Cecco Angiolieri

Cecco Angiolieri is the well-mannered young man whose journey to improve his prospects is derailed by the companion he reluctantly takes into his service. In Neifile’s tale, Angiolieri sets out for the Marches of Ancona to seek the favor of a cardinal, but Cecco Fortarrigo turns the journey into a sequence of losses: first Angiolieri’s money, then his clothes and horse. The reversal makes Angiolieri’s reasonable foresight no match for Fortarrigo’s improvisational deceit.

Identity and Prospects

Angiolieri is one of two grown men in Siena named Cecco. He is the son of Messer Angiolieri; the other Cecco, the son of Messer Fortarrigo, becomes his companion. The tale says that both young men are hated by their fathers, a shared misfortune that has made them friends and frequent associates despite their differences in character.

Angiolieri is described as handsome and well-mannered. He considers the allowance provided by his father insufficient for the life he hopes to lead in Siena, and when he hears that a cardinal who favors him has arrived in the Marches of Ancona as the Pope’s Legate, he decides to go to him and improve his circumstances. He arranges to receive at once what his father would otherwise give him over six months, so that he can equip himself with clothes and a horse and make a respectable appearance. His plans are practical and directed toward advancement, not adventure for its own sake.

Choosing a Companion

As Angiolieri looks for someone to accompany him in service, Fortarrigo learns of the journey and asks to go along. He offers to be a lackey and servant without wages beyond the payment of his expenses. Angiolieri refuses at first, acknowledging that Fortarrigo could perform the work but objecting that he gambles and sometimes drinks to excess.

Fortarrigo swears that he will avoid both habits. His oaths and repeated pleas eventually persuade Angiolieri to accept him. The decision establishes the story’s central imbalance: Angiolieri recognizes the danger but trusts a promise that Fortarrigo has no intention of keeping. The intended servant will instead control the journey by repeatedly exploiting his master’s attempts to proceed with dignity and order.

Losses at Buonconvento

The two men set out and dine at Buonconvento. After the meal, in the heat of the day, Angiolieri has a bed prepared at the inn and goes to sleep, instructing Fortarrigo to wake him at the appointed hour. Fortarrigo goes to a tavern, drinks, and begins gambling. He loses his own money and clothes, then returns to Angiolieri’s room, takes the money from his sleeping master’s purse, and loses that as well.

When Angiolieri wakes, dresses, and prepares to leave, Fortarrigo is nowhere to be found. Angiolieri assumes that he is sleeping or drunk somewhere and decides to leave him behind. But when he tries to pay the inn bill, he discovers that he has no money. The inn erupts in confusion as he protests that he has been robbed and threatens to have the host and household taken prisoner in Siena. Fortarrigo’s recklessness has thus made Angiolieri answer for a theft that he has not committed.

Fortarrigo returns in his shirt, intending to take Angiolieri’s clothes as well. Seeing his master ready to mount, he talks instead about redeeming his own doublet, which he claims has been pawned. A bystander identifies Fortarrigo as the thief and shows that the money he has lost at play came from Angiolieri. Angiolieri reproaches him and threatens him, but Fortarrigo treats the accusations as a distraction and persists in his talk of the pawned garment. His shameless insistence keeps Angiolieri engaged while the situation continues to worsen.

The Reversal on the Road

Angiolieri turns his palfrey toward Torrenieri and rides away, exasperated by Fortarrigo’s theft and delay. Fortarrigo follows him for about two miles, still wearing only his shirt and demanding the doublet. When he spots laborers in a field beside the road, he calls on them to stop Angiolieri. They come forward with spades and mattocks and seize the mounted man, assuming that the nearly naked pursuer is the injured party and Angiolieri the thief.

Fortarrigo reinforces their mistaken conclusion by accusing Angiolieri of stealing his belongings and abandoning him at the inn after gambling away his own possessions. Angiolieri gives his account, but the laborers do not accept it. With their help, Fortarrigo pulls him from the palfrey, strips him, puts on his clothes, and rides away on his horse. The man who had equipped himself to seek favor with a cardinal is left barefoot and in his shirt; Fortarrigo, who began the journey as an unpaid servant, leaves wearing his master’s garments and riding his master’s horse.

Aftermath and Narrative Role

Fortarrigo returns to Siena claiming that he won Angiolieri’s horse and clothes. Angiolieri, meanwhile, goes back to Buonconvento in poverty and in his shirt. Ashamed, he does not dare return directly to Siena; after borrowing clothes, he rides the horse Fortarrigo had used to his relatives at Corsignano. He remains with them until his father furnishes him anew. The tale says that Fortarrigo’s villainy is eventually punished, but gives no account of when or how.

Neifile introduces the episode as a story of one man’s knavery overcoming another man’s wit, to the latter’s grievous hurt and confusion. Angiolieri’s careful preparation, his effort to choose a suitable servant, and his original suspicion of Fortarrigo all fail to protect him once he accepts the companion’s assurances. The story’s comic reversals depend on how appearances defeat testimony: the shirt-clad pursuer is believed, while the mounted and better-dressed man is treated as the robber. Angiolieri’s ending is not triumph but temporary retreat and dependence on his family, while the explicit promise of later punishment leaves Fortarrigo’s apparent victory morally unsettled.