Bengodi

Bengodi is the imaginary country Maso del Saggio describes to Calandrino as a place of inexhaustible food and marvels. Its lavish absurdities capture Calandrino’s credulity and prepare the ground for Maso to redirect his appetite for wonders toward a supposedly magical stone closer to home.

Identity and Description

Maso locates Bengodi in the country of the Basques and gives its city as Berlinzone. It is not presented as a place Calandrino has visited or can verify, but as a distant marvel in a confident account of the virtues of stones. Maso claims that most such stones are found there, placing Bengodi within a mixture of lapidary lore and extravagant fantasy.

The country’s abundance is made vivid through a chain of culinary impossibilities. Vines are tied up with sausages; a goose costs a farthing and comes with a gosling; and a mountain consists entirely of grated Parmesan cheese. People living on the mountain do nothing but make macaroni and ravioli, cook them in capon broth, and throw them down its slopes, where whoever gathers the most gets the most. Nearby runs a stream of vernage wine with not a drop of water in it. The account makes plenty seem effortless: food grows, flows, or falls into reach, and even competition takes the form of gathering a feast.

Maso’s Tale and Calandrino’s Response

Maso delivers these marvels as if giving authoritative information, without laughing. Calandrino accepts them as truth. He asks whether Maso has actually been there, how far away it is, and what happens to the capons used for broth. Maso answers that he has gone a thousand times, puts the distance at a million miles or more, and says that the Basques eat the capons. When Calandrino compares the distance with the Abruzzi, Maso assures him Bengodi is farther still.

The imagined distance makes the country desirable but impractical for Calandrino: he says he would go to see the macaroni tumbling down and eat his fill if it were nearer, but the journey is too far for his means. He then asks whether any wonder-working stones can be found locally. Maso moves from the distant abundance of Bengodi to two kinds of stone available nearby, including the heliotrope, which he claims makes its bearer invisible. He locates that stone in the Mugnone, where Calandrino seeks the heliotrope stone, and describes it as nearly black and of varying sizes. Calandrino privately resolves to search for it and goes to find Bruno and Buffalmacco so that they can begin before anyone else.

Narrative Function

Bengodi is a verbal construction within Maso’s deception, not a destination in the events described. Its impossible provisions show how readily Calandrino accepts an assured performance as evidence; his detailed questions extend the fantasy rather than test it. Maso’s extravagant account also supplies a contrast that makes the next claim more persuasive: after describing a far-off country of wonders, he offers a marvel supposedly hidden in a familiar local river.

The passage gives Bengodi a precise role in the story’s progression. The country’s promise of food catches Calandrino’s imagination, while its distance closes off the literal journey. That disappointment turns his attention toward a nearby wonder and leads him to enlist his companions in the search. Bengodi therefore remains an imagined place, but its abundance helps set a real course of action in motion.