Isabetta, Puccio’s wife

Isabetta, Puccio’s wife, is central to a comic story in which her husband’s attempt to win spiritual reward inadvertently gives her and Dom Felice the opportunity to pursue an affair. Young, attractive, and long deprived of companionship by Puccio di Rinieri’s religious regimen, she recognizes the monk’s plan and turns its elaborate penance into cover for a life of pleasure.

Identity and Household

Isabetta is the wife of Puccio di Rinieri, a rich and respectable man who, in his later years, devotes himself to religious observances and becomes a tertiary of the Franciscan order, known as Fra Puccio. They live near San Pancrazio, with a single maid and no other family. The story describes Isabetta as between twenty-eight and thirty, fresh, fair, and plump. Her youth and physical vitality stand in pointed contrast to her husband’s absorption in devotional practice.

Puccio’s piety shapes their domestic life. He frequently attends church, says his prayers, listens to preaching, goes to Mass, and fasts. When Isabetta might want to sleep or share intimacy with him, he instead recounts religious stories and sermons. She also endures fasts longer and more often than she would like, partly because of his example and perhaps because of his age. The household’s religious routine thus becomes, for her, a sustained restriction on both food and marital affection.

Dom Felice’s Scheme

Dom Felice, a young and learned monk of the convent at San Pancrazio, becomes close friends with Puccio by answering his religious questions and appearing exceptionally devout. Through that friendship, he is welcomed into the household. He notices Isabetta and, after kindling her desire for him, seeks an opportunity to be alone with her. She is willing, but will not meet him elsewhere, while Puccio never leaves town. Dom Felice therefore devises a penance that will keep her husband occupied at night.

He instructs Puccio to undertake forty days of strict abstinence, including refraining from touching his own wife. Each night, Puccio is to stand upright with his arms outstretched before the sky until Matins, then follow a prescribed schedule of prayers and church attendance. Isabetta understands what the arrangement will accomplish. When Puccio tells her about the penance, she agrees to fast alongside him, while declining to do anything more. Her outward compliance conceals her recognition that his long vigil will leave the house open to Dom Felice.

The Vigil and the Deception

Once the penance begins, Dom Felice comes to dine with Isabetta on most evenings, bringing abundant food and drink, and stays with her until Matins. Puccio keeps vigil nearby, separated from the bedroom by only a thin wall. When the floor shakes during one night of the lovers’ activity, he calls out to ask what his wife is doing. Isabetta answers playfully that she is tossing about, and Puccio, taking her words as evidence that fasting has made her restless, tells her to try to sleep. Her quick response preserves the deception: he returns to his prayers without understanding what is happening beside him.

After that interruption, Isabetta and Dom Felice arrange for a bed in another part of the house. They continue their meetings there while Puccio completes the nightly observances that he believes will lead him toward beatitude. The contrast drives the story’s comedy: the husband’s conspicuous religious discipline provides the time and privacy for the very worldly pleasure he fails to perceive.

After the Penance

When Puccio’s forty days are over, Isabetta does not end the affair. Having grown accustomed to Dom Felice’s plentiful fare after the low diet imposed by her husband, she continues to find opportunities to meet the monk elsewhere, with discretion, for a long time. Her relationship with Dom Felice therefore outlasts the religious device that first made it possible.

The tale closes by reversing Puccio’s expectation of spiritual benefit. He believes that his penance will help him win Paradise, but his efforts instead enable Dom Felice and Isabetta to enjoy what the story calls their own earthly paradise. Isabetta is not simply the unwitting object of the monk’s plan: she sees how it works, cooperates in maintaining the disguise, and carries the relationship on after the scheme has served its original purpose. Her story makes the household’s devotional language part of the joke, exposing the distance between Puccio’s solemn performance and the desires his discipline cannot control.