Corfu

Corfu is the island where Landolfo Ruffolo reaches safety after a shipwreck leaves him helpless at sea, clinging to a chest. There a poor woman rescues and tends him, making the shore and her hut a temporary refuge between disaster and his eventual return home with the jewels that restore his fortune.

Setting and Arrival

After a day and the following night adrift, without food and able to do little but hold fast to the chest, Landolfo is carried by the sea to Corfu. The woman first sees an indistinct form approaching the coast and retreats in fright; only when she makes out the chest, the outstretched arms, and then his face does she understand that a living man is in the water.

The arrival is a reversal of fortune, but not yet a recovery. Landolfo cannot speak and can scarcely see, while the chest that keeps him afloat also obscures the danger of his condition. Corfu enters the story not as a place he sought out, but as the shore to which he is delivered after the wreck.

Rescue and Refuge

Once the sea has grown calm, the woman enters the water, takes Landolfo by the hair, and drags him ashore with the chest. She has her young daughter carry the chest on her head and bears Landolfo to their hut as if he were a small child. There she puts him in a bath and warms and rubs him until his strength begins to return.

When the bath is over, the woman gives him good wine and confections and cares for him for several days. Her hospitality is practical and sustained: she waits until he has recovered enough to know where he is before deciding that he can be given the chest and sent on his way. The chest, meanwhile, remains safe in her keeping.

Departure and Narrative Significance

Landolfo initially has no recollection of the chest and accepts it with little hope, thinking it may be worth enough to cover a few days’ expenses. After discovering its precious stones, he fears another reversal and chooses caution: while the woman is away, he removes the jewels, wraps them in rags, and asks her for a bag, offering her the chest in exchange. She agrees, and he leaves Corfu by boat, continuing by way of Brindisi to Trani.

Corfu is thus a brief but decisive stop in a chain of losses and recoveries. The island supplies neither the treasure nor Landolfo’s final homecoming; its importance lies in the woman’s rescue and care, which give him the strength and opportunity to carry the hidden jewels onward. Once safe at Ravello, he sends her money in gratitude for having brought him out of the sea.