Spinelloccio Tanena

Spinelloccio Tanena is a well-to-do young man of a respectable Sienese family whose intimacy with his neighbor and friend Zeppa di Mino turns into adultery and then a comic, carefully measured reprisal. In Fiammetta’s Eighth Day tale, his betrayal is not the end of their bond: once Zeppa has answered it in kind, Spinelloccio acknowledges his own responsibility, and the four neighbors resume their companionship under an extraordinary arrangement of shared wives.

Identity and Introduction

Spinelloccio lives in Camollia, where he and Zeppa are next-door neighbors. Both are young men of good city families, comfortably situated, and each has a very beautiful wife. The narrator presents the men as companions who appear to love one another like brothers, or even more closely. That apparent kinship matters: Spinelloccio’s affair violates not only a marriage but also a friendship built on everyday proximity and mutual trust.

His access to Zeppa’s household comes through that closeness. He visits often, whether Zeppa is at home or away, and becomes so familiar with Zeppa’s wife that he eventually sleeps with her. The affair continues for some time without anyone discovering it. The story gives no account of a formal courtship or of Spinelloccio’s intentions beyond the relationship itself; its emphasis is on the contrast between his trusted place in the household and the intimacy he secretly claims there.

The Affair and Its Discovery

The secret is exposed by an ordinary visit. One day Zeppa is home, though his wife does not know it. When Spinelloccio arrives, she tells him that Zeppa is away. Spinelloccio goes straight into the house, finds her alone in the saloon, and embraces and kisses her. Zeppa sees them but makes no sign. He watches as they go together into a chamber and lock the door, then remains concealed until Spinelloccio leaves.

Zeppa understands that a public outcry would not undo the injury and might only enlarge the shame. He waits until he can confront his wife privately. She is still arranging her head-veils, which Spinelloccio has pulled down while they were together. Asked what she is doing, she answers as if the scene were plain; Zeppa tells her that he has seen more than he wished to see. After questioning, she admits her familiarity with Spinelloccio and begs forgiveness. Zeppa does not simply dismiss her apology or immediately expose his friend. Instead, he makes her participation in his plan the condition of pardon, promising that Spinelloccio will not be harmed.

The Chest and Zeppa’s Reprisal

Zeppa instructs his wife to arrange a meeting for the following morning, around tierce, and to hide Spinelloccio in a chest when Zeppa returns. The plan depends on the same domestic access that made the affair possible: Spinelloccio invents an early appointment with a friend, parts from Zeppa, circles back, and enters the neighbor’s house to meet the wife. When she hears Zeppa return, she pretends alarm and locks Spinelloccio inside the chest.

Zeppa then sends for Spinelloccio’s wife, saying that her husband has gone to dine elsewhere and inviting her to their home. Once she has arrived, he takes her into the chamber and locks the door. He explains that he knows Spinelloccio has slept with his wife and frames his intended retaliation as an equivalent answer: Spinelloccio has had Zeppa’s wife, so Zeppa means to have his. He also warns that refusal could lead him to punish both of them more severely. Spinelloccio’s wife agrees on the condition that she and Zeppa’s wife can remain at peace with each other; Zeppa assures her that they can, and promises her a precious jewel as well.

While Zeppa lies with her, Spinelloccio hears the exchange from inside the chest and feels what is happening above him. His first response is intense humiliation and anger. Yet, trapped and fearing Zeppa, he does not rebuke his wife. He then considers that the offense began with him and concludes that Zeppa has acted within his right, while still treating him humanely as a companion. The chest thus turns the hidden adultery into an unavoidable spectacle for its first instigator: Spinelloccio cannot interrupt the scene and must experience the retaliation he set in motion.

Reconciliation and Ending

After Zeppa leaves the chamber, Spinelloccio’s wife asks for the promised jewel. Zeppa calls his own wife in, and she opens the chest to reveal Spinelloccio. The exposure completes the revenge: Spinelloccio knows Zeppa knows, and his wife understands that her husband has heard and felt what happened over his head. The revelation does not lead to a fight or a renewed concealment. Spinelloccio declares them even and proposes that the men remain friends as before, sharing their wives as the only thing between them that had not previously been shared. Zeppa accepts.

All four dine together in harmony, and the story says that afterward neither man nor wife bears a grudge. Its ending transforms a breach of trust into a reciprocal pact, though the transformation is not presented as a return to the earlier innocence: the friendship continues after the secret has been exposed and answered. Spinelloccio’s willingness to acknowledge that he initiated the injury is essential to the settlement, while Zeppa’s response stops short of the violence or public disgrace that discovery might have produced.

Narrative Role

Fiammetta introduces the tale as a lighter answer to the scholar’s severe vengeance in the preceding story. Zeppa’s retaliation is presented as proportionate to the offense, and Spinelloccio’s change from hidden adulterer to chastened participant supplies the turn that makes reconciliation possible. The chest gives the episode its governing image and mechanism: it conceals Spinelloccio from sight but leaves him close enough to hear and feel the consequences of his own conduct. The final shared meal then replaces secrecy with an openly acknowledged, if highly unusual, arrangement. Spinelloccio remains Zeppa’s friend not because the betrayal is forgotten, but because the two men recognize the injury, answer it, and agree to live without further grievance.