Alfonso Tests Ruggieri with Two Chests and Gives Him a Generous Gift

Alfonso Tests Ruggieri with Two Chests and Gives Him a Generous Gift makes a dispute over merit and royal favor turn on a mule’s inconvenient bladder and a choice between two locked chests. Messer Ruggieri de' Figiovanni’s criticism is sharp but measured: he objects not to being denied wealth, but to having his ability go unacknowledged. Alfonso answers by testing him, then giving public form to the esteem that Ruggieri believed had been withheld.

Background and grievance

Messer Ruggieri de' Figiovanni is introduced as a rich, high-spirited Tuscan gentleman whose abilities, as he sees them, have little room to show themselves under the customs and way of life of Tuscany. He therefore enters the service of Alfonso, King of Spain, arriving with arms, horses, and attendants. Alfonso receives him graciously. Ruggieri lives splendidly at court and distinguishes himself through deeds of arms, quickly earning a reputation for courage and worth.

After a considerable stay, however, Ruggieri observes that Alfonso distributes castles, cities, and baronies with little discretion, sometimes to people he considers undeserving. He himself has received no comparable reward. He fears that this omission diminishes his reputation, and decides to leave rather than remain where his merit appears to count for nothing. When he asks permission to depart, Alfonso grants it and gives him one of the finest mules he can ride for the long journey. The gift is courteous, but it does not address the grievance: Ruggieri wants recognition of merit, not simply another possession.

The mule and the concealed test

Alfonso does not let Ruggieri leave without first arranging a quiet inquiry into what he truly thinks. He instructs a discreet servant to join the traveler without revealing that the king sent him, listen to his words, and report back the next morning. The servant falls in with Ruggieri outside the city, presenting himself as a fellow traveler bound for Italy. Ruggieri rides the mule Alfonso has given him, unaware that his companion is observing him on the king’s behalf.

The test turns on an ordinary bodily need. Near Tierce, Ruggieri suggests that they stop and let their animals urinate. In the stable, the animals do so, but Alfonso’s mule does not. They ride on to a river, where the mule finally urinates in the water. Ruggieri then compares the animal’s conduct to its former owner’s: the mule fails to do what is called for at the proper time and does it when it is not. The comparison converts his complaint into a compact judgment about Alfonso’s distribution of rewards—giving where he should not and withholding where he should give.

The servant hears this barb, but also observes that Ruggieri has praised Alfonso throughout the journey and says nothing else against him. That contrast matters. Ruggieri’s criticism is not presented as indiscriminate hostility: the sharp remark identifies a specific failure, while the rest of his speech acknowledges the king’s qualities. The following morning, as Ruggieri is preparing to continue toward Tuscany, the servant reveals Alfonso’s command and brings him back to court.

The two chests

Alfonso receives Ruggieri cheerfully and asks why he likened the mule to its giver. Ruggieri answers plainly. The mule, he explains, does not urinate when it should, but does so when it should not; likewise, Alfonso gives where he should not and fails to give where he should. The joke lands because it states the grievance without disguising it. Alfonso does not punish the directness or dispute the comparison. Instead, he says that Ruggieri’s lack of reward came from fortune, not from ignorance of his ability, and proposes to demonstrate this publicly.

He takes Ruggieri into a great hall before a company of witnesses and presents two locked chests as a choice. One, Alfonso explains, contains his crown, royal sceptre and orb, along with precious girdles, brooches, rings, and his other jewels. The other is full of earth. Ruggieri may take whichever he chooses. The test gives tangible form to the question of whether fortune will place royal favor within his reach: one chest holds the signs and substance of sovereignty, the other its stark opposite.

Ruggieri chooses the chest that, when opened, proves to be full of earth. The outcome initially confirms the very misfortune he has described. Alfonso laughs, but uses the result to distinguish his own judgment from fortune’s chance: Ruggieri’s worth, he says, deserves that he oppose fortune’s power. He also recognizes that Ruggieri does not wish to become a Spaniard, and therefore will not try to retain him by granting him a castle or city in Alfonso’s territories.

Gift and significance

Alfonso gives Ruggieri the chest he has chosen, saying that fortune had deprived him of it and that he will make it Ruggieri’s despite her. The story does not turn the earth-filled chest into a hidden treasure; its force lies in the king’s deliberate act of bestowing it after staging a choice that exposed Ruggieri to chance. The gift becomes a visible token of royal regard, which Ruggieri can carry back to Tuscany and use as evidence of his worth in the eyes of his countrymen. He thanks Alfonso and returns home joyfully with the coffer.

The episode resolves the tension between acknowledgment and reward without making the king’s generosity a simple payment for service. Ruggieri’s words expose a failure of recognition; Alfonso’s concealed inquiry lets him hear both the complaint and the praise around it. The two-chest test then transforms an abstract claim about fortune into a public scene, and the final gift answers Ruggieri’s concern about reputation even though the coffer contains earth. The story’s reversal is therefore less about material enrichment than about status: the man who leaves because his merit seems unseen is sent home carrying the king’s personal recognition.