Messer Amerigo Abate

Messer Amerigo Abate is a Sicilian gentleman whose household becomes the setting for a sharp reversal: he first raises a boy he believes to be a foreign slave into a trusted servant, then condemns him when he discovers his love for Violante, and finally agrees to their marriage after learning the young man’s true birth. His story turns on how trust, family authority, and anger change under the pressure of concealed identity and impending violence.

Identity and Household

During the reign of King Guglielmo II of Sicily, Messer Amerigo Abate lived in Trapani and had many children. When Genoese corsairs brought boys captured on the coast of Armenia, he bought several, taking them to be Turks. Among them, Teodoro stood out for his noble bearing and better manners, though Amerigo initially treated him as a slave. Teodoro grew up in the household alongside Amerigo’s children, and his conduct won his master’s confidence: Amerigo freed him, had him baptized and renamed Pietro, and placed him in charge of all his affairs. That rise from captive boy to trusted steward makes the later discovery of Pietro’s relationship with Violante a crisis within the very household that had given him a place and authority.

Violante’s Secret and the Discovery

As Amerigo’s children grew up, his daughter Violante and Teodoro became secretly enamoured of one another. She admired his character and bearing; he, having fallen passionately in love, feared that anyone might discover his feelings. Each took encouragement from the other’s attention, but neither dared speak openly for a long time. Their secrecy ended in a relationship that Violante became pregnant from. Both feared the consequences: she tried unsuccessfully to conceal or end the pregnancy, while Teodoro feared that Amerigo would punish him and considered fleeing. Violante warned that she would kill herself if he left; Teodoro stayed after she promised that his identity would remain undisclosed.

When the pregnancy could no longer be hidden, Violante confided in her mother, who was distressed and pressed her to explain what had happened. To protect Teodoro, Violante invented another account, and her mother believed it. She sent her daughter to a country house to conceal the pregnancy from the household. But Amerigo, returning from hawking, unexpectedly passed the chamber as Violante cried out in labour. He entered, learned from his wife that their daughter was giving birth, and refused to accept that she did not know the father’s identity. He demanded the truth, offering restored favour if she confessed and threatening death if she did not.

Amerigo’s anger turned the disclosure into a crisis of life and death. While Violante’s mother tried to restrain him in conversation, Violante gave birth to a son. Amerigo rushed at his daughter with a naked sword and demanded the father’s name; afraid of being killed, she broke her promise to Teodoro and revealed their relationship. Amerigo then reported the affair to Messer Currado, the king’s captain at Trapani, who had Teodoro seized and tortured until he confessed. The progression from a hidden pregnancy to a coerced confession exposes the violence behind Amerigo’s household authority: the young man he had freed and entrusted with his affairs was now treated as a criminal, while his daughter’s protection of him collapsed under the threat of her father’s sword.

Sentence, Recognition, and Reversal

Even after Teodoro had confessed under torture and been condemned to die, Messer Amerigo’s anger did not abate. Seeking to destroy the lovers and their newborn son together, he sent Violante a naked poniard and poison, ordering her to choose between them at once; otherwise, she would be burned alive publicly, and the infant’s head would be dashed against a wall and his body thrown to the dogs. The sentence made Amerigo’s authority within the family brutally explicit: he treated his daughter’s concealed relationship not as a matter to be settled but as an offense warranting the deaths of all three.

The execution was interrupted by recognition. Fineo, Teodoro’s father, learned why the condemned man was being led away and identified him as his lost son, a free man rather than a slave. He asked Messer Currado to defer the execution and offered marriage between Teodoro and Violante as a lawful resolution. Once the captain accepted Fineo’s claim, Teodoro was brought back from the path to execution. Amerigo, believing Violante and his grandson already dead, was overcome with grief and sent a messenger to halt his order. The servant had not yet forced Violante to choose, and the messenger’s arrival prevented the sentence from being carried out.

With the immediate danger past, Amerigo went to Fineo and, nearly in tears, apologized for what had happened. He declared himself willing to give Violante to Teodoro in marriage. Fineo accepted, making clear that his son must take her as his wife or face the sentence already passed upon him. Teodoro, newly reunited with his father and offered the chance to marry Violante, accepted joyfully; Violante, who had been awaiting death, said that becoming Teodoro’s wife would be her greatest happiness, while still submitting the decision to her father. Amerigo’s course thus turns from a command that would have annihilated his daughter’s family to an offer that recognizes it: the revelation of Teodoro’s birth reverses the household’s judgment of him, and the threatened deaths give way to marriage.

Narrative Role and Significance

Lauretta tells Amerigo’s story on the Fifth Day, after the company has been left fearful for lovers threatened with burning; her tale likewise brings love close to execution before turning toward rescue and marriage. Amerigo anchors that reversal within the family: the man who had made Teodoro a trusted member of his household becomes his most dangerous accuser when desire and pregnancy expose their secret. The eventual recognition of Teodoro’s birth does not erase the cruelty of Amerigo’s sentence, but it changes the terms on which the family can resolve the crisis. The plot makes concealed identity decisive: the boy once treated as a foreign captive is revealed as Fineo’s free-born son, and the household’s verdict shifts from death to marriage.