Fra Rinaldo’s worm-exorcism cover story

Fra Rinaldo’s worm-exorcism cover story is a tale of sexual deception saved by a fabricated miracle. When Madam Agnesa’s husband unexpectedly returns while she and the friar are together, she claims that their child has been struck by a fatal illness and that Fra Rinaldo is curing him. The husband believes the story, receives the child in gratitude, and even arranges a votive image. The escape depends not on the friar’s religious authority alone, but on Madam Agnesa’s quick invention and the husband’s credulous trust in both of them.

The Affair and Its Religious Excuse

Fra Rinaldo has returned to his former appetites and visits Madam Agnesa frequently. As his confidence grows, he presses her more insistently to grant him what he desires. She objects that he is a monk and, more specifically, her child’s godfather. Fra Rinaldo answers that removing his religious habit would leave him a man like other men. When she raises the spiritual kinship between them as a barrier, he offers a specious argument: because her husband is more closely related to the child than the godfather is, and her husband lies with her, Fra Rinaldo may do so too.

The argument disguises appetite as reasoning about kinship. Madam Agnesa, described as knowing little logic and needing little persuasion, either accepts the friar’s case or pretends to accept it. Their relationship continues, and the very bond she first invokes as a reason to refuse becomes cover for their meetings: as the child’s godfather, Fra Rinaldo can visit with less suspicion. The story thus makes religious office and family intimacy serve the affair rather than restrain it.

The Unexpected Return

On one visit, Fra Rinaldo finds Madam Agnesa alone except for her young, attractive maid. He sends his companion with the girl to the pigeon loft to teach her the Paternoster, then goes into the bedchamber with Madam Agnesa, who is holding her child. They lock the door and take their pleasure on a daybed. The arrangement separates the witnesses: the companion occupies the maid elsewhere, while the friar and Madam Agnesa are together behind a closed door.

Their concealment is suddenly threatened when the husband comes home and knocks at the bedchamber door, calling for his wife. Madam Agnesa realizes that the familiarity between her and Fra Rinaldo may now be exposed. The friar is in his waistcoat, having removed his gown and scapulary; he sees no plausible excuse if the husband enters and finds him in that state. The danger is immediate, but Madam Agnesa turns the circumstances into the basis of a new story. She tells Fra Rinaldo to dress, take the child in his arms, and follow the account she will give their husband.

A Fabricated Cure

Madam Agnesa opens the door and tells her husband that Fra Rinaldo’s arrival has saved their child. She says the child suffered a sudden fainting fit and seemed dead; the friar, she claims, identified worms in the boy’s body that were moving toward his heart. According to her explanation, he is conjuring the worms and will have the child restored before he leaves. She accounts for the locked room by saying that only the child’s mother could be present during this rite, while the maid and the friar’s companion were occupied upstairs with prayers.

The lie transforms the compromising scene into a private religious office. The husband is so alarmed for the child that he does not suspect his wife’s deception. Madam Agnesa further controls the timing: she tells him not to enter and disrupt what has been done, and says she will find out when he may come in. Meanwhile, Fra Rinaldo dresses at leisure, takes the child, and calls the husband into the room. He presents the boy as restored by God’s grace and recommends a wax image to be placed before the statue of St. Ambrose in thanksgiving.

The Ruse Becomes a Miracle

The child runs to his father and caresses him. The husband gathers him up, weeping and kissing him, and thanks Fra Rinaldo for making him well. His response confirms how completely the invented emergency has displaced suspicion: he understands the friar not as his wife’s lover but as the healer who has returned his son from the brink of death.

The companion then comes down, reporting that he has said the four prayers Fra Rinaldo requested. The friar replies that he had managed only two before the husband arrived, but credits the child’s recovery to their combined efforts. The husband supplies wine and confections to entertain both men, then sees them to the door and promptly arranges the promised wax image. The household’s apparent miracle is therefore supported by a coordinated performance: Madam Agnesa supplies the explanation, Fra Rinaldo acts the healer, and his companion supplies corroborating prayers and a second witness to the supposed rite.

The closing detail sharpens the episode’s religious comedy. The husband sends the votive image to hang with the others before a statue of St. Ambrose, though not the one in Milan. The image materializes his sincere gratitude for a cure that never occurred, while the friar’s staged exorcism has converted adultery into a public act of devotion. In Lauretta’s embedded tale, the deception succeeds because religious language, the godfather’s standing, and the father’s fear for his child all lend authority to a story invented to protect the lovers.