Guasparruolo Cagastraccio

Guasparruolo Cagastraccio is a wealthy merchant in Milan whose trust in Gulfardo enables a double transaction: a genuine loan becomes the means by which Gulfardo deceives him and avoids paying for an affair with his wife, Madam Ambruogia. Though Guasparruolo appears only briefly, his money and confidence are central to the story’s reversal, in which the supposed repayment is actually the price of his wife’s sexual favors.

Identity and Position

Guasparruolo is described as a rich merchant and as an acquaintance and friend of Gulfardo, a German in the service of the state. The tale gives little independent information about his life or character beyond this commercial and social standing. His role is defined instead by the confidence implicit in lending money to someone he knows, and by the way that confidence is turned against him.

The Loan and the Affair

During Guasparruolo’s absence, his wife agrees to grant Gulfardo her favors on two conditions: that he keep the matter secret and give her two hundred gold florins. Gulfardo, indignant that she has put a price on the affair, devises a counterstroke. He asks Guasparruolo for a loan of exactly that amount, at the same rate of interest at which Guasparruolo usually lends to him. Guasparruolo agrees and counts out the money.

When Guasparruolo leaves for Genoa, Madam Ambruogia summons Gulfardo. He arrives with a companion, places the two hundred florins in her hands, and tells her to give them to her husband on his return. She accepts the money, believing that the companion will not understand it as payment for her favors. She and Gulfardo then meet repeatedly before Guasparruolo comes back.

Exposure and Reversal

After Guasparruolo returns, Gulfardo approaches him in his wife’s presence, accompanied by the same witness. He says that he had no use for the money and had returned the two hundred florins to Madam Ambruogia, asking Guasparruolo to cancel the account. Guasparruolo asks his wife whether she received the money. With the witness there, she cannot deny it; she confirms that she has it and says she had not yet remembered to tell him.

Guasparruolo accepts her answer, declares himself satisfied, and tells Gulfardo that he will settle the account properly. The arrangement leaves Gulfardo owing nothing: the money he borrowed has been returned, in his telling, through his wife. Madam Ambruogia then gives the florins to her husband, and the narrator presents the result as Gulfardo having enjoyed her without cost. Guasparruolo receives the money as repayment, unaware—or at least without any stated recognition—of the sexual bargain and the deception that made it possible.

Narrative Role and Significance

The tale places Guasparruolo’s ordinary credit relationship at the center of its sexual trick. Gulfardo does not produce money of his own to meet Madam Ambruogia’s demand; he borrows it from her husband, then uses a witnessed handover to make the same sum serve as both illicit payment and apparent repayment. The companion’s presence, intended to secure Gulfardo’s account of the transaction, also prevents Madam Ambruogia from denying that she received the money.

Guasparruolo’s trust and his wife’s admission complete the reversal. He lends at his customary rate, asks a direct question when Gulfardo claims repayment, and accepts the confirmation that follows. The story gives no further account of his response or of the marriage afterward. Its ending instead turns on the transfer of the money back to him: what Madam Ambruogia had accepted as the price of the affair becomes, in the public explanation, repayment of her husband’s loan.