Buonconvento where Agnolo and Fartarrigo lodged is the scene of a short stop that turns a journey into a public dispute. At an inn there, Cecco Angiolieri’s attempt to rest after dinner gives Cecco Fortarrigo the chance to gamble away both his own possessions and Angiolieri’s money, leaving Angiolieri unable to pay when he is ready to depart.

Setting and Journey

Angiolieri and Fortarrigo arrive at Buonconvento during a journey from Siena toward the Marches of Ancona. Angiolieri is travelling to seek improved circumstances through the support of a cardinal, while Fortarrigo has persuaded him to take him along as a servant, promising to avoid his habits of gambling and drunkenness. Their stop in Buonconvento is therefore part of a practical journey, not a destination in itself.

After dinner at the inn, the heat leads Angiolieri to have a bed prepared. He undresses with Fortarrigo’s help and lies down to sleep, instructing his companion to wake him at None. The inn briefly serves as a place of rest and trust: Angiolieri leaves his purse accessible while he sleeps and expects Fortarrigo to keep watch.

Events at the Inn

Once Angiolieri is asleep, Fortarrigo goes to a tavern and begins gambling. He loses the money he has with him and then the clothes he is wearing. Hoping to recover his losses, he returns to the inn in his shirt, takes Angiolieri’s money from his purse, and loses that at play as well. The theft turns the promised service into a betrayal, and the money intended to support Angiolieri’s journey is gone before he knows it.

Angiolieri wakes, dresses, and cannot find Fortarrigo. Assuming that he has become drunk or fallen asleep somewhere, Angiolieri decides to leave him behind and find another servant at Corsignano. He has his saddle and valise put on his palfrey and goes to settle the inn bill, only to discover that he has no money. His accusation that he has been robbed, and his threat to have the innkeeper and household taken as prisoners to Siena, set the inn in an uproar.

Narrative Significance

Fortarrigo returns to the inn just as Angiolieri is ready to mount, still in his shirt and intent on taking his master’s clothes as well as his money. An inn guest identifies him as the thief by showing Angiolieri the money he had lost at gambling. The episode thus makes the inn the point where Fortarrigo’s private recklessness becomes an unmistakable public crisis: Angiolieri’s intended departure is halted, and his anger is sharpened by the proof of the theft.

The setting also concentrates the story’s reversal of master and servant. Angiolieri had accepted Fortarrigo on his assurance that he would reform; at the inn, Fortarrigo exploits the trust created by that arrangement, while Angiolieri is left unable even to pay the bill. Buonconvento’s narrative importance lies in this compact sequence of rest, betrayal, and exposure, which propels the conflict onward.