The Minor Friars Cemetery is a burial ground outside the church of the Friars Minor in Pistoia. In the tale of Madam Francesca de' Lazzari, it becomes the starting point for a scheme that puts a freshly buried corpse between a widow and the two suitors she wants to discourage.

Setting and Burial

A man named Scannadio had been buried in the cemetery that very morning. Though descended from gentlemen, he was reputed to be the worst man in Pistoia and, by local estimation, in the world. His appearance was so misshapen and monstrous that people who saw him for the first time while he was alive were frightened; even the thought of handling him after death made the task Francesca devised seem appalling.

The Grave and the Suitors

Francesca was a fair widow in Pistoia, pursued independently by two Florentine townsmen living there in exile, Rinuccio Palermini and Alessandro Chiarmontesi. Each was passionately in love with her, and both repeatedly sent messages and entreaties. After having sometimes listened to them imprudently, she wished to withdraw without granting either man her love, and devised a test that would give her a plausible reason to refuse them if they would not comply.

Francesca’s Use of the Cemetery

Francesca arranged for her maid to give the suitors separate instructions centered on Scannadio’s tomb. Alessandro was to go to the grave, put on the dead man’s clothes, and lie still in the tomb until people came to carry him away, as though he were Scannadio. Rinuccio, by contrast, was to lift the corpse from the tomb and bring it quietly to Francesca’s house, without speaking about anything he might hear or feel. In each case, the cemetery made the request concrete: the suitor had to confront the feared dead man and take part in handling his body.

Narrative Significance

The cemetery is not simply a backdrop for a burial. Its proximity to the church, the recent interment, and Scannadio’s fearsome reputation supply the circumstances Francesca needs to turn persistent courtship into a test of nerve and obedience. The two tasks also make different demands—Alessandro must impersonate the corpse, while Rinuccio must remove it—so the grave becomes the device through which Francesca seeks to end both men’s importunities without accepting either.