Berto della Massa

Berto della Massa turns a ruined reputation into a counterfeit reputation for sanctity, then sees that disguise stripped away in public. In Venice, the thief, pimp, forger, and killer becomes the Minor Friar Fra Alberto, trusted with wills, money, confession, and counsel. His seduction of Lisetta da Ca' Quirino depends on that borrowed religious authority: he claims that the Angel Gabriel desires her and will visit her by occupying Berto’s body. When the fraud is exposed, Berto is not merely unmasked but displayed as a wild man, the spectacle of holiness reversed into public disgrace.

Identity and Reinvention

In Imola, Berto’s conduct has made him so notorious that no one will believe him even when he tells the truth. With his usual devices no longer useful there, he moves to Venice, described by the storyteller as a place where he hopes to find new opportunities for his wicked practices. He takes the religious name Fra Alberta da Imola and enters the Order of Friars Minor. The change is outward, not moral: the narrative makes his new identity a calculated response to the failure of his old one.

His public manner is carefully composed. He appears austere, commends abstinence and mortification, and avoids meat and wine when they are not to his liking. He can also produce tears while celebrating Mass, as if grief for Christ’s Passion came readily to him. The contrast is central to his character: practices that might signal devotion become tools in a performance designed to make others trust him.

Authority Built on a False Reputation

As Fra Alberto, Berto changes from a figure distrusted in Imola into a prominent and influential man in Venice. His preaching and staged penitence persuade the citizens that he is holy. They appoint him trustee of wills and keeper of money; many also rely on him as confessor and counsellor. His reputation grows so large that the story says his fame for sanctity there exceeded that of Saint Francis at Assisi.

The tale places this ascent within an explicit criticism of clerical hypocrisy. Its framing condemns religious figures who solicit the public in humble tones but loudly rebuke others for vices they themselves practice, and who imply that money left to the clergy can secure a better place in Paradise. Berto exemplifies the danger of trusting religious appearance as proof of character: his supposed austerity and spiritual authority conceal a man who has not abandoned his earlier crimes. His access to confession gives him a particularly useful opening when Lisetta comes to him seeking counsel.

The Deception of Lisetta

Lisetta da Ca' Quirino is a vain young woman whose merchant husband is away with the galleys in Flanders. At confession, she boasts of her beauty and says she could have lovers if she wished, though she considers herself too exceptional to give herself to just anyone. Berto recognizes her vanity as an opportunity and falls in love with her. For the moment, he conceals his interest behind the role of a holy friar, rebuking her pride before allowing her to leave.

Days later, he visits her with a trusted companion and asks forgiveness for having disparaged her beauty. He claims that, after their conversation, a radiant youth appeared in his cell, dragged him up by his gown, and beat him with a cudgel. According to Berto, the visitor identified himself as the Angel Gabriel and said he had punished the friar for belittling Lisetta’s celestial charms. Berto adds that the angel ordered him to obtain her pardon, then invented an even more compromising message: Gabriel supposedly loved Lisetta and wished to spend a night with her in human form.

The fiction also solves a practical problem for Berto. He tells Lisetta that the angel will enter her room using Berto’s body, while Berto’s soul goes to Paradise for the duration. He asks her to leave the door open and presents this arrangement as a favour to him. Lisetta believes the story, welcomes the promised visit, and agrees to the conditions. Berto thus turns her vanity, his authority as confessor, and the language of devotion into cover for his attempted seduction.

Exposure and Punishment

The plan collapses when Lisetta’s kinsmen discover the night-time visitor. Berto escapes by throwing himself into a canal, but a man who gives him refuge learns what happened and recognizes him as the supposed Angel Gabriel. The host then makes Berto pay fifty ducats to avoid being handed over to Lisetta’s relatives. When Berto tries to leave, the host offers him another escape: concealment in a public festival procession.

To disguise him, the host smears Berto with honey, covers him with down, puts a chain around his neck and a mask over his face, and gives him a staff and two dogs. He announces at the Rialto that anyone who wants to see the Angel Gabriel should go to St. Mark’s Place. Once the crowd has gathered, he removes Berto’s mask and identifies him as the friar who supposedly visited Venetian women by night. The religious disguise gives way to the image of a chained, honey-covered wild man, exposed to the very public whose trust he had cultivated.

The crowd recognizes Berto, curses and insults him, and throws filth at him. His fellow friars eventually arrive, unchain him, cover him with a gown, and carry him back to the convent amid the people’s cries. The account says he was believed to have died there in prison after a wretched life. His ending reverses his rise: the man once treated as a shepherd of souls is publicly exhibited as a fraud, and the practices by which he manufactured sanctity become the means of his humiliation.