Cecco Fortarrigo’s theft of Cecco Angiolieri’s clothes and horse is a comic reversal built from gambling, a false accusation, and the deceptive force of appearances. At an inn in Buonconvento, Fortarrigo first loses his own possessions and then turns his companion’s reasonable wish to leave into an opportunity to strip him of nearly everything. Neifile presents the episode as a counterpoint to foolish self-exposure: here, it is one man’s knavery, rather than another’s folly, that brings humiliation and loss.

Framing and the two companions

Neifile introduces the story after the company has laughed at Calandrino for publicly disclosing his wife’s private diversions. She contrasts that display of folly with a tale in which one man’s knavery overcomes another’s good sense. The contrast prepares the reader for a reversal: Cecco Angiolieri sets out with an honorable purpose and takes sensible precautions, but Cecco Fortarrigo uses his own disgrace as cover for a more calculated deception.

The two men are both grown sons named Cecco, one the son of Messer Angiolieri and the other of Messer Fortarrigo. Though their characters otherwise differ, they have become friends because both are hated by their fathers. Cecco Angiolieri is handsome and well-mannered, but considers the allowance provided by his father inadequate to support him in Siena. When he hears that a cardinal, his patron, has arrived in the Marches of Ancona as the Pope’s legate, he plans to seek a better position. He arranges to receive at once the allowance due for six months so that he can travel with suitable clothes and a horse.

Cecco Fortarrigo asks to accompany him, offering to act as lackey and servant for no wages beyond his expenses. Cecco Angiolieri refuses at first, not because Fortarrigo lacks the ability to serve, but because he is a gambler and sometimes a drunkard. Fortarrigo swears that he will keep away from both habits and persists with so many entreaties that Cecco Angiolieri agrees. The promise makes the ensuing betrayal more than a sudden misfortune: the journey begins with a warning, an assurance, and a decision to trust the assurance.

Gambling at Buonconvento

The pair travel together and dine at Buonconvento. Because the weather is hot, Cecco Angiolieri has a bed prepared at the inn, undresses with Fortarrigo’s help, and goes to sleep, instructing him to wake him at the hour of None. As soon as his companion is asleep, Fortarrigo goes to a tavern, drinks, and begins gambling. He quickly loses the money he has with him and then the clothes he is wearing.

Still hoping to recover his losses, Fortarrigo returns to the inn in his shirt. Seeing Cecco Angiolieri asleep, he takes the money from his purse and goes back to gamble; he loses that as well. When Cecco Angiolieri wakes and dresses, he cannot find Fortarrigo. Supposing him asleep or drunk somewhere, he decides to leave him behind and find another servant at Corsignano. But when he goes to pay the bill, he discovers that he has no money. The resulting commotion turns a private theft into a public crisis: Cecco Angiolieri declares that he has been robbed and threatens to have the innkeeper and his household carried as prisoners to Siena.

A false accusation reverses the scene

Fortarrigo returns in his shirt, intending to take his companion’s clothes too. He sees Cecco Angiolieri ready to mount and begins speaking as though the two are merely delayed by the need to redeem his doublet, supposedly pawned for thirty-eight shillings. He says it can be recovered for thirty-five if they act at once, presenting the difference as a small saving worth their attention. The detail is a diversion: another man arrives and confirms that Fortarrigo stole Cecco Angiolieri’s money, showing him the sum Fortarrigo lost gambling.

Cecco Angiolieri reproaches Fortarrigo and threatens to have him hanged or outlawed from Siena. Then he mounts and sets off for Torrenieri. Fortarrigo follows on foot, still in his shirt, for about two miles, continuing to demand his doublet. His persistence keeps the appearance of a dispute over property alive while the real contest shifts toward the people watching from the roadside.

Seeing countrymen working in a field ahead, Fortarrigo cries out for them to stop Cecco Angiolieri. They rush to the road with spades and mattocks and seize the mounted traveler, assuming that the nearly naked pursuer must be the victim and the rider the thief. Cecco Angiolieri explains what has happened, but his account does not dislodge their first impression. Fortarrigo reinforces it by angrily denouncing Cecco Angiolieri as a disloyal thief and telling the countrymen that he himself has recovered only a little of what was taken from him.

Loss, return, and the tale’s reversal

With the countrymen’s help, Fortarrigo pulls Cecco Angiolieri from the palfrey and strips him. He puts on Cecco Angiolieri’s clothes, mounts the horse, and rides back to Siena, where he claims to have won both horse and clothes from his companion. The man who had planned to travel as a well-provided guest of his cardinal patron is left in his shirt and barefoot, while the gambler who had been caught stealing controls the story told to the local witnesses.

Cecco Angiolieri returns to Buonconvento poor and humiliated. Ashamed to go directly back to Siena, he accepts borrowed clothes, mounts the nag that Fortarrigo had ridden, and goes to his relatives at Corsignano. He remains there until his father provides for him again. The ending records a real material and reputational defeat, but it does not present Fortarrigo’s success as final: Neifile adds that his villainy was not left unpunished, without specifying the later punishment in this episode.

The incident’s central reversal depends on the gap between what happened and what the bystanders can see. Fortarrigo’s losses and theft make him the aggressor, but his shirt, pursuit, and loud complaint make Cecco Angiolieri look guilty. A servant’s broken promise becomes a performance that turns witnesses into instruments of the theft. Neifile’s framing therefore distinguishes mere imprudence from active deceit: Cecco Angiolieri’s plan is defeated not because it lacked care, but because Fortarrigo manipulates the public appearance of events more effectively than his companion can explain them.