Alessandro Chiarmontesi

Alessandro Chiarmontesi is one of two Florentine exiles in Pistoia who secretly pursue the widowed Francesca de' Lazzari. His defining action is to accept her macabre test of love: he enters a tomb dressed as a notorious dead man and waits to be carried away as a corpse. The plan’s reversal turns his courage into an awkward spectacle, and its failure gives Francesca a pretext to refuse him.

Identity and Pursuit

Alessandro is in Pistoia because he has been banished from Florence. He and Rinuccio Palermini are both passionately enamored of Francesca, each privately doing what he can to win her favor without knowing that the other is also her suitor. Francesca, a fair widow, has sometimes listened to their messages and entreaties, but now wishes to withdraw from both attentions discreetly.

To escape their persistence without appearing simply to reject their professions, Francesca devises a service she expects neither man to perform. That calculation gives Alessandro a consequential choice: the task may win him the intimacy he wants, but it requires him to impersonate a corpse in the tomb of Scannadio, a man whose wickedness and fearsome appearance had made people dread him even when he was alive.

The Tomb and the Interrupted Errand

Francesca sends Alessandro a message promising that the moment has come for him to gain her love. He is to go at the time of the first sleep to Scannadio’s tomb, put on the dead man’s clothes, and remain motionless and silent until someone comes to carry him to her house. Once there, he is told, he may stay with her and leave at his leisure. Alessandro accepts the conditions and goes into the tomb, despite his fear.

Rinuccio, sent separately to fetch Scannadio’s body, opens the tomb and reaches for what he believes is the corpse. He takes hold of Alessandro’s feet and draws him out. Instead of discovering the mistake, Rinuccio hoists him onto his shoulders and sets off toward Francesca’s house. The dead man’s clothes hang long on Alessandro as he is jolted against benches along the way; in the dark, Rinuccio does not recognize his burden.

Near the house, the watch—lying in wait for an outlaw—hears Rinuccio’s movements, raises an alarm, and rattles its shields and halberds. Rinuccio drops Alessandro and runs. Alessandro then rises and flees as well, hampered by the long garments. He does not recognize the man who has carried him. The errand that was meant to bring him into Francesca’s house ends instead in flight, just short of its destination.

Francesca’s Judgment and His Narrative Role

Francesca has watched from a window with her maid and recognizes Rinuccio carrying Alessandro. Though astonished by the suitors’ hardihood, she laughs at the sight of Alessandro cast down and scrambling away. She interprets their willingness to attempt her commands as evidence that they love her greatly, yet the interruption prevents either from fulfilling the required service.

The next day, Alessandro reports what he did and what befell him, excuses his failure to complete the command, and claims Francesca’s favor. She pretends not to believe either suitor and refuses them both, saying that neither has done what she required. Alessandro’s daring therefore does not secure the promised reward: Francesca’s test is less an invitation than a means of making rejection defensible. His part in the tale depends on the sharp contrast between the extremity of his obedience and the small, accidental turn that defeats it.