Gianni di Procida

Gianni di Procida is a young man whose love for Restituta drives him from repeated, almost extravagant acts of devotion to a dangerous rescue attempt. In the Fifth Day story, his clandestine reunion with Restituta brings the pair within moments of execution; recognition by Ruggieri dell'Oria turns that apparent catastrophe into a royal pardon and marriage. The tale makes Gianni’s constancy both the source of his peril and the reason the lovers are finally restored to one another.

Identity and devotion

Gianni comes from Procida, a small island near Ischia. He loves Restituta, the beautiful and lively daughter of Marino Bolgaro, a gentleman of Ischia, and she loves him in return. His devotion is described not as a passing attachment but as a willingness to endure hardship for the smallest opportunity to see her: by day he crosses from Procida, and when he cannot find a boat at night, he swims across the water simply to look upon the walls of her house.

That detail establishes the pattern governing his actions. Gianni is separated from Restituta not by any lack of affection between them, but by distance and circumstances beyond their control. His willingness to travel and risk himself precedes the crisis, making his later search a continuation of an already demonstrated fidelity rather than a sudden response to loss.

Restituta’s abduction and Gianni’s search

The rupture comes when Restituta is alone on the shore. As she moves among the rocks, loosening shellfish with a knife, she enters a sheltered place among the cliffs where young Sicilian men have brought their pinnace from Naples. They seize her despite her cries and carry her to Calabria. Unable to agree among themselves about who should possess her, they decide to give her to Frederick, King of Sicily, whom they know to take pleasure in beautiful women.

The king, pleased by Restituta’s beauty, orders her kept in a pavilion in the garden called La Cuba while he is unwell. In Ischia, people grieve over her disappearance, but cannot discover who took her. Gianni, more deeply affected than anyone, learns the direction in which the abductors went and equips a pinnace of his own. He searches the coast from La Minerva to La Scalea, asking for news; when he hears that the sailors have carried Restituta to Palermo, he goes there and eventually learns that she is being held at La Cuba.

At first, the news nearly extinguishes his hope. Restituta is not merely far from home: she is confined in a royal garden, and Gianni has no evident power to demand her return. Still, love keeps him in Palermo. He sends away his pinnace, since he is unknown there, and continues to pass La Cuba until one day he sees Restituta at a window. She sees him too, and the sight gives both lovers immediate happiness, even though it offers no safe way out.

A secret reunion in the garden

Restituta tells Gianni how he might speak with her again. He studies the arrangement of the place, waits until much of the night has passed, and climbs into the garden by precarious footholds. A long pole allows him to reach the window she has indicated. Restituta has left it open, so he can enter her chamber without delay.

Her decision reflects the changed circumstances of her captivity. Having been abducted and placed under the king’s power, she believes her honor already lost; she chooses to give herself to the man she loves and asks him to carry her away. Gianni welcomes the plan and promises to put it in motion when he returns. They embrace, spend the night together, and fall asleep in one another’s arms before they can arrange their escape.

The lovers’ reunion is therefore at once the fulfilment of Gianni’s search and the moment that exposes them to danger. He has reached Restituta by secrecy rather than force, but their intimacy takes place inside the king’s own guarded household. Their failure to leave before morning turns a private meeting into a public crisis.

Arrest, recognition, and release

Frederick, feeling recovered, goes to La Cuba before daybreak. Entering Restituta’s chamber with a lit torch, he finds her and Gianni asleep together, naked. He is furious and nearly kills them at once with the dagger at his side, but restrains himself because he judges it base for a king to murder two sleeping people. Instead, he orders them bound and taken to Palermo, where they are to be tied back to back at a stake and burned after being displayed until the appointed hour.

The sentence makes the lovers’ exposure a spectacle. Townspeople crowd around them; men praise Restituta’s beauty, while women praise Gianni’s appearance. The pair stand with bowed heads, ashamed and grieving, expecting to die. Gianni’s request to Ruggieri shows what remains of his hope: believing death inevitable, he asks only that they be turned face to face, so that he can look at Restituta as he dies. Ruggieri answers with a promise that he will make it possible for Gianni to see her until he is tired of the sight.

Ruggieri has recognized Gianni. After hearing how the couple came to be bound at the stake, the admiral goes to Frederick and challenges the justice of burning them, while acknowledging that the lovers have indeed offended the king. He argues that punishment for an offense is not the same as a king’s right to exact it, and urges Frederick to learn who the prisoners are before carrying out the sentence. The interruption changes the scene from an anticipated execution to a hearing before the ruler.

Once Ruggieri has identified Gianni, Frederick accepts that he has spoken truth. The king regrets what he has done, orders the couple freed, and hears their case. Rather than merely release them, he seeks to compensate them for the injury: he has them sumptuously clothed, discovers that they are of one mind, and arranges for Gianni to marry Restituta. He also gives them magnificent presents and sends them back to their country rejoicing.

Historical association and narrative significance

A note accompanying the story identifies Gianni with the Sicilian nobleman whose efforts helped bring about the Sicilian Vespers uprising in 1283, which expelled Charles I of Anjou’s French power from Sicily and transferred the crown to the house of Aragon. The note also identifies the Frederick in the tale as the fourth prince of that dynasty, whose reign began in 1296. This historical association gives the young lover’s name a political resonance beyond the immediate plot, though the episode itself centers on his pursuit of Restituta and the king’s reversal of the lovers’ sentence.

Gianni’s plot moves through sharply opposed spaces and fortunes: from the water he swims to reach Restituta, to the royal enclosure he enters by stealth, to the public stake where he expects to die, and finally back toward home as her husband. His devotion does not itself defeat royal power; the decisive turn comes when Ruggieri recognizes him and persuades Frederick to reconsider. Yet Gianni’s persistence brings the lovers to the moment where recognition can intervene. The ending converts an abduction and threatened burning into a publicly sanctioned marriage, giving the couple not only reunion but a place in the social order that their secret meeting had put at risk.