Arno River

The Arno River is the defining landmark in an episode set at a farm near its bank in the upper Val d'Arno. Its presence first makes the farm seem suited to bathing in July; later, from a nearby tower, the visible water becomes an agonizing reminder of what the stranded woman cannot reach.

Setting Along the River

The lady identifies her farm as lying near the Arno River’s bank and says that July is a pleasant time for bathing. Not far from the stream stands a little, otherwise uninhabited tower. Shepherds sometimes climb a chestnut-wood ladder to its upper platform to look for stray animals, but the tower is secluded and out of the way. The river, farm, and tower thus form a compact landscape in which an ordinary place for bathing lies close to a structure that can be used to confine someone.

The River and the Tower Episode

At night the lady goes to the riverbank, checks that nobody is nearby, removes her clothes, and bathes seven times while holding an image. She then approaches the tower naked, carrying it, unaware that the scholar is watching from among the willows and other trees. After she climbs to the upper platform and performs the prescribed conjuration, the scholar quietly removes the ladder. The river is close, but the tower has become inaccessible.

Visible Water, Unreachable Relief

By midday the sun beats down on the tower platform. The woman suffers from the heat, flies and gadflies, hunger, and especially thirst. She looks for anyone who might help, but the fields are deserted: the husbandmen have left to thresh their sheaves beside their homes, and no one has come to work nearby. She sees the Arno River, but its presence does not relieve her; the sight of its water instead intensifies her thirst. Nearby thickets, shade, and houses likewise remain visible but unavailable. The river’s role is therefore sharply ironic: it is the reason the site seemed attractive for bathing, yet from the tower it marks the distance between seeing relief and being able to reach it.