Fiordaliso

Fiordaliso is a young woman in Naples whose apparent tenderness toward Andreuccio di Pietro conceals a calculated theft. She learns his identity and circumstances through an old Sicilian acquaintance, then uses that information to invent a family bond convincing enough to draw him into her house and strip him of his money and clothes.

Identity and Setting

Fiordaliso is introduced as a woman in the prime of youth, tall, fair-faced, and handsomely dressed. She lives in Malpertugio, a street whose name itself signals the disreputable quarter in which her house stands. The room Andreuccio sees is rich in appearances: it is perfumed with roses and orange flowers, and furnished with a fine curtained bed, dresses, and other costly belongings. He mistakes this setting for evidence that she is a great lady, a misreading that helps her performance succeed.

Her scheme begins with information rather than force. Earlier that morning, she has seen Andreuccio meet an old Sicilian woman who knows him and his family. The old woman tells Fiordaliso where he is staying, why he has come to Naples, and details of his affairs. Fiordaliso keeps the informant from returning to him, then sends a maid who knows how to carry out such errands to the inn. The maid finds Andreuccio alone and tells him that a gentlewoman wishes to speak with him.

The Invented Family Bond

Andreuccio goes willingly, convinced that the woman may have fallen in love with him. At the house, Fiordaliso greets him with open arms, embraces him, kisses his forehead, and weeps. After leading him into her chamber, she presents the explanation that gives those gestures their apparent meaning: she claims to be his sister.

To support the claim, Fiordaliso supplies a detailed story about their supposed father, Pietro. She says that he had lived in Palermo, where he loved her mother, a woman of gentle birth and a widow, and that she was born from their relationship. She further claims that Pietro left for Perugia and never remembered either her or her mother. The account turns Andreuccio’s real family history into the foundation of a fabricated kinship, and her show of emotion encourages him to accept it before he tests its truth.

Theft and Exposure

Once Andreuccio is inside, Fiordaliso’s welcome gives way to opportunity. After he is left alone, he removes his clothes and asks where he can relieve himself. A boy points him toward a door; beyond it, a loose board serving as part of a privy gives way, dropping him into the foul alley below. The fall leaves him unhurt but trapped outside the house.

Fiordaliso acts quickly. She searches the chamber for his clothes, finds them and the money he has foolishly kept with them, and shuts the door through which he fell. Andreuccio realizes too late that he has been cheated. He calls for the boy, receives no answer, and then tries to get back into the house. His cry that he has lost five hundred florins and a sister gives the deception its bitterly comic measure: the money is gone, and the kinship he believed in has vanished with it.

When he pounds on the door, a waiting woman appears at a window and denies knowing either him or any Andreuccio. She dismisses his claim to be Fiordaliso’s brother as a drunk man’s tale and closes the window. The denial completes his public humiliation and confirms that pleading will not recover what he has lost; he turns to violence against the door instead.

Narrative Function

Fiordaliso’s episode depends on the gap between appearance and knowledge. Andreuccio mistakes her appearance, her furnished chamber, and her tears for signs of refinement and genuine affection. The story instead shows how quickly his confidence becomes a liability: the old acquaintance’s information equips Fiordaliso with a plausible family history, while his assumption that a woman must desire him helps bring him to her door.

Her role is defined by the successful conversion of hospitality into a trap. The embrace and the invented sisterhood draw Andreuccio close; the broken privy board removes him from the room; the recovered clothes and money secure the gain; and the denial at the window shuts down his appeal. The episode establishes Fiordaliso as the architect of the fraud while leaving the final exchange to the household woman who refuses him entry.