Landolfo Rufolo’s shipwreck and sea-borne ordeal

Landolfo Ruffolo’s shipwreck and sea-borne ordeal turns a merchant’s ruin into a struggle for survival, then into a precarious recovery. After pirates strip him of his vessel and leave him with little more than a poor doublet, a storm breaks the ship carrying him near Cephalonia. Landolfo survives by clinging to floating wreckage and, finally, to a chest that holds the means of his return to fortune. The reversal is not simply from loss to wealth: twice within a short span he is exposed to the sea’s power, and survival depends on improvisation, endurance, and help from a stranger.

From seizure to shipwreck

The ordeal follows an earlier disaster at sea. Genoese attackers take Landolfo’s little ship and its crew, carry him aboard one of their carracks, leave him only a sorry doublet, and scuttle his vessel. The pirates’ seizure strips him of the goods and security on which his livelihood depended; he is now a captive and a poor man far from home.

The next day the carracks sail west in favorable weather. Toward evening, however, a violent wind drives the waves high and separates the ships. The carrack carrying Landolfo strikes a shoal off Cephalonia and breaks amidships, shattering like glass against a wall. Chests, bales of merchandise, and planks scatter across the water. In the dark, swollen sea, the survivors seize whatever floats within reach, while the wreck turns the cargo that had represented commerce into a field of hazards and possible support.

The plank and the chest

Landolfo had called for death earlier that day, preferring it to the prospect of returning home poor. When death seems close in the wreck, fear changes his response: he grabs a plank and tries to keep himself afloat, hoping that escape may still be possible. The account makes survival a sequence of immediate adjustments rather than a plan. By daylight he sees only sea, clouds, and a chest drifting nearby. Afraid it may strike and injure him, he pushes it away whenever it comes close, despite his weakening strength.

A sudden gust drives the chest against the plank and overturns it. Landolfo goes under the water, but fights back to the surface. With the plank now too far away, he turns to the chest, reaches it, and lies breast-down across its lid, steering himself with his arms. What first appeared to be a danger has become his only available support. The chest does not bring him safely ashore at once: he clings to it through the remainder of the day and the following night, without food, exhausted, and unable to tell where the sea is carrying him.

Rescue on Corfu

On the following day, Landolfo reaches the coast of Corfu, still gripping the chest with both hands. A poor woman nearby is scouring pots and pans with sand and seawater. At first she recoils, unable to make out a human figure in the exhausted castaway approaching through the water. As he drifts closer, she recognizes the chest, then sees his outstretched arms and face.

Once the sea has calmed, she wades in, takes Landolfo by the hair, and drags him ashore together with the chest. His hands are so tightly clasped around it that she has difficulty releasing them. She places the chest on her young daughter’s head and carries Landolfo to her hut as if he were a little child. There she puts him in a bath, warms and rubs him until his body heat and some of his strength return, then gives him good wine and confections. She tends him for several days, keeping the chest safe until he has recovered enough to understand where he is.

The hidden value and the road onward

When the woman returns the chest, Landolfo has forgotten what it contains. Finding it light, he expects little from it and is discouraged. While his hostess is away, he opens it and discovers precious stones, both set and unset. He knows enough about jewels to recognize their value. The revelation reverses his expectations: the object that had nearly struck him beneath the waves, and then kept him afloat, contains the means to meet his expenses and begin again.

The discovery does not make him careless. Having been twice cruelly disappointed by fortune, he fears another reversal and decides to carry the jewels home cautiously. He wraps them in rags, tells the woman he no longer needs the chest, and offers it to her in exchange for a bag. After thanking her as best he can, he takes the bag aboard a bark, crosses to Brindisi, and travels along the coast to Trani. His recovery therefore remains a journey rather than an instant restoration: the wreck has left him dependent on a stranger’s kindness and alert to the possibility that fortune may turn again.