Carthage, the princess’s port of departure, is the place where a royal marriage plan becomes a dangerous sea voyage. In Emilia’s tale of Gerbino and the Tunisian princess, the city’s harbor is the staging point for the ship that is to carry her to Granada; its departure brings her route across the sea into conflict with Gerbino’s love and the promise King Guglielmo II of Sicily has given her father.

The Port and Its Role

Carthage appears as a practical center of preparation rather than as a setting described for its buildings or daily life. The King of Tunis has a large, well-appointed ship fitted out in its port, supplying what the passengers and crew will need for the journey. The vessel is also adorned for the princess’s passage to Granada. The account gives the harbor a precise narrative function: it is the point from which a private family arrangement is launched into a wider political and maritime world.

Departure and the Promise

The princess knows that the preparations are under way. Before the ship sails, she secretly sends a servant to Palermo to tell Gerbino that she will soon be leaving for Granada. Her message turns the voyage into a test of whether he will act on the love he has professed. Gerbino, however, knows that his grandfather, King Guglielmo II of Sicily, has assured the King of Tunis that neither he nor anyone else will interfere with the passage. The assurance was given without knowledge of Gerbino’s passion, and the glove sent as its token gives that promise a concrete place in the unfolding conflict.

The Voyage’s Narrative Consequence

Once the King of Tunis has received the assurance, the ship waits only for suitable weather. Gerbino responds to the princess’s message by arming two light galleys at Messina and sailing toward the coast of Sardinia to intercept her vessel. He has been waiting only a few days when the ship comes into view. Carthage thus marks the beginning of the journey that brings the lovers’ private desire into collision with a public pledge: what leaves its harbor as a planned marriage voyage becomes the occasion for Gerbino to choose between obedience to his grandfather’s guarantee and the action urged by love.