Gianni Lotteringhi—Mistress Tessa

Gianni Lotteringhi and Mistress Tessa are presented as a married couple living in a sharp imbalance of knowledge: Gianni trusts pious appearances and is easily misled, while Tessa, discreet and resourceful, conducts a secret affair under his roof. Their relationship comes into focus at their summer house in Camerata, where a lover’s unexpected arrival threatens exposure. Tessa turns that danger into a comic performance of superstition, diverting her husband and securing both the household’s provisions and her own concealment.

Identity and Household

Gianni is a wool-comber in Florence’s San Brancazio quarter, fortunate in his trade but described as simple-minded in other matters. He has enough means to give clothing and other gifts to clergy, and he takes pride in his religious standing: he serves as captain of the Laudesi of Santa Maria Novella and governs their confraternity. The clergy reward his generosity with prayers and devotional works, which he keeps carefully for the health of his soul. His piety is sincere within the episode, but his confidence in religious words and practices also makes him susceptible to Tessa’s invented explanation.

Mistress Tessa, daughter of Mannuccio dalla Cuculia, is described as beautiful, discreet, and well-advised. Her judgment is set against Gianni’s credulity: she understands both her husband’s habits and the risks of an affair conducted in a shared household. Their country house at Camerata gives her a place to receive Federigo during the summer, while Gianni visits intermittently, sometimes staying to supper and overnight, then returning in the morning to his shop or confraternity duties. The difference between their knowledge, rather than any open quarrel, is the central pressure within the marriage.

An Affair Managed Through Signals

Tessa is enamoured of Federigo di Neri Pegolotti, a brisk and handsome young man who returns her affection. A maid helps arrange their first meeting at Camerata. When Gianni is absent, Federigo spends the night with Tessa; the episode presents the intimacy as the beginning of repeated meetings, not a single lapse. Tessa and Federigo then devise a signal that lets them coordinate without repeatedly sending the maid: Federigo is to watch an ass’s skull mounted on a vineyard pole beside the house.

The skull’s direction serves as a practical code. If its muzzle points toward Florence, Federigo may come after dark; if it points toward Fiesole, he is to stay away because Gianni will be at the house. Tessa’s affair thus depends on ordinary features of the estate—a vineyard, a pole, and a skull—turned into a private communication system. The arrangement allows the lovers to meet many times, while Gianni remains unaware of both the signal and its meaning.

The Unexpected Knock

On one occasion, Federigo expects to sup with Tessa, who has had two fat capons cooked for him. Gianni arrives late, although Tessa had not expected him. She therefore shares salt pork with her husband and has the capons, eggs, and a flask of wine carried to a garden accessible without passing through the house. The food is set beneath a peach tree, where Tessa sometimes meets her lover. In her distress at Gianni’s arrival, she forgets to tell the maid to wait and warn Federigo that her husband is there.

After Tessa, Gianni, and the maid have gone to bed, Federigo comes to the door and knocks softly once. Gianni hears him, as does Tessa, who pretends to be asleep. When a second knock follows, Gianni nudges her and asks whether she hears it. Tessa feigns awakening and then treats the sound as a phantom that has frightened her for several nights. Gianni answers the supposed danger with confidence in the prayers he has said and the crosses he has made over the bed. His response reveals the familiar basis of their domestic dynamic: he believes he is protecting his wife, while she is directing his attention away from the real visitor.

The False Exorcism

Tessa insists that their ordinary prayers are not enough and proposes that they go to the door together to exorcise the phantom. She claims to have learned an effective orison from a holy anchoress at Fiesole. By inviting Gianni to participate, she converts a potentially incriminating knock into an occasion for shared religious action. She also tells him when to spit, making him a performer in the deception without his understanding it.

At the door, Tessa recites a mock conjuration that sends the phantom into the garden, to the foot of the peach tree, where it will find the food and wine. The wording’s bawdy references disguise a practical instruction: Federigo can go to the garden, take the provisions, and leave without harming the couple. Gianni obeys her cue to spit. Outside, Federigo recognizes what Tessa has accomplished; although vexed at being left waiting and hungry, he struggles not to laugh. He goes to the peach tree, finds the capons, wine, and eggs, takes them home, and eats at his ease. At their next meeting, he and Tessa laugh together about the conjuration.

Marriage, Secrecy, and Comic Reversal

Tessa’s performance protects the affair without requiring her to confront Gianni or flee the house. She uses his religious confidence as cover, his participation as misdirection, and the garden as a place to recover the supper intended for Federigo. Gianni’s devotional habits, which he associates with spiritual security, become part of a deception that leaves him unaware of both his wife’s lover and the practical meaning of the prayer. The episode makes the contrast between their positions visible through action: he hears a knock and imagines a phantom; she knows who is outside and arranges what he will believe.

The tale also preserves an alternative account rather than presenting the episode as a single, settled anecdote. In that version, a farmer accidentally turns the ass’s skull toward Florence, causing Federigo to mistake the signal and come when Tessa is in bed with Gianni. Tessa then sends him away by blaming the changed signal on the farmer. The teller reports that an elderly neighbour said both versions were true, but that the latter happened to another man, Gianni di Nello, who lived at Porta San Piero and was equally foolish. This qualification keeps the main account of Gianni and Tessa distinct while extending the comic pattern beyond their marriage: in either telling, a wife’s quick invention outmanoeuvres a credulous husband.