Federigo Serves His Falcon to His Guest is the decisive act of hospitality in the story of Federigo degli Alberighi and Madam Giovanna: to provide a worthy meal for the woman he loves, Federigo gives up the last possession that sustains his poor life, unaware that she has come to ask for that very bird. The sacrifice defeats her immediate purpose but discloses a generosity that poverty has not diminished. After her son dies, that same act helps lead Giovanna to choose Federigo as her husband.

Circumstances of the Visit

Federigo had once spent his wealth lavishly in the hope of winning Madam Giovanna’s love, holding entertainments, entering jousts and tournaments, and giving gifts. His efforts won him no affection, and his fortune eventually ran out. He withdrew to his small farm at Campi, where he lived meagerly from its returns, hawking when he could and asking help from no one. His falcon, one of the finest in the world, was his remaining pleasure and solace.

By then Giovanna’s husband had died, leaving their son his heir and Giovanna wealthy if the boy should die without lawful issue. She and her son spent the summer at an estate near Federigo’s. The boy had become fond of hawks and hounds, had often watched Federigo fly his falcon, and longed to possess it. When illness overtook him, he told his mother that he believed he would soon recover if she could obtain the bird. Giovanna was troubled: she knew Federigo had loved her, but understood that the falcon was both dear to him and among the few things left to support his life. Her love for her son finally outweighed her reluctance. She resolved to go herself and ask for it.

The Falcon as a Meal

The next morning Giovanna rode to Federigo’s modest house with another lady for company. She found him in his garden, where he had been attending to small tasks because the weather had not permitted hawking. He greeted her with astonishment and pleasure. Giovanna presented her visit as a chance to make amends for the suffering he had endured through loving her, and said that she and her companion had come to dine with him. Federigo welcomed them courteously, though he had no other guest to keep them company in the garden than a husbandman’s wife while he went to arrange the table.

Only then did the full weight of his poverty strike him. He had nothing with which to honor the woman for whom he had once entertained many people. Unwilling to ask his laborer or anyone else for assistance, and seeing the falcon in his small sitting room, he decided that it was a dish worthy of Giovanna. He killed it, had it plucked and prepared by a little maid, and served it at a table laid with the fine white cloths he still possessed. Giovanna and her companion ate the bird without knowing what it was; Federigo served them diligently, concealing the cost of their welcome until the meal was over.

The Request and Its Reversal

After dinner, Giovanna explained why she had come. Her sick son, she said, so desired Federigo’s falcon that she feared his condition might worsen if he could not have it. She asked Federigo to give it to her, appealing not to his former love but to his nobility and to the chance that the bird might help keep her son alive. Her request brought the meal’s generosity into sudden, painful contrast with its consequence: the bird she needed had already been served to her.

Federigo wept before he could answer. Giovanna first supposed that he was grieving at the prospect of losing his falcon and was ready to withdraw her request. Instead, Federigo explained that he could not grant it because he had killed and served it for her dinner. He described his welcome as the best he could provide, and produced the falcon’s feathers, feet, and beak as proof. Fortune, he said, had dealt him no blow as severe as bringing Giovanna to his poor house to seek a gift he could no longer give. His words make the reversal exact: the falcon had been freely bestowed, but not in the form or for the purpose she had come to seek.

Loss and Marriage

Giovanna blamed Federigo for killing so fine a bird for a woman’s meal, yet inwardly admired the greatness of spirit that his poverty had not reduced. With no hope of taking the falcon to her son, she returned disconsolate. The boy died within a few days. The account leaves the cause uncertain, allowing either his grief at not receiving the bird or the course of his illness to explain his death; it does not establish that the falcon could have saved him.

After mourning her son, Giovanna was left young and very rich. Her brothers pressed her to marry again, although she would have preferred to remain a widow. Remembering Federigo’s final magnificence, she declared that she would take no other husband. Her brothers objected that he possessed nothing, but she answered, “I would liefer have a man that lacketh of riches than riches that lack of a man.” They recognized Federigo’s merit and gave her to him with all her wealth. He, in turn, became more careful with his means and lived with her in joy and solace until the end of his days.

Narrative Significance

Fiammetta’s tale turns on the difference between the object Giovanna asks for and the value Federigo gives her instead. The falcon is at once his cherished possession, the support of his remaining pleasure, and the meal through which he honors his guest. His hospitality cannot satisfy the request precisely because it has already consumed its object. Yet the failure does not cancel the gift: Giovanna sees in Federigo’s choice a nobility that neither his former wealth nor his present poverty accounts for by itself.

The ending also reverses the direction of their earlier fortunes. Federigo had once spent wealth to win Giovanna and received no affection; now, with almost nothing to offer, he gives freely without knowing what she wants, and she chooses him after recognizing the quality of that gift. The marriage does not restore the falcon or undo the son’s death. It does, however, change the conditions of Federigo’s life: he becomes a more prudent steward of the wealth Giovanna brings, and the story closes on their lasting shared happiness.