Genoa where the sisters stopped is both a place of forced displacement and a temporary haven in the Decameron. In the story of Madam Beritola, corsairs bring a nurse and two children there as captives and assign them to household service; in another tale, three sisters and their lovers arrive by sea, rest briefly, and resume their flight toward a new life on Crete. These opposed arrivals make the city a point where journeys change direction and personal freedom is either stripped away or pursued.

A Port of Captivity

After the corsairs seize the ship carrying the nurse and the children, they take their captives and the rest of the people aboard to Genoa where the sisters stopped. When the galley’s owners divide the booty, the nurse and both children fall to the share of Messer Guasparrino d'Oria. He sends them to his house to serve as slaves. The nurse grieves at the loss of her mistress and their sudden change in fortune, but recognizes that openly identifying the children could expose them to further danger.

The nurse therefore tells those who ask that the children are her own sons. She changes the elder boy’s name from Giusfredi to Giannotto di Procida, explaining to him that the concealment is meant to protect him; she leaves the younger child’s name unchanged. The boy understands and obeys her repeated warnings. Genoa is thus more than the setting of their enslavement: within the household where they are held, the nurse’s careful concealment becomes a means of preserving the children’s identity and their chance of recovering their former standing.

A Stopping Place on the Flight to Crete

In a separate story, three sisters secretly leave their father’s house with the men they love. The sisters take a large quantity of money and jewels from their father’s coffer, meet their lovers aboard a brigantine, and put to sea. They reach Genoa where the sisters stopped the following evening. There the couples take their first rest and enjoy their loves together before sailing onward.

Their stay is brief: after refreshing themselves, they continue from port to port and reach Crete before the eighth day without hindrance. They buy substantial estates near Candia and establish handsome houses, where they live amid servants, hounds, hawks, and horses. Genoa marks the first pause in their escape, not its conclusion; the lovers’ departure from the city opens onto the settled prosperity they find on Crete.

The City’s Contrasting Narrative Roles

The two episodes give Genoa where the sisters stopped opposed meanings. For the nurse and the children, arrival follows capture: the city is where they are treated as spoils and placed in servitude. For the sisters and their lovers, it is a chosen waypoint in a clandestine passage toward a shared future. One group’s movement ends in forced household labor; the other’s continues by sea toward land, property, and a new domestic life.

In both accounts, the city belongs to stories shaped by movement across water, but the consequences of arrival depend on who controls the journey. The captive children cannot choose their destination, and their safety depends on the nurse’s discretion. The eloping sisters and their companions, by contrast, have arranged their voyage and carry the resources taken from their father’s coffer. Genoa’s brief appearances therefore connect maritime travel to sharply different conditions of agency, security, and belonging.