Bernabo Lomellini—Ambrogiuolo of Piacenza

Bernabo Lomellini and Ambrogiuolo of Piacenza are adversaries whose dispute over Ginevra’s fidelity turns a merchants’ conversation into a dangerous contest of confidence and proof. Bernabo defends his wife as exceptionally capable and chaste; Ambrogiuolo treats that confidence as a challenge, arguing that secrecy makes infidelity impossible to detect. Their relationship is defined by this collision between personal trust and cynical generalization, and the story’s framing proverb points toward its eventual reversal: the deceiver will end at the mercy of the deceived.

The Paris Dispute

The conflict begins among Italian merchants gathered at an inn in Paris. After supper, their talk turns to the wives they have left at home. Several men speak lightly of taking pleasure with other women while away, and assume that their wives are likewise making use of their absence. Bernabo alone rejects this mutual suspicion. His disagreement with Ambrogiuolo is therefore not an abstract debate: the men are speaking about their own marriages and about the trust a husband can place in a wife who lives beyond his immediate observation.

Bernabo presents Ginevra as a woman of exceptional accomplishments. He praises her beauty, youth, strength, skill in embroidery, and competence in serving at a noble table. He adds that she rides, flies a hawk, reads, writes, and reckons with the ability of a merchant. The breadth of this account matters: his confidence rests not only on an assertion of chastity but on a portrait of a capable and prudent person. He insists that even a long absence could not make her incline toward another man.

Ambrogiuolo answers the praise with mockery, asking whether Bernabo has been granted a special privilege unavailable to other husbands. The taunt turns Bernabo’s confidence into a public claim to be challenged. In the company of merchants, where the discussion has already treated marriage through reciprocal suspicion, Bernabo’s defense of Ginevra sets him apart and gives Ambrogiuolo an opening to present himself as the more worldly judge of human conduct.

Opposing Accounts of Fidelity

Ambrogiuolo builds his case by presenting male desire as a measure of what women can resist. He calls man the nobler and more perfect creature, then argues that men nevertheless desire women, pursue them, and yield to opportunities repeatedly. From this comparison he concludes that women, whom he characterizes as more changeable, cannot be expected to withstand an ingenious suitor’s prayers, blandishments, and gifts. His reasoning claims to be grounded in nature, but it also makes his own pursuit of women the evidence for his general rule.

Bernabo replies from a different standard. He acknowledges that foolish or shameless women might yield, but distinguishes them from discreet women who guard their honour. He treats Ginevra’s prudence as a strength capable of resisting temptation, not as an exception guaranteed by divine favour. The disagreement thus concerns more than whether one particular woman is faithful: Bernabo makes individual character and honour decisive, while Ambrogiuolo tries to reduce conduct to a general rule about sexual appetite and opportunity.

Ambrogiuolo sharpens his argument by claiming that an unfaithful woman may leave no visible sign of her conduct. In his account, secrecy prevents public discovery, and public discovery—not the act itself—determines whether a woman’s honour is stained. He goes further, asserting that a woman is chaste only if she has never been solicited or has solicited without success, and invokes his own encounters with women as proof. This move recasts concealment as evidence that Bernabo cannot know what he claims to know. Yet the confidence of the claim also exposes its weakness: Ambrogiuolo presents his own asserted experience as authority, while offering no independent proof about Ginevra.

From Argument to Wager

Bernabo answers that words could prolong the dispute indefinitely without settling it. Rather than continue trading general claims, he proposes a test: he is willing to have his head cut off if Ambrogiuolo can induce his wife to do as Ambrogiuolo alleges. In place of Bernabo’s life, he offers a thousand gold florins should Ambrogiuolo fail. The terms turn a disagreement into a contest with radically unequal stakes: Bernabo places his life and confidence in Ginevra against money, while Ambrogiuolo’s success would demonstrate the power he has claimed for himself.

Ambrogiuolo, now heated by the argument, declines the prospect of Bernabo’s blood and raises the monetary stake. He proposes five thousand gold florins of Bernabo’s money against one thousand of his own. The surviving exchange shows how quickly each man’s rhetoric becomes commitment: Bernabo’s certainty prompts a challenge, and Ambrogiuolo’s boast converts that challenge into a wager. The contest is not yet proof of either man’s position, but it establishes the conditions under which one will be made to answer for his certainty.

Deception and Reversal

The story’s heading supplies the broad outcome of the contest: Ambrogiuolo dupes Bernabo, Bernabo loses his goods, and the deceived husband orders his innocent wife put to death. Ginevra escapes, serves the Soldan in a man’s habit, encounters the man who deceived her husband, and brings Bernabo to Alexandria. After Ambrogiuolo is punished, she resumes women’s clothing and returns to Genoa with Bernabo, rich. The heading therefore makes clear that the wager’s result is not a private matter between two merchants; Bernabo’s trust in Ambrogiuolo’s supposed proof carries mortal consequences for Ginevra.

That announced reversal also gives the opening debate an ironic shape. Ambrogiuolo argues that the hidden leaves no trace and that a husband cannot reliably know his wife’s conduct; the story’s frame instead presents Ginevra as innocent and identifies Ambrogiuolo as the deceiver. Bernabo’s confidence is not vindicated by his ability to win the initial contest. Rather, the narrative points toward a later reversal in which the deceived husband is brought face to face with the deceiver and the balance of power changes. The relationship between the men thus moves from public argument, to wager, to fraud and loss, and finally toward the deceiver’s punishment and Bernabo’s recovery.