Barletta

Barletta is presented as the home and working base of Dom Gianni di Barolo, a priest whose modest parish income leads him to trade from fair to fair across Apulia. In Dioneo’s tale, the town also anchors his friendship with Pietro da Tresanti: Dom Gianni welcomes Pietro at his parsonage, while Pietro later returns that hospitality in Tresanti.

Setting and livelihood

The story introduces Barletta through Dom Gianni’s circumstances rather than through a description of its streets or institutions. His parish provides too little to live on, so he supplements his livelihood by carrying goods to fairs around Apulia and buying and selling there. His mare is both his means of travel and part of the small working world that connects the town to the region’s fair circuit.

A friendship formed on the road

Dom Gianni meets Pietro da Tresanti, who follows the same trade with an ass. Their shared itinerant work develops into a close friendship. When Pietro comes to Barletta, Dom Gianni takes him to the parsonage and lodges and entertains him as generously as his means allow; Barletta is thus the setting for one half of a relationship built on repeated visits and mutual obligation.

The parsonage and reciprocal hospitality

Pietro returns the welcome when Dom Gianni visits Tresanti, though he cannot offer comparable sleeping arrangements. Pietro’s small house has only one bed, shared by him and Gemmata, his young wife. Dom Gianni therefore sleeps on a bundle of straw beside his mare, which is stabled with Pietro’s ass. The contrast makes the practical limits of their hospitality visible: the friends are willing to receive one another, but their lodging and resources are modest.

Place in the tale

Barletta’s narrative importance lies in this pattern of work and welcome. It is where Dom Gianni’s trade, parsonage, and friendship with Pietro are established; the later comic episode involving the mare unfolds during a visit to Pietro in Tresanti. The town therefore supplies the point of departure for a story in which an ordinary exchange of hospitality becomes the occasion for a fantastical deception.