Bologna appears in two distinct episodes in the Decameron: as the home of the elderly physician Alberto of Bologna, whose courtship of a widow turns a group of women’s teasing back upon themselves, and as the place where Gualtieri’s children are raised in secrecy. The city thus frames both a contest of wit and a concealed family history.

Alberto of Bologna and the widow

Alberto of Bologna is described as a celebrated physician living in Bologna, nearly seventy years old, whose learning and quick spirit have not extinguished his capacity for love. After seeing the beautiful widow Madam Malgherida de' Ghisolieri at an entertainment, he becomes so enamored that he repeatedly passes her house, on foot or horseback. His conspicuous devotion amuses her and other women, who suppose that love belongs chiefly to young men.

One holiday, the widow and her companions see Alberto approaching while they sit before her house. They welcome him into a shady courtyard, serve fine wine and sweetmeats, and politely ask why he loves a woman courted by handsome, lively young gentlemen. Alberto replies that age may diminish the body’s vigor without taking away either desire or the understanding to recognize what deserves love. He claims that age and experience may even improve that judgment.

To explain why he might be chosen over younger suitors, Alberto compares the women’s choice of lovers to eating leeks. Though the leek’s head is the more agreeable part, he observes, people with a perverse appetite hold the head and eat the less pleasant leaves. The comparison turns their assumption against them: perhaps, he suggests, they make the same mistake in choosing lovers. The women acknowledge that he has courteously chastised their attempt to ridicule him. The widow expresses esteem for a worthy and learned man while reserving her honor, and Alberto takes his leave with laughter. The episode makes Bologna the setting for a reversal in which the would-be mockers become the ones discomfited.

The children raised in Bologna

Bologna also provides a place away from Gualtieri’s household where his children can be raised without their parentage being disclosed. After Griselda gives up her infant daughter in response to what she believes is Gualtieri’s order, he sends the child to a kinswoman in Bologna and instructs her to bring the girl up diligently without revealing whose daughter she is.

Gualtieri later has both children brought up in Bologna by that kinswoman, who is married to a gentleman of the Panago family. By the time he arranges for them to return to Saluzzo, the girl is twelve and the boy six. He sends for the kinswoman’s husband to bring them, together with a distinguished company, and to present the girl publicly as his intended bride, without disclosing her identity. Bologna has therefore been the children’s place of upbringing during their separation from Griselda and their father’s court; their return makes the concealed connection central to the scene at Saluzzo.

Bologna’s narrative function

The two episodes give Bologna different but complementary roles. In the physician’s story, it is the immediate setting for a public encounter in which social confidence and age are tested through conversation. In Griselda’s story, it is a location of private custody and concealment, where children grow up under another household’s care before being brought back into the political and familial world from which they were separated. The evidence establishes these particular narrative uses rather than offering a broader description of the city.