Folco's Murder of Maddalena after Their Love Affair

Folco and Maddalena’s love affair is a central bond in a story of collective flight that turns into jealousy, sexual coercion, murder, and further flight. Their life together begins amid shared plans and stolen wealth, but ends when Folco kills Maddalena for yielding to the duke in order to save Ninetta. The lovers’ choices entangle the other people around them, and the apparent escape to a life of pleasure gives way to scattered households and exile.

The Lovers and the Escape to Crete

Maddalena is one of three sisters whose father is away in Spain on business. Folco, whose father is dead and who has inherited great wealth, falls in love with her; his companion Ughetto falls in love with her sister Bertella. Maddalena’s love affair with Folco is set beside the already secret relationship between Ninetta and Restagnone, a young man of gentle birth but limited means. Restagnone sees the two newcomers’ wealth as a way to secure a shared future for all three couples. He proposes that the young men pool their riches and leave with their beloveds, promising that the sisters and much of their father’s property can be brought along.

The lovers’ escape is a joint undertaking rather than a private elopement by Folco and Maddalena. Ninetta helps persuade her sisters to go, and, on the appointed night, the three sisters take a large quantity of money and jewels from their father’s coffer. They meet the young men aboard a brigantine and sail first to Genoa, then onward to Crete. Before the eighth day, they reach the island and acquire estates near Candia, where they build comfortable houses and live with servants, hounds, hawks, and horses. Folco and Maddalena’s relationship thus takes shape within an arrangement founded on pooled wealth, shared flight, and the hope of lasting pleasure.

A Shared Life Under Strain

The escape initially appears successful: the young people enjoy a life of plenty, with banquets and diversions, and the sisters live with the men they love. But the conditions that make the arrangement possible do not preserve its affections. Restagnone, once able to have Ninetta without hindrance, grows tired of her and begins courting another woman. His change brings jealousy and reproaches into the settlement, and Ninetta’s distress becomes the crisis that draws the duke’s attention to the group.

Maddalena’s place in the household is also bound up with the danger surrounding her sister. The duke has long courted her, but she has not previously consented to please him. When Ninetta is seized and threatened with burning for Restagnone’s death, Folco and Ughetto learn why she has been taken and try to save her. The duke remains determined to carry out justice. Faced with the possibility that Ninetta will be executed, Maddalena sends the duke word that she will submit to his wishes if he returns her sister safely and keeps the transaction secret. Her choice is made as a desperate means of rescue, not as a simple change of allegiance from Folco to the duke.

The Bargain, the Murder, and the Flight

The duke agrees to Maddalena’s terms. To conceal the rescue, he has Folco and Ughetto detained on the pretext of questioning them. He then goes secretly to Maddalena and, as part of the deception, makes a show of putting Ninetta into a sack as though he intends to drown her at sea. Instead, he brings Ninetta to her sister and returns her safely the next morning. Maddalena has secured Ninetta’s release, but the arrangement exposes her to the consequences of the duke’s desire and to Folco’s response when he discovers what happened.

Folco soon learns that Ninetta is alive and hidden in Maddalena’s palace. Already aware of the duke’s passion for Maddalena, he becomes suspicious and demands an explanation. Maddalena tries to give him a story to account for her sister’s presence, but he does not believe her and forces the truth from her after an extended exchange. Overcome by grief and rage, Folco draws his sword and kills her despite her pleas for mercy. The decisive break in their relationship is therefore not a gradual separation: the woman who has risked herself to save her sister is killed by the lover whose shared escape had seemed to promise a life together.

Folco then turns the killing into another deception. He approaches Ninetta with a feigned show of cheerfulness and says they must leave so she will not fall into the duke’s hands again. Believing him and frightened of being recaptured, she goes with him that night without seeking to take leave of Maddalena. They reach the shore, board a vessel, and disappear; the story does not reveal where they go. Maddalena’s death is thus followed by the disappearance of both the murderer and the sister she saved.

Consequences and Significance

The aftermath widens the cost of Folco and Maddalena’s affair beyond the two lovers. The next day, Maddalena is found murdered. The duke, who loved her, seizes Ughetto and Bertella, though they know nothing of the murder or of Folco and Ninetta’s departure. Under pressure, they confess themselves guilty along with Folco. To avoid the death they fear will follow, they bribe their keepers with money hidden for emergencies and escape by night to Rhodes, leaving their property behind. They live there only a short time in poverty and distress.

The story’s ending reverses the promise of its beginning. The lovers had left home with money, jewels, and a plan for a shared life in Crete; their attempt to secure pleasure becomes a chain of betrayal, violent death, concealment, and forced departure. Maddalena’s bargain saves Ninetta from the duke, but Folco’s murder destroys the life the two lovers had built, while his subsequent lie helps drive another couple into exile. The relationship is therefore remembered not as a private romance sealed off from the world, but as one link in a calamity whose effects spread through the entire circle of escapees.