Madam Ambruogia

Madam Ambruogia is a married woman in a story set in Milan whose attempt to make an affair profitable is turned against her through a carefully staged loan and repayment. She agrees to give Gulfardo her favors for two hundred gold florins, insisting both that the arrangement remain secret and that he provide the sum. He obtains it from her husband, Guasparruolo Cagastraccio, and later makes the payment appear to have been a return of the loan. The reversal leaves Madam Ambruogia unable to deny receiving the money and forces her to hand it back to her husband.

Identity and Position

Madam Ambruogia is described as very beautiful and the wife of Guasparruolo Cagastraccio, a rich merchant whom Gulfardo knows well and counts as a friend. Gulfardo is a German employed by the state, regarded in the tale as physically robust, loyal in service, and punctual in repaying loans. His reliable credit is part of what makes the deception possible: merchants readily lend him money, and Guasparruolo himself agrees to advance the required sum at the same rate of interest he ordinarily charges Gulfardo.

The story provides little independent portrait of Madam Ambruogia beyond her beauty, marriage, and conduct in this encounter. Her importance lies in the bargain she proposes and in the gap between her expectation of secrecy and the public, commercial form Gulfardo gives their transaction. The narrative presents her through the consequences of her decision rather than through a detailed account of her life beyond the affair.

The Bargain and the Money

Gulfardo has fallen in love with Madam Ambruogia, taking care that neither her husband nor anyone else suspects his attachment. He sends word asking for her favors and offers to do whatever she commands. After several exchanges, she agrees on two conditions: he must never disclose the affair, and he must give her two hundred gold florins, which she says she needs for an unspecified purpose. The story does not reveal what that need is; the sum is presented as her price for consenting to the arrangement.

Gulfardo is indignant at what he regards as the sordidness of a woman he had considered worthy. Rather than refuse the bargain, he tells her he will provide the money and keep the matter secret, mentioning that a trusted companion will remain with him. He then approaches Guasparruolo directly, says he needs two hundred florins, and receives the loan on the usual terms. The husband’s absence creates the opportunity for the arrangement: when he leaves for Genoa, Madam Ambruogia sends for Gulfardo and expects him to bring the money.

Gulfardo arrives with his companion and places the two hundred florins in Madam Ambruogia’s hands, telling her to give them to her husband when he returns. She accepts them and asks to count them. She supposes that Gulfardo has described the money as belonging to her husband so that his companion will not recognize it as payment for her favors. The detail exposes her confidence in the cover story at the very moment that she misunderstands its purpose: Gulfardo is preparing not merely to conceal the affair, but to create a witness to a transaction he can later characterize as repayment.

Exposure and Consequences

Madam Ambruogia receives Gulfardo in her chamber and grants him her favors not only that night but on several further occasions before Guasparruolo returns from Genoa. Nothing in the account indicates that she discovers Gulfardo’s plan during these meetings. Her apparent belief that the money is a disguised private payment allows the affair to continue, while Gulfardo retains the means to recast that payment in front of her husband.

After Guasparruolo’s return, Gulfardo waits until he is in his wife’s company and comes with the same companion who witnessed the original handover. He tells the merchant that he had no use for the borrowed money, had returned the two hundred florins to Madam Ambruogia, and therefore should have his account cleared. Guasparruolo asks his wife whether she received the money. With the witness present, she cannot deny it; she confirms that she has the sum and says she had not yet remembered to tell him. Guasparruolo accepts Gulfardo’s statement and says he will settle the account accordingly.

The exchange converts her secret into a public assertion about a debt. Madam Ambruogia has to give her husband the money she received, while Gulfardo’s obligation is canceled. The tale says that he has enjoyed her without cost and describes the payment as the dishonorable price of her baseness. It does not report a further punishment, a separation, or what becomes of the marriage; the consequence the narrative specifies is her financial and sexual exposure through the return of the florins.

Narrative Judgment

The story introduces Gulfardo’s action as a requital, not simply as a lover’s deception. Its opening distinguishes a woman who consents for love from one who yields for payment, presenting the latter as deserving condemnation. That moral framing governs the account of Madam Ambruogia: although she had been called a fair lady, the narrator’s judgment turns sharply when she sets a price and requires secrecy. Her request for money becomes the basis on which Gulfardo can outmaneuver her.

The episode also makes commercial credit do the work of plot. Gulfardo’s reputation as a dependable borrower lets him obtain the exact sum from Guasparruolo; the husband’s familiar lending terms make the two transactions plausible; and the companion’s presence turns the transfer into evidence. The same florins move first from husband to lover, then from lover to wife, and finally back to husband, while their meaning changes at each stage. Madam Ambruogia’s private bargain is thus undone not by a confession of the affair, but by a repayment account she cannot publicly contradict.