Francesca’s Tomb Test

Francesca’s Tomb Test is a carefully engineered rejection that turns two suitors’ devotion into a perilous nocturnal ordeal. In Pistoia, Francesca de' Lazzari sets Rinuccio Palermini and Alessandro Chiarmontesi tasks involving the tomb of the feared Scannadio, intending not to reward either man but to make their failure an excuse to end their importunity. Their willingness to face the tomb proves their ardor; an accidental substitution and the arrival of the watch prevent either from completing the service, leaving Francesca free to dismiss them both.

The Suitors and Francesca’s Device

Francesca is a young widow who has received private messages and entreaties from two Florentine men living in Pistoia because they have been banished from Florence. Rinuccio and Alessandro are passionately enamoured of her, but each pursues her without knowing that the other is doing the same. Francesca has sometimes listened to them, then tried unsuccessfully to withdraw her encouragement. She now wants a discreet way to end their attentions without granting either the love he seeks.

Her plan exploits a death that has occurred that very day. Scannadio, a man of gentle ancestry but a dreadful reputation, has been buried in a tomb outside the church of the Order of Friars Minor. His monstrous appearance had frightened people who saw him alive; even the bravest men of Pistoia had feared him. Francesca judges that the fresh burial and the dead man’s notoriety will make the tomb an effective test: each lover is to be asked for an act that his fear may cause him to refuse.

Francesca sends her maid first to Alessandro. He is told that Francesca is ready to grant him her love if, at the first sleep of the night, he goes to Scannadio’s tomb, puts on the dead man’s clothes, and lies motionless there until others come to carry him away. He must neither speak nor move, whatever he experiences. The pretended purpose is to spare Francesca the presence of Scannadio’s body when a kinsman brings it to her house; the promised reward is time alone with her afterward.

Rinuccio receives a different assignment. Around midnight, he is to enter the tomb, lift out Scannadio’s body, and carry it quietly to Francesca’s house without speaking about anything he hears or feels. There, he is told, she will explain what she wants done and grant him his pleasure. The two tasks are designed to appear like separate tests, but both make the suitor confront the same grave and the same feared dead man. Francesca expects the danger to repel them and is prepared to refuse any man who declines.

Two Acts of Courage, One Accidental Substitution

The maid reports each message exactly as instructed. Both men answer that, if Francesca wishes it, they will go not merely into a tomb but into hell. When night comes, Alessandro leaves his house in his doublet and sets out to take Scannadio’s place. On the way, however, he imagines that Francesca’s relatives might have devised the plot to kill him, or that an enemy might be using her as a means to harm him. Even if no one intends him injury, he fears that the body may be taken from the tomb for some revenge against the dead man, and that he might be mutilated if he stays silent as instructed.

Love overcomes these fears, and Alessandro reaches the tomb. He opens it, strips Scannadio of his clothes, puts them on, and shuts himself inside in the dead man’s place. Recalling frightening stories about what may happen at night among the dead, he imagines Scannadio rising to butcher him. Still, he conquers his terror and waits without moving.

Near midnight, Rinuccio sets out with his own fears: he could be caught by the watch carrying a corpse and condemned as a sorcerer, or bring disgrace upon his family. He decides that he cannot refuse the first service Francesca has asked of him, even if it costs him his life, and continues to the tomb. Hearing it open, Alessandro remains still. Rinuccio enters, reaches for what he believes is Scannadio, seizes Alessandro by the feet, and drags him out. The two men’s separate assignments have thus collided: the man meant to impersonate the corpse is mistaken for the corpse itself.

The Interrupted Journey and Its Aftermath

Rinuccio hoists Alessandro onto his shoulders and carries him toward Francesca’s house, taking little care with his burden. The night is cloudy and dark; he repeatedly jolts the body against benches along the way. Francesca is watching from a window with her maid, prepared to send both suitors away with an excuse. When Rinuccio is nearly at the door, the watch—lying in wait for an outlaw—hears the noise, puts out a light, and challenges whoever is approaching.

Rinuccio drops his burden and runs. Alessandro rises in haste and flees too, hampered by Scannadio’s long clothes. By the light of the watch’s lantern, Francesca recognizes Rinuccio carrying Alessandro and sees Alessandro dressed as the dead man. She is astonished by their daring, yet laughs at the sight of Alessandro cast down and then running away. The interruption has spared her from having to receive either of them, and she rejoices that the episode has rid her of their importunity.

Neither suitor simply gives up. After the watch leaves, Rinuccio returns to the spot where he dropped Alessandro, hoping to find him and finish the service; when he cannot, he supposes the officers have taken him away and returns home distressed. Alessandro, not knowing what else to do and not recognizing the man who carried him, also makes his way home, chagrined by the mishap. The next morning, Scannadio’s tomb is found open and his body missing, because Alessandro had rolled it to the bottom of the vault. People in Pistoia speculate about what happened, and the simpler folk conclude that devils carried the corpse away.

A Test That Becomes a Pretext

Both men report their actions and misfortunes to Francesca, excuse themselves for not fully carrying out her commands, and claim the promised reward. Francesca pretends not to believe either account. Since neither has done exactly what she required, she tells them that she will consent to nothing for them. The result is not a choice between rival suitors but the ending of both pursuits at once.

The episode’s comedy depends on a distinction between courage and success. Each man goes forward despite imagining death, disgrace, or mutilation; their resolve is real, but their efforts do not earn Francesca’s favor. The crossed instructions turn one man into the other’s burden, while the watch’s chance intervention supplies the interruption Francesca needs. Her test is therefore less a genuine path to intimacy than a strategy for recovering control: whatever the lovers’ intentions, she makes their incomplete performance the final reason to refuse them.