Andreuola and Gabriotto Marry in Secret

Andrevuola and Gabriotto’s secret marriage makes their clandestine love a private marital bond, but its promise of security is shadowed by a dream of violent separation. In Brescia, the young daughter of Messer Negro da Ponte Carraro loves Gabriotto, a man of humbler condition but praised for his character and appearance. With help from a household maid, she brings him repeatedly into her father’s garden, where the two meet in secret.

Courtship in the Garden

Andrevuola is young, unmarried, and notably beautiful; Gabriotto is her neighbour, socially beneath her but described as virtuous in his manners, comely, and pleasant. Their attachment is mutual: the maid’s help enables Gabriotto to learn that Andrevuola loves him, and their meetings become a recurring source of delight. The garden, belonging to Andrevuola’s father, is both the place that makes their intimacy possible and a space in which it must remain concealed.

A Marriage Kept Secret

The lovers do not leave their relationship at courtship. They secretly become husband and wife, intending that no cause other than death should ever separate their pleasures. The account gives no further details of a ceremony or public acknowledgment; its emphasis is on the bond they form in secrecy and on the security they hope that bond will provide. Their marriage thus joins personal consent and mutual desire while remaining hidden within the household whose garden shelters their meetings.

The Dream That Shadows Their Hope

After the secret marriage, Andrevuola dreams that she is holding Gabriotto in their garden. Something dark and terrible, whose form she cannot make out, emerges from his body, tears him from her embrace, and carries him underground; she can no longer see either figure. She wakes grieving, then feels relief that the scene was only a dream, though fear remains. The vision sharply counters the lovers’ hope that only death could part them: without establishing what will follow, the narrative places the possibility of separation inside the very garden associated with their happiness.