Egano de' Gulluzzi

Egano de' Gulluzzi’s confidence in those closest to him turns a household intrigue into a comedy of mistaken judgment. When his wife, Madam Beatrice, and his favored servant, Lodovico (Anichino), arrange a secret meeting, Egano accepts her account of the servant’s supposed disloyalty and carries out the very deception that enables the lovers to be together. The beating he receives does not expose the truth: it confirms, in his mind, the loyalty he has been made to test.

Identity and Household

Egano is a gentleman whose home includes a large staff of servants and a wife whose beauty has drawn the attention of Lodovico (Anichino). His standing is apparent less through a description of his possessions than through the authority and trust he exercises: he can hire a new servant, place him among his household, and eventually entrust him with the management of his affairs. He is also a man accustomed to being served. Returning from a day of fowling, he eats and goes to bed, leaving his wife and servant together in the house.

His trust in Lodovico is unusually complete. The young man has entered his service after arranging to conceal his identity, and has so pleased Egano that Egano comes to rely on him in both personal and practical matters. When Madam Beatrice asks whom he considers his most loyal and trusted servant, Egano names Lodovico without hesitation. That answer gives the ensuing trick its force: Egano does not merely misjudge a stranger, but mistakes a favored dependent’s betrayal for exceptional fidelity.

Trust Turned into a Trap

Madam Beatrice has already promised Lodovico a private meeting. When Egano returns from fowling, she leaves their chamber door open as arranged. Lodovico enters after midnight, finds her awake, and takes her hand. Rather than let him approach her, however, she holds him fast and wakes her husband. Her apparent accusation supplies Egano with a story that sounds like a discovery: Lodovico, she claims, solicited her while Egano was away, and she agreed to meet him in the garden at the foot of a pine tree.

The accusation is designed to make Egano act for himself. Madam Beatrice proposes that he put on one of her gowns and a veil, go to the garden, and see whether Lodovico will appear. Egano agrees to the test. In the darkness he dresses in his wife’s clothing and waits beneath the pine, persuaded that he is investigating his servant’s conduct. The disguise makes him vulnerable to the very evidence he expects to gather: Lodovico can treat the figure in the garden as the alleged adulterous woman without recognizing the husband hidden beneath the gown and veil.

The Garden and the Beating

Once Egano has left the chamber, Madam Beatrice locks the door from within. She and Lodovico then have the privacy that her husband’s supposed investigation was meant to prevent. After their encounter, she sends Lodovico to the garden with a stout stick and instructs him to act as if he has mistaken Egano for her. He is to denounce the figure beneath the pine for having solicited him and beat him accordingly.

Egano rises to meet Lodovico, expecting to test the servant’s loyalty. Lodovico instead addresses him as a wicked woman and strikes him with the stick. Egano runs, silent, while Lodovico pursues him with further abuse and says he will report the woman to Egano the next morning. The blows and denunciation are real; their apparent meaning is manufactured. To Egano, the servant’s refusal to commit adultery with his wife has become visible proof of fidelity, even as the servant is acting out the deception devised by the wife.

Aftermath and Narrative Irony

Back in the chamber, Egano tells Madam Beatrice that Lodovico has beaten and rebuked the supposed woman. She turns this report into a comparison: Lodovico, she says, has tested her with words and Egano with deeds. Egano accepts the interpretation, concludes that he has the truest wife and most trustworthy servant, and resolves to value and honor Lodovico. The couple can continue their affair while Egano’s misplaced confidence protects them from discovery.

The ending depends on Egano’s complete failure to connect the signs before him. His wife has arranged the meeting, controlled his access to the garden, and supplied the explanation for his beating; the servant he trusts has struck him and pretended to defend him. Yet each apparent warning becomes reassurance because Egano interprets it through the story Madam Beatrice has given him. His authority as husband and master does not let him see more clearly: it makes him the unwitting instrument of the household’s deception.

Characterization and Function

Egano is not presented as a jealous husband who suspects his wife; in this tale, he is credulous precisely where his confidence is strongest. He believes Madam Beatrice’s accusation and willingly tests Lodovico, but the test is never independent: his wife determines what he will see and how he will understand it. His eagerness to verify the servant’s fidelity therefore becomes part of the trick, while his trust in the servant after the beating closes off the possibility of suspicion.

Filomena’s story uses this reversal to make household authority comic. Egano can command servants and entrust them with his affairs, but neither status nor access to the household’s rooms gives him knowledge of what is happening there. The gown, veil, pine tree, and stick each serve the same reversal: Egano goes out as investigator and returns as the deceived subject of the scene. His final confidence is the punchline and the consequence, preserving Madam Beatrice and Lodovico’s opportunity to continue their relationship.