Madam Beatrice

Madam Beatrice is the wife of Messer Egano de' Gulluzzi, a gentleman of Bologna, and the central strategist in a tale of courtship, adultery, and mistaken trust. After Lodovico comes to Bologna under the assumed name Anichino and enters her husband’s service, she reciprocates his love and engineers a night together by turning Egano’s confidence in his servant against him.

Identity and setting

Madam Beatrice is introduced through the reputation her beauty has acquired beyond Bologna. In Paris, Lodovico hears returning pilgrims praise her as more beautiful than any woman they have seen in their travels; their companions, who have seen her in Bologna, agree. Lodovico, who has never before fallen in love, becomes determined to see her for himself. The tale thus first presents Beatrice as an object of distant admiration, known to strangers through reports of her appearance, before giving her the decisive part in the encounter those reports set in motion.

Her marriage to Egano places her at the center of a household whose trust will become essential to the plot. Lodovico’s pursuit is directed toward her, but access to her is gained through Egano: the young man makes himself useful to the husband and becomes a trusted member of the household. Beatrice’s story consequently turns on more than the arrival of a suitor. It depends on a domestic arrangement in which the husband’s confidence in one person gives that person proximity to his wife—and, ultimately, gives Beatrice an opportunity to manipulate what Egano believes.

Lodovico becomes Anichino

Lodovico tells his father that he wishes to visit the Holy Sepulchre, concealing his actual reason for travelling: he wants to see Beatrice and, if she pleases him, remain in Bologna. When he sees her at an entertainment, she surpasses his expectations, and he resolves not to leave until he has won her love. Instead of approaching her openly, he devises a way into her husband’s service. He sells his horses, arranges for his attendants to act as though they do not know him, and asks his host to find him work with a gentleman of standing. The host recommends Egano, who takes him on.

As Anichino, Lodovico serves Egano so well that his new master comes to value him above the other servants. Egano entrusts him not only with his own affairs but with the management of the household’s business. The intimacy that makes the affair possible is therefore built through service and confidence. Beatrice, for her part, has already noticed Anichino’s manner and found him pleasing, but she has not yet recognized that he loves her.

Their opening comes while Egano is away fowling. Beatrice and Anichino play chess alone after her women leave them. Anichino deliberately allows her to win; when he sighs, she asks what troubles him, and his second, heavier sigh prompts her to press him further. He fears that a confession may offend her or be repeated to others. Beatrice promises secrecy, and he then reveals his identity, explains that praise of her first awakened his desire, and confesses that he entered Egano’s service in order to be near her. He asks her to return his love or, if she will not, at least to let him remain as he is.

The midnight stratagem

Beatrice accepts his declaration and promises that he may come to her chamber before the night is over. She leaves the door open as arranged. When Anichino enters at midnight and reaches toward her in bed, however, she takes his hand in both of hers and holds it fast. Her movement wakes Egano, who is asleep beside her. The scene briefly makes Anichino fear that she has betrayed him: unable to free his hand, he tries repeatedly to withdraw while Beatrice begins speaking to her husband.

She tells Egano that Anichino solicited her while he was away and claims to have arranged a test of the servant’s loyalty. According to her account, she is supposed to go to the garden and wait beneath a pine tree; Egano can discover the truth by dressing in one of her gowns, covering his head with her veil, and taking her place. Egano accepts the proposal. His willingness to trust both his wife’s explanation and his servant’s supposed fidelity allows Beatrice to redirect his suspicion away from the chamber and into the garden.

Once Egano has gone outside, Beatrice locks the door from within. She then tells Anichino to take a stout stick to the garden and pretend that he has come to test her, addressing the disguised Egano as though he were the woman he had expected to meet. Anichino follows her instructions. When Egano rises to welcome him, Anichino calls him a wicked woman and strikes him; Egano runs back to the chamber after receiving several blows. The disguise makes the husband the target of the very assault he thinks he is witnessing on behalf of his own honor.

Relationship, agency, and comic reversal

Beatrice’s success rests on a precise reversal of Egano’s confidence. He has declared Anichino the servant he trusts and loves most, yet Beatrice uses that trust to make his presence in the house seem proof of loyalty rather than a threat. She does not merely conceal the meeting: she supplies the false story, chooses the place and disguise for Egano, prevents Anichino from escaping before the trap is in motion, and directs the final performance with the cudgel. Lodovico’s original plan depends on becoming useful to Egano; Beatrice converts the access that plan secures into control over the entire encounter.

The tale gives Beatrice a direct voice in negotiating desire. Anichino makes his confession, but she decides whether to accept it and devises the terms under which their meeting can proceed. Her plot also depends on physical staging—the open chamber door, the hand she holds, the gown and veil, the locked door, and the pine tree in the garden. Each object or gesture changes what the characters can know: Egano mistakes the scene for a test of fidelity, while the lovers use his mistaken interpretation to protect their intimacy. Filomena presents the episode within a sequence concerned with wives’ dealings with husbands; here, the comedy turns on Beatrice’s ability to make the husband’s own household authority and misplaced confidence serve her purposes.