Bernabo Orders Ginevra’s Murder

Bernabo Orders Ginevra’s Murder is the moment when Bernabo Lomellini converts a wager into an attempted execution. Ambrogiuolo’s claim about a private bodily mark persuades Bernabo that Ginevra has been unfaithful, although the account does not establish that she has done so. Rather than seek her explanation, Bernabo arranges her death in secret. The command is carried out only in part: the servant sent to kill her relents, and Ginevra escapes by exchanging clothes and disappearing under a new appearance.

The Wager Becomes a Verdict

Ambrogiuolo returns to Paris claiming victory in his wager with Bernabo. He first describes Ginevra’s chamber and produces possessions taken from her coffer: a purse, a night-rail, rings, and girdles. Bernabo recognizes the room and the belongings, but objects that Ambrogiuolo could have learned about them from a servant. The dispute changes when Ambrogiuolo names a mole under Ginevra’s left breast, surrounded by several small hairs red as gold. Bernabo’s changed countenance betrays his belief that this detail is true. He concedes that Ambrogiuolo has won and pays him in full the next day.

The mark functions as intimate evidence, but it proves less than Bernabo takes it to prove. It establishes that Ambrogiuolo had access to Ginevra while she slept; it does not, by itself, establish adultery. The distinction is the hinge of the episode: a detail about her body, taken without her knowledge, becomes a verdict about her conduct. Once the wager has been settled, Bernabo leaves Paris and heads toward Genoa with what the narrative calls a fierce intent against his wife. The speed of the transition—from recognition, to payment, to a plan for killing—leaves no space for Ginevra to answer the accusation.

A Secret Command on the Road

Bernabo does not enter Genoa. He stops at a country house about twenty miles away and sends a trusted servant into the city with two horses and letters under his own hand. The letter tells Ginevra that her husband has returned and summons her to join him. Privately, Bernabo gives the servant a different instruction: once he is with her in a place he considers suitable, he is to kill her without pity and return to his master. Bernabo threatens to have him hanged if he refuses.

The arrangement makes the journey itself part of the trap. Ginevra receives what appears to be a joyful message from her returning husband and sets out the following day on horseback with the messenger. As they travel together, they talk of ordinary matters. The servant waits until they reach a deep, lonely valley, enclosed by high rocks and trees, which he judges to be safe for himself as a place to carry out the order. The secluded landscape offers privacy for the killing Bernabo has planned, but it also leaves the servant alone with the person he has been told to kill.

The Servant Refuses the Order

The servant draws his knife, takes Ginevra by the arm, and tells her that she must die before they go farther. Her first response is to ask what offense she has committed against him. He says that she has wronged him in no way; he does not know what she may have done to her husband. He explains that Bernabo commanded the killing and threatened him with hanging if he disobeyed. His words distinguish obedience from conviction: he presents himself as beholden to his master, yet acknowledges his reluctance to murder her.

Ginevra appeals to that reluctance, asking him not to become the killer of someone who has never injured him merely to serve another. She denies having done anything that would deserve such a punishment from her husband. Then, instead of pleading only for mercy, she offers a practical alternative. The servant can take her clothes, give her his doublet and hood, return to Bernabo, and say that she is dead. She promises to leave the country so completely that neither man will hear news of her. Her proposal gives the servant a way to obey the appearance of his commission while refusing its lethal purpose.

An Escape Concealed as a Death

Moved by compassion, the servant accepts the exchange. He takes Ginevra’s clothes, gives her a worn doublet and hood, and leaves her the money she has with her. He urges her to go away and departs for Bernabo, falsely reporting that he has fulfilled the command and left her body among a pack of wolves. The lie supplies the death Bernabo expects to hear of, although no killing has taken place. Back in Genoa, Bernabo returns, and when the matter becomes known, people blame him.

Ginevra remains alone and disconsolate in the valley until nightfall. She then disguises herself as best she can and goes to a nearby village, where an old woman helps her obtain what she needs. Ginevra alters the doublet to fit her body, makes linen breeches from her shift, cuts her hair, and transforms herself into the appearance of a sailor. The sequence turns clothing into the practical means of survival: the garments that first serve as proof in Ambrogiuolo’s story are replaced by a disguise that allows Ginevra to evade the identity and fate assigned to her. She leaves the valley on foot and heads for the shore, beginning a life away from Bernabo and the people who knew her.

The episode’s reversal is built on competing acts of interpretation. Bernabo treats a bodily detail as conclusive proof and makes that judgment fatal; the servant, confronted with Ginevra in person, recognizes the human cost of carrying out the order and chooses not to kill her. Ginevra, in turn, turns the servant’s decision into an escape plan. The reported death closes Bernabo’s immediate search, while her altered clothes and cut hair open a route beyond his control.