Madam Biancofiore

Madam Biancofiore is the resourceful Sicilian deceiver at the center of Dioneo’s tale on the Eighth Day of Decameron. She first exploits Salabaetto’s attraction to her to extract five hundred florins, then returns that money to draw him into a larger, secured loan that he uses to escape with his goods and funds. Her story makes intimacy, commercial information, and credit parts of one contest of judgment: she is a skilled planner, but her confidence in a familiar scheme leaves her vulnerable to a merchant who learns to deceive in turn.

Position and Methods

The tale introduces Madam Biancofiore within Palermo’s commercial world, where arriving merchants must declare their merchandise and its value at the customs house. Officials record the goods and their owners in a book, from which brokers can learn what is in storage and who might be worth approaching. Dioneo describes women who use this information to identify merchants’ resources and then draw them into relationships that can cost them their merchandise. Biancofiore belongs to this world of calculated access: her charm is not separate from the business intelligence that helps her select and assess a target.

She styles herself Madam Biancofiore, and Salabaetto, seeing her look at him, assumes she is a lady attracted by his appearance. He is a young Florentine sent to Palermo with woollen cloth worth about five hundred gold florins. His fair complexion, yellow hair, and lively manner encourage his confidence that he has inspired a genuine passion. Biancofiore recognizes that he is receptive and lets him pass repeatedly before her house before making contact. The difference between his interpretation and her purpose gives her the first advantage.

Courtship as a Carefully Arranged Trap

Biancofiore sends a woman skilled in arranging encounters to speak on her behalf. The messenger reports that her mistress is consumed by love and proposes a private meeting at a bathhouse; she seals the message with a ring. Salabaetto receives it as proof of devotion. The meeting itself is staged with care: two enslaved women bring a cotton mattress, fine sheets, a white coverlet, pillows, and other furnishings, then clean the bath before Biancofiore arrives with two more attendants. The abundance and privacy of the setting make the encounter feel like a lover’s welcome rather than a calculated opening move.

After spending the night with him, Biancofiore gives Salabaetto a silver girdle and a purse. She continues to receive him, and he grows more attached while believing that the relationship has cost him nothing. When he sells his cloth for ready money at a profit, Biancofiore learns of the sale from others. She first offers him two silver drinking cups, which he refuses, emphasizing that he has already received gifts worth about thirty florins without giving her anything in return. The generosity appears to confirm his sense of her affection; in the sequence of the plot, it helps establish the trust she will soon convert into a loan.

The Five-Hundred-Florin Deception

A signal from one of her enslaved women gives Biancofiore an occasion to leave the room and return in tears. She claims that a letter from Messina says her brother will be killed unless she sends a thousand florins within eight days. She says that with more time she could obtain the money elsewhere or sell a farm, but that the deadline has left her helpless. Salabaetto, carried away by his feelings and convinced by her distress, offers five hundred florins, explaining that he has only just sold his merchandise.

Biancofiore responds as though his offer pains her: she says she could have lent him money herself and presents his unasked-for assistance as proof of a true and generous love. She accepts the five hundred florins the following morning, after spending the night with him. The tale makes the performance’s double register explicit: she receives the money with tears in her eyes and laughter in her heart. The promised fortnight passes, then another month or two. Salabaetto is admitted only rarely, and no longer with the earlier welcome. When he asks for repayment, he receives excuses. Because he has no written evidence and is ashamed to complain, he recognizes the fraud but cannot readily challenge it.

A Return and a Reversal

Salabaetto leaves Palermo rather than let his business defaults become known to his masters. He goes first to Naples, where he confides in Pietro dello Canigiano, then returns to Palermo with a story designed to make Biancofiore believe that a much greater profit is within reach. In fact, she has heard that his present merchandise is worth more than two thousand florins and that further goods expected from the west are valued at over three thousand. She concludes that the original five-hundred-florin gain was too small and decides to restore it so she can pursue the larger opportunity.

She welcomes Salabaetto with renewed affection and excuses her earlier coldness and failure to repay him on time. He plays along, claiming that he has sold most of his possessions, brought merchandise worth more than two thousand florins, and expects another shipment valued above three thousand. He says he intends to establish a warehouse in Palermo and remain near her. Biancofiore accepts the story and presents his return as welcome news. The former victim has learned to use her own tools: a feigned account of commercial prospects makes her eager to invest in the relationship again.

Credit, Counterplot, and Outcome

When Biancofiore later summons him to supper, Salabaetto arrives looking despondent. He invents a ship seized by corsairs from Monaco and held for ransom, claiming that he must find a thousand florins or lose the incoming goods. He says he cannot raise the money by selling his current merchandise and implies that he has nowhere else to turn. Biancofiore fears that he may leave, and offers to arrange a loan through a person who charges heavy interest. She proposes to pledge her goods and even herself as security, while asking what Salabaetto can offer for the balance.

Salabaetto offers the merchandise recorded at the customs house as security, but insists that he retain the warehouse key so he can show the goods and prevent anything from being moved or altered. Biancofiore agrees. She sends for a trusted broker and gives him a thousand florins to lend; the goods are entered in the broker’s name, and the parties draw up the necessary papers. The arrangement turns the customs record and the legal transfer of the goods into instruments of credit. Yet Salabaetto’s tale of the seized ship is false, and the loan supplies him with the money to depart. He leaves with fifteen hundred florins, settles his debts in Naples, gives his masters a full account, and abandons merchant life for Ferrara.

The story records no later punishment or recovery by Biancofiore. Its reversal is instead financial and narrative: the woman who first used a merchant’s desire and vulnerability to take his money is herself made to advance funds by a lover’s apparent distress and a fabricated business emergency. Dioneo’s framing calls the subtler deceiver especially pleasing when outwitted, and the episode delivers that turn without making Biancofiore an inept schemer. Her first success depends on reading Salabaetto accurately; her loss follows when she mistakes his practiced return for a renewed opportunity to profit.