Ambrogiuolo’s chest

Ambrogiuolo’s chest turns an ordinary household object into an instrument of covert entry and fraud. Hidden inside it, Ambrogiuolo of Piacenza reaches Ginevra’s bedchamber without her knowledge, gathers details and possessions from the room, and later presents them as proof that he has seduced her.

Construction and Concealment

To carry out his scheme, Ambrogiuolo befriends a poor woman who is often at Ginevra’s house and bribes her when she will not otherwise help him. He has a chest made to his own design and persuades the woman to bring it into the bedchamber, ostensibly to leave it in Ginevra’s care for a few days while she goes elsewhere. The chest’s presence thus appears to have an innocent explanation, while its unusual construction serves Ambrogiuolo’s actual purpose: hiding him inside the very room he wants to enter.

What the Chest Enables

After night falls, Ambrogiuolo uses tools to open the chest and slips out while a light is burning. He studies the chamber’s arrangement, paintings, and other notable features, committing them to memory. Ginevra and a little girl are asleep. He uncovers Ginevra and notices a distinctive mole beneath her left breast, ringed by small reddish-gold hairs, then covers her again. Tempted to lie beside her, he nevertheless refrains, having heard of her resolve to resist men.

Ambrogiuolo spends most of the night in the room, takes a purse, a night-rail, rings, and girdles from one of Ginevra’s coffers, and returns to the chest. He repeats the operation on a second night, without waking her. On the third day, the woman retrieves the chest and carries it away; Ambrogiuolo rewards her and departs for Paris with the stolen possessions.

Evidence and Deception

In Paris, Ambrogiuolo claims to have won the wager against Bernabo Lomellini. He describes Ginevra’s chamber and produces the objects taken from it. Bernabo recognizes the room and possessions but doubts that they prove his wife’s infidelity: a servant might have disclosed the room’s appearance, and the goods might have been stolen. Ambrogiuolo then gives the private bodily detail he observed while Ginevra slept. Bernabo’s reaction confirms that the detail is true, and he accepts Ambrogiuolo’s claim and pays him.

The chest therefore makes a false account look like witnessed fact. It allows Ambrogiuolo to acquire genuine knowledge and property without Ginevra’s awareness, then to misuse those truths as evidence of an encounter that never occurred. His boast that he has done his will with her conceals the central distinction: he has entered her room and observed her, but he has not persuaded or possessed her.

Narrative Significance

The chest’s work depends on concealment, but its effects become public. First it hides Ambrogiuolo from the sleeping woman; later, the chamber details, stolen belongings, and intimate mark he gathered while hidden persuade Bernabo that Ginevra has betrayed him. The object links a secret intrusion to a disastrous judgment, showing how carefully staged evidence can make an innocent person appear guilty.