Giusfredi—Spina

Giusfredi—known for years as Giannotto— and Spina are lovers whose relationship passes from a secret affair, through discovery and imprisonment, to marriage in Currado Malespina’s household. Their story turns on a concealed identity: Giusfredi loves Spina before his noble birth is known, but its eventual disclosure gives Currado a way to transform the lovers’ punishment into a lawful union.

Identity and Circumstances

Giusfredi is the elder son of Arrighetto Capece and Beritola, but he grows up under the assumed name Giannotto. After years in the household of Guasparrino d’Oria, he leaves service as a sixteen-year-old and travels without managing to advance himself. Some three or four years after leaving Genoa, he hears that his father is alive but imprisoned by Charles I of Anjou. He wanders into Lunigiana and enters Currado Malespina’s service, where he proves capable and wins acceptance. His mother is also in Currado’s household, serving Currado’s wife, but time has altered both mother and son so much that they do not recognize one another.

Spina is Currado’s daughter. A widow after the death of Niccolo da Grignano, she has returned to her father’s home. She and Giusfredi meet there under unequal circumstances: she belongs to the family that employs him, while he is living as a servant and concealing his parentage. Their relationship begins before that disparity is resolved by any knowledge of his birth.

From Household Acquaintance to Secret Lovers

Spina and Giusfredi see one another and become passionately enamoured. Their love lasts for several months without the household discovering it. As their confidence grows, they act with less discretion: while walking through a thickly wooded area with the company, they fall behind the others, find a secluded, grassy place among the trees, and take their pleasure together.

The encounter is not a planned public declaration or a negotiated match. Its secrecy follows from the lovers’ position in Currado’s household, and that secrecy fails when Spina’s mother and then Currado come upon them. The scene sharply changes the meaning of their intimacy. What had been hidden and shared between the two becomes a matter of household authority, family honour, and punishment.

Discovery, Imprisonment, and Disclosure

Currado is furious. He has the lovers seized by three servants and taken in bonds to one of his castles, intending to put them to a shameful death. Spina’s mother, though angry with her daughter and believing her deserving of severe punishment, recognizes Currado’s deadly intent. She follows him and pleads that he not become the murderer of his daughter and a servant in his old age. Her appeal turns him from execution, but not from punishment: he orders the lovers imprisoned separately, closely guarded, and kept with scant food and hardship.

They remain in this condition for a year. Their separation is therefore not simply a brief interruption in their courtship: each is confined alone, and Currado has not yet decided what further to do with them. The turn comes when news reaches Giusfredi that the Sicilian uprising has raised hopes of political change. He laments that he has spent fourteen years wandering in poverty in expectation of such a moment, only to be trapped in a prison from which he sees no escape. In speaking to his gaoler, he explains his connection to Sicily and discloses that he is not Giannotto but Giusfredi, the son of Arrighetto Capece.

The gaoler reports this disclosure to Currado. Currado privately asks Beritola whether she had an elder son named Giusfredi; she confirms that, if he is alive, he would be that son. Currado then questions the prisoner about his life and, finding convincing signs that the account is true, recognizes him. The concealed identity that had shaped Giusfredi’s life now becomes decisive within his relationship with Spina: he is no longer, in Currado’s eyes, merely the servant who wronged his daughter, but the son of a noble family.

Marriage and the Meaning of the Reversal

Currado offers to release Giusfredi from his misery and make Spina his wife. His proposal would repair both men’s honour by turning an illicit intimacy into a lawful marriage. Giusfredi accepts the prospect eagerly, but insists that neither ambition nor greed brought him to Spina. He says that he loved her before Currado made the offer and would continue to love Currado even if the offer were withdrawn and he were sent back to prison. His declaration makes clear that recovered status and marriage are welcome outcomes, not the cause of his attachment.

Currado is moved by Giusfredi’s answer. He embraces him, summons Spina, and brings the two lovers together. Spina, thin, pale, and weakened by imprisonment, appears changed, as Giusfredi does after his own confinement. In Currado’s presence they mutually contract marriage according to their custom. After allowing several days for their needs to be met, Currado tells the two mothers that Beritola’s elder son has returned as the husband of one of his daughters. Beritola receives the news with tears and calls her son dearer to her than herself; Currado’s wife welcomes the match as a source of happiness.

The ending does more than end the lovers’ separation. Their mutual commitment survives the period when Giusfredi has neither rank nor freedom, and his identity is disclosed only after that commitment has already been tested. Currado’s change from would-be executioner to father-in-law recasts the lovers’ discovery as the beginning of reconciliation: imprisonment gives way to marriage, hidden kinship is restored, and Giusfredi’s place in the household changes from servant to son.