Fortarrigo Frames Angiolieri and Steals His Clothes and Horse

Cecco Fortarrigo’s frame-up of Cecco Angiolieri transforms a servant’s reckless gambling into a successful theft by making the victim appear to be the aggressor. The reversal is as practical as it is theatrical: Cecco Fortarrigo loses his own clothes and his master’s money, then uses his shirt, his cries for help, and the bystanders’ assumptions to strip Cecco Angiolieri of his horse and clothing. The journey that was meant to improve Cecco Angiolieri’s prospects ends with him stranded, poor, and ashamed.

Background and Unequal Prospects

The two men share the name Cecco but little else in conduct or circumstance. They have become friends because both are hated by their fathers, yet the story distinguishes Cecco Angiolieri as handsome and well-mannered, while Cecco Fortarrigo is known for gambling and, at times, drunkenness. The bond of companionship does not make them equals: Cecco Angiolieri has a father who provides for him, a horse, and a possible route to advancement; Cecco Fortarrigo asks to accompany him as a servant, offering to work for his expenses alone.

Cecco Angiolieri is setting out from Siena to seek the support of a cardinal who has arrived in the Marches of Ancona as the Pope’s legate. He has arranged with his father to receive at once the provision meant to cover six months, so he can equip and present himself honorably. The journey therefore carries a specific promise of improved circumstances. Cecco Fortarrigo’s request to join him is accepted only after he swears that he will keep away from gambling and drink. The promise establishes the expectation that the trip will require him to exercise precisely the restraint he has previously lacked.

The Gambling Loss and the First Deception

The pair stop to dine at Buonconvento. Because the day is hot, Cecco Angiolieri has a bed prepared at the inn, undresses, and sleeps, instructing Cecco Fortarrigo to wake him at None. The pause gives Cecco Fortarrigo an opportunity to break the condition on which he was taken along. While his master sleeps, he goes to a tavern, drinks, and gambles. He quickly loses the money he has and then the clothes he is wearing.

Seeking to win his losses back, Cecco Fortarrigo returns to the room in his shirt. Seeing Cecco Angiolieri still asleep, he takes the money from his purse and carries it back to the gaming table, where he loses that as well. This second loss changes the stakes: Cecco Fortarrigo has not merely squandered his own possessions but has stolen and gambled away the money on which his companion’s journey depends. When Cecco Angiolieri wakes, dresses, and asks after him, he assumes that Cecco Fortarrigo is asleep or drunk somewhere, as he has sometimes been before. He decides to leave without him and find another servant at Corsignano.

At the inn, Cecco Angiolieri discovers that he has no money to pay the bill. The household erupts in commotion as he declares that he has been robbed and threatens to have the host and his family taken prisoner in Siena. His intended departure has become impossible: the stolen money has deprived him not only of his funds but also of the means to settle the account and continue the journey.

A False Claim Reverses the Roles

Cecco Fortarrigo returns to the room in search of his master’s clothes. Finding Cecco Angiolieri ready to mount his horse, he speaks as though the immediate concern were a doublet he has left in pawn. Someone then identifies him as the person who took Cecco Angiolieri’s money and points out the sum he lost at play. Cecco Angiolieri reproaches him, threatens punishment, and says he will have him hanged or outlawed from Siena. But Cecco Fortarrigo refuses to answer the accusation directly. Instead, he keeps returning to the supposed bargain over redeeming the doublet, insisting that recovering it cheaply would be to their advantage.

The tactic works by prolonging the scene and changing what it seems to be about. Cecco Angiolieri is visibly exasperated, while Cecco Fortarrigo presents himself as concerned with a modest saving and a familiar piece of clothing. The onlookers, already watching the dispute, do not accept Cecco Angiolieri’s account. Their suspicion turns against the man who is trying to leave, rather than against the companion who has stolen from him.

Cecco Angiolieri finally turns his horse toward Torrenieri to escape the argument. Cecco Fortarrigo follows him for about two miles, still asking for the doublet. Then he sees husbandmen working in a field beside the road and calls out for them to stop Cecco Angiolieri. They come into the road carrying spades and mattocks. Because they see Cecco Fortarrigo in a shirt pursuing a mounted man, they conclude that Cecco Angiolieri has robbed him; his explanation of what happened at the inn is ignored.

The Theft and Its Aftermath

Cecco Fortarrigo makes the false accusation explicit, presenting himself as the injured man and Cecco Angiolieri as the disloyal thief who has taken his belongings. The husbandmen accept the performance. With their help, Cecco Fortarrigo pulls Cecco Angiolieri off the palfrey, strips him, and puts on his clothes. He then rides away on the horse, leaving his companion barefoot and in his shirt. The disguise is not elaborate: its force comes from the visible contrast between a pursuer in a shirt and a man on horseback, together with the crowd’s willingness to act on that first impression.

Cecco Fortarrigo returns to Siena and claims publicly that he won the horse and clothes from Cecco Angiolieri. The apparent success of the lie completes the reversal: the servant who had gambled away his own clothes now rides away in his master’s, while the master’s attempt to explain himself has failed before both the inn’s witnesses and the countrymen on the road.

Cecco Angiolieri does not continue to the cardinal in the Marches of Ancona. Ashamed to return directly to Siena in such a condition, he obtains borrowed clothes and rides the nag that Cecco Fortarrigo had ridden to his relatives at Corsignano. He remains with them until his father furnishes him anew. The story says that Cecco Fortarrigo’s villainy is eventually punished, but gives no account of that later punishment. In the immediate aftermath, the practical advantage belongs to the trickster, while Cecco Angiolieri’s prospects depend once more on family assistance.

Narrative Reversal and Social Credibility

The episode builds its reversal from details that first seem incidental: the promise to avoid gambling, the stolen purse, the unpaid inn bill, and the doublet said to be in pawn. Each detail supplies Cecco Fortarrigo with a new opportunity to redirect attention. His false claim succeeds not because the truth is inaccessible—the theft has been identified at the inn—but because he can stage a more persuasive appearance before a different audience. On the road, the countrymen encounter a man in a shirt crying after a mounted traveler, and their immediate reading overrides Cecco Angiolieri’s explanation.

The final inequality is material as well as reputational. Cecco Fortarrigo takes the horse and clothing that make continued travel possible, while Cecco Angiolieri loses the money intended for his journey and must retreat to relatives. The comedy rests on the disparity between the modest excuse Cecco Fortarrigo keeps repeating and the scale of the harm he accomplishes. Its conclusion also preserves a qualification: the account records that the fraud is punished later, but withholds the details, leaving the episode’s narrated ending on Cecco Angiolieri’s retreat and temporary dependence.