Ginevra Exposes Ambrogiuolo before the Sultan

Ginevra Exposes Ambrogiuolo before the Sultan is the decisive recognition scene in which a woman presumed murdered reappears under a male identity and publicly dismantles the lie that ruined her. By making Ambrogiuolo repeat his boast before Bernabo Lomellini and the Sultan, Ginevra transforms concealed evidence into a judgment: the supposed proof of adultery is exposed as theft and fabrication, while the husband who trusted it must answer for ordering her death.

Background and stakes

The confrontation grows out of a wager made among Italian merchants at an inn in Paris. The men argued that wives left at home would not remain faithful while their husbands were away. Bernabo Lomellini alone defended his wife, Ginevra, praising her abilities, good sense, and chastity, and insisting that even a long absence would not lead her into infidelity. Ambrogiuolo of Piacenza mocked this confidence and wagered five thousand florins that he could make her yield.

Ambrogiuolo never won Ginevra’s affection or entered her bed. Instead, he arranged to be carried into her chamber concealed in a chest. Once inside, he observed the room and its furnishings, then found Ginevra asleep beside a little girl. He discovered a distinctive mole beneath her left breast, surrounded by reddish-gold hairs, and stole a purse, a night-rail, rings, and girdles from a coffer. At the merchants’ gathering he presented the stolen possessions and his intimate description as proof that Ginevra had slept with him. Bernabo recognized the objects and believed the identifying detail. Overcome by anger and shame, he ordered a servant to kill his wife; the servant later reported that wolves had devoured her. The report was false: Ginevra had escaped and survived.

Sicurano at Acre

Ginevra cut her hair, altered her clothes, and travelled as a man under the name Sicurano da Finale. She entered the service of a Catalan gentleman and, through capable service, gained his favor. When he presented peregrine falcons to the Sultan in Alexandria, the Sultan asked to have Sicurano in his own service. Sicurano’s conduct won the Sultan’s trust, and knowledge of the local language made him useful in public office.

When the annual gathering of Christian and Saracen merchants took place at Acre, the Sultan sent Sicurano to guard the traders and their goods. While inspecting the market, Sicurano recognized among the merchandise a purse and girdle that had belonged to Ginevra. The objects connected the present scene to the theft that had served as Ambrogiuolo’s false evidence. Sicurano did not expose his recognition at once. Instead, he asked whose the items were and whether they were for sale, keeping a steady manner while Ambrogiuolo came forward.

Ambrogiuolo identified the objects as his and offered to give them to the captain of the guard. When asked how he had obtained them, he repeated the story that Ginevra had given them to him after sleeping with him. He also recounted the wager and mocked Bernabo for believing that his wife was faithful. Most damagingly, he claimed that Bernabo had arranged Ginevra’s death after hearing the tale. His unguarded retelling supplied the full chain of wrongdoing: theft, a fabricated sexual claim, a wager won by deceit, and a husband’s violent response.

The public hearing and recognition

Sicurano feigned amusement at Ambrogiuolo’s account and cultivated a close acquaintance with him. After the fair ended, Ambrogiuolo accompanied Sicurano and his goods to Alexandria, where Sicurano provided him with a warehouse and entrusted him with money. The arrangement gave Ambrogiuolo an apparent opportunity for profit, while Sicurano used his trusted position to bring the accuser and the accused husband together. Through influential Genoese merchants, Sicurano arranged for Bernabo, then in poor circumstances, to come to Alexandria and remain privately lodged until the moment for disclosure arrived.

The Sultan summoned both men before him. He ordered Ambrogiuolo to explain how he had won the five thousand gold florins, and Sicurano threatened him with severe torture if he concealed the truth. Frightened and pressed from both sides, Ambrogiuolo confessed the deception as it had happened. He expected, at worst, to repay the wager and return the stolen goods. Instead, Sicurano turned to Bernabo and asked what he had done to his wife because of the lie. Bernabo admitted that, in anger over the lost money and the shame he thought he had suffered, he had ordered a servant to kill her, and that he believed the servant’s story about the wolves.

Only after both men had spoken did Sicurano make the hidden identity visible. He explained that the deceiver had falsely taken her honor and that the husband, believing another man’s lie over what he might have learned from his wife, had sent her to be killed. With the Sultan’s permission, Sicurano revealed himself as Ginevra, who had spent six years wandering in men’s clothes after Ambrogiuolo’s slander and Bernabo’s order. She exposed her breast before the assembly and challenged Ambrogiuolo to say when he had ever lain with her. Recognizing her, he was struck silent with shame. The Sultan, who had known Sicurano only as a man, was astonished before accepting what the evidence and Ginevra’s appearance disclosed.

Judgment and aftermath

The Sultan praised Ginevra’s constancy and conduct, supplied her with fine women’s clothing and attendants, and pardoned Bernabo at her request. Bernabo recognized his wife, fell at her feet in tears, and begged forgiveness. Ginevra granted it and embraced him. The scene thus restores their marriage, but does not erase the disparity between the harm each man caused: Ambrogiuolo invented the betrayal for gain, while Bernabo converted belief into an order to kill.

The Sultan’s sentence made Ambrogiuolo’s punishment public and prolonged. He was bound to a stake, smeared with honey, and left exposed in a high place until he fell of himself. Flies, wasps, and gadflies consumed him, and his bones remained visible as a lasting witness to his villainy. The Sultan also gave Ginevra Ambrogiuolo’s property, whose value exceeded ten thousand doubloons, and additional jewels, gold and silver vessels, and money worth more than another ten thousand. He honored the reunited couple at a banquet and provided a ship for their return to Genoa, where Ginevra was received with honor despite having been believed dead.

The episode’s reversal depends on the contrast between appearance and knowledge. Ambrogiuolo’s stolen objects and precise physical detail seem to establish guilt, but they prove only that he entered the room and stole from it. Ginevra, by contrast, has to inhabit an identity that hides her sex and history until the evidence can be heard safely. The hearing reverses the original wager: the men who treated her reputation as something to gamble over must confront the actual consequences of their claims. Ambrogiuolo’s boast becomes his confession, and Sicurano’s trusted authority becomes the means by which Ginevra reclaims her name and life.