Naples where Salabaetto planned his counter-deception is a setting for several distinct kinds of reversal in the Decameron. Its stories move from a poor household whose narrow livelihood leaves little room for error, to a merchant’s attempt to recover from a costly deception, and finally to a king’s return and decision to govern his own desire. The city is not given a scenic portrait; its character emerges through work, money, intimacy, and choices made under pressure.

Work, Poverty, and a Hidden Affair

In Naples, Peronella and her husband make a modest living through separate kinds of labor: he works as a mason, while she spins. Their earnings are meagre, but they order their life as best they can. This economic circumstance shapes the secret arrangement Peronella makes with Giannello Strignario, a handsome young man from the neighborhood who has fallen in love with her. Because her husband leaves early each morning to seek or perform work, Giannello watches for his departure and then comes to the house. The solitary street, Avorio, and the couple’s habitual schedule make their meetings possible.

The routine fails when the husband unexpectedly returns while Giannello is inside. Hearing the door locked, he interprets it not as evidence of an intruder but as proof of his wife’s honesty: he supposes she has secured the house to protect herself from unwanted visitors. Peronella recognizes him by the way he knocks and tells her lover to hide in the vat. The scene turns on the difference between what the husband believes the locked door means and what it actually conceals. Naples is thus presented through a cramped domestic economy in which tools, work hours, and household objects become part of an improvised strategy for managing danger.

Salabaetto’s Loss and Counterplot

The city also becomes a place of refuge and counsel for Salabaetto, a Florentine merchant who has been deceived by a woman in Palermo. After giving her money, he finds that the access and welcome he once enjoyed have dwindled, while her excuses replace repayment. He has no written proof of the transaction, is ashamed to complain, and fears ridicule because he had been warned about the risk. When his employers write demanding that he arrange the exchange and remittance of their money, he fears that his failure will be discovered. Instead of returning to Pisa as expected, he sails to Naples.

There he confides in Pietro dello Canigiano, treasurer to the Empress of Constantinople and a trusted friend of Salabaetto and his family. Canigiano rebukes his poor judgment but turns quickly from reproach to practical counsel. With his own funds and Canigiano’s loan, Salabaetto prepares a cargo of carefully packed bales and twenty oil casks. He ships them to Palermo, declares the cargo and its value at the customs house, and stores it in the warehouses, saying that he is waiting for other merchandise. The cargo and its official registration give his next financial maneuver a credible appearance.

When the woman proposes to help him obtain money, Salabaetto accepts the offer while arranging for the merchandise to stand as security. Through a broker she trusts, she lends him a thousand gold florins, and the goods are registered in the lender’s name at the customs house. Salabaetto leaves with fifteen hundred gold florins, returns to Naples, and accounts in full to the masters whose goods had placed him in difficulty. He repays Canigiano and his other creditors, then makes merry with his friend over the counter-deception. His experience ends his career as a merchant: he goes to Ferrara instead. The city’s role in this episode is therefore consequential but not permanent; it is where humiliation is disclosed, advice is secured, and a threatened loss is turned into an exit from the business that exposed him to it.

The Court and the Discipline of Desire

A different kind of decision follows the king’s return to Naples. After hearing the song of Ginevra the Fair and her sister, the king remains captivated by Ginevra’s beauty and grace. He loves her sister as well because she resembles her, and he maintains close ties with their father, Messer Neri, visiting the garden in order to see Ginevra. His attachment becomes so consuming that he considers taking both young women from their father.

Guy de Montfort confronts him with the obligations created by hospitality. Messer Neri has received the king honorably, and the king has no right to answer that welcome by taking away the man’s honor and hope. Guy also insists that conquering oneself is a greater glory than conquering an external enemy. The king recognizes the truth of the rebuke. Back in Naples, he chooses to prevent an act of dishonor and to requite his host’s hospitality: with Messer Neri’s agreement, he provides generous dowries and arranges marriages for Ginevra the Fair and Isotta the Blonde to noblemen. He then goes to Apulia and disciplines the passion that had held him.

A Setting for Reversals

Across these episodes, Naples connects distinct forms of constraint without making them equivalent. Peronella’s narrow household depends on modest earnings and a vulnerable daily routine; Salabaetto’s predicament grows from a merchant’s credulity, lack of documentation, and obligations to his employers; the king’s crisis arises from power that must be checked by honor and self-command. In each case, a reversal depends on recognizing what appearances conceal: a locked door reassures the husband, a registered cargo lends force to a counterplot, and a rebuke makes the king see his desire as a threat to hospitality.

The city’s narrative importance lies in this range. It is associated with domestic concealment, commercial recovery, and the courtly choice to restrain appetite. Salabaetto’s return there after his deception gives the place its most explicit role as a source of counsel and a turning point, while the king’s return makes it the setting for a decision that converts desire into generosity and marriage arrangements. Rather than a passive backdrop, Naples gathers stories in which practical intelligence and moral restraint redirect the course of events.