Ruggieri da Jeroli

Ruggieri da Jeroli is a noble-born man of Salerno whose disgraceful reputation contrasts with the affection he inspires in Master Mazzeo della Montagna’s wife. Their secret relationship is sustained by her money and her hope that he will reform, until an accidental dose of the surgeon’s sleeping draught turns an ordinary clandestine meeting into a scene mistaken for death. In this episode, Ruggieri’s body becomes the pivot of a misunderstanding he neither intends nor can explain: asleep and unresponsive, he appears to his lover as a corpse.

Identity and Reputation

The narrator introduces Ruggieri as a man of noble birth but of lewd life and blameworthy conduct. His standing in Salerno is exceptionally poor: thefts and other disreputable dealings have made him widely infamous, and he has alienated every friend and kinsman who might wish him well or care to see him. His lineage therefore offers no protection from the consequences of his behavior. The gap between noble birth and public disgrace defines his position before his private relationship with the surgeon’s wife begins.

The woman is attracted to him despite knowing, or at least disregarding, his reputation. The account does not present him as having already changed his habits; rather, his conduct is the problem she raises once they have become lovers. His role in the episode thus begins with a marked contrast: he is socially notorious, yet personally desired, and the possibility of reform enters their relationship through her intervention rather than through any action of his own described so far.

Courtship and the Hope of Reform

The affair takes shape after the wife, dissatisfied with her elderly husband’s neglect, considers various young men and settles on Ruggieri. He learns of her interest, is greatly pleased by her, and turns his affection toward her in return. With the assistance of her maid, the two arrange to meet. The maid’s involvement makes the relationship a coordinated secret, not a chance encounter.

After they have been together, the wife reproaches Ruggieri for his former way of life and asks him, for her sake, to give up his bad habits. She also provides him with money at different times, furnishing practical assistance alongside her appeal. The narrator describes their life together as conducted with the utmost discretion. Yet the evidence establishes her efforts and hopes, not their success: Ruggieri’s criminal reputation is clear, while no completed reform is reported in this portion of the story.

The Sleeping Draught

The episode’s turn begins with a medical case brought to Master Mazzeo. The patient has a gangrenous leg, and the surgeon tells the patient’s relatives that a decayed bone must be removed; otherwise the whole limb will have to be amputated or the patient will die. He believes the patient cannot endure the operation without an opiate, so he prepares a special water intended to make the man sleep long enough for the procedure. He plans to operate after vespers and sets the flask in his chamber without explaining its contents to anyone.

A summons from important friends in Malfi changes the evening’s arrangements. They urgently require the surgeon’s help because many people have been wounded in a serious fray. He postpones the operation until the following morning and travels by boat to Malfi. His absence gives his wife the opportunity to bring Ruggieri to the house as usual and hide him in her chamber until the other members of the household have gone to sleep. Neither lover knows that the flask in the window contains the surgeon’s drug rather than ordinary water.

Mistaken Death and Narrative Significance

While waiting in the chamber, Ruggieri becomes thirsty. The account offers several possible causes—fatigue, salted meat, or habit—without settling on one. Seeing the flask, he assumes it holds drinking water and empties it. The intended medical preparation thus leaves its original patient and purpose behind: Ruggieri takes it by mistake, and soon falls into a profound sleep.

When the wife comes to him, she first nudges him and quietly urges him to get up. He does not answer or stir. Her increasingly forceful attempts to wake him culminate in his falling to the floor from the chest on which he lies, but he still gives no sign of life. She shakes him, tugs his nose and beard, pinches him, and burns his flesh with a lighted taper; none of these efforts produces a response. The progression from a lover who simply will not wake to a body that appears dead makes the scene’s comic danger depend on physical evidence that is real but misread.

The narrator explicitly explains the proverb applied to Ruggieri: he is asleep as soundly as an ass tied fast to a stake. The comparison clarifies that his stillness signals neither death nor an intention to deceive. His mistress, however, has no such explanation. Although her husband is a physician, she is no doctor herself and concludes that Ruggieri must truly be dead. She loves him above all else and, afraid to raise an alarm, weeps over him in silence. At this point in the account, the drug’s effect has transformed a secret meeting into a private crisis: Ruggieri remains unaware, while the woman who tried to guide his life is left to confront what she believes is his sudden death.