understands the wine’s value, but that he thereafter honors its giver.