Girolamo

Girolamo is the young, wealthy son of a Florentine merchant whose childhood love for Salvestra survives separation but not the social arrangements imposed around it. In Neifile’s story, his mother tries to remove him from the tailor’s daughter so that he can marry into a higher-ranking family; the separation fails to extinguish his attachment and instead helps set in motion the deaths of both lovers. His brief life becomes the story’s central argument against treating love as a feeling that can simply be displaced by parental judgment or distance.

Identity and Early Attachment

Girolamo is the son of Lionardo Sighieri, a very rich merchant. His father dies after arranging his affairs, leaving the boy’s guardians and mother to oversee his interests. As he grows up among the children of the neighborhood, Girolamo becomes especially close to Salvestra, a girl of his own age and the daughter of a tailor. Their familiarity begins in childhood; as they grow older, habit becomes ardent mutual love. He is uneasy whenever he cannot see her, and the story emphasizes that she loves him no less than he loves her.

Their attachment develops before either has chosen a socially advantageous match, but their different family circumstances make the relationship a source of anxiety to Girolamo’s mother. She fears that his wealth and affection will lead him to marry Salvestra without the family’s approval, or that seeing Salvestra married to someone else will cause him to pine away. Her concern is not that he has failed to love her, but that he may let love determine whom he marries. The conflict thus begins as a contest between a young man’s emotional constancy and a family’s plans for his status.

Separation and Return

Girolamo’s guardians first try to persuade him to travel to Paris, presenting the journey as a chance to learn how his wealth is employed and to acquire better manners among lords and gentlemen. He refuses, saying that he can fare as well in Florence. His mother then rebukes him for his attachment to Salvestra and, after his guardians’ arguments fail, changes her approach: she cajoles and gently implores him until he consents to go to France for a year.

The promised year becomes two. Girolamo is repeatedly delayed, and the story presents no change of heart during his absence: he returns more deeply in love than before. But Salvestra is now married to a respectable young tentmaker. Girolamo is profoundly distressed, yet he does not immediately approach her. He first passes her home, hoping she has not forgotten him; when she gives no sign of remembering, or appears to pretend that she does not, he makes repeated efforts to bring himself back to her mind. His growing awareness that these efforts are useless leads him to decide that he must speak to her directly, even at the risk of dying.

The Night Visit and Death

Girolamo learns from a neighbor how Salvestra’s house is arranged. One evening, while Salvestra and her husband are out keeping vigil with neighbors, he enters secretly and hides behind tent cloths. He waits until the couple have returned and the husband is asleep, then approaches Salvestra in bed and quietly identifies himself. She is awake and initially would cry out, but recognizes him and urges him to leave. She tells him that their childhood love belongs to the past: she is married, intends to remain faithful to her husband, and fears that discovery would destroy the peace in which she now lives with him.

Girolamo recalls their former intimacy and insists that his love has not diminished during his absence. Salvestra refuses his pleas and promises, but eventually feels compassion for his distress. He asks only to lie beside her briefly to warm himself, promising not to touch or speak to her and to leave once he is warm. She grants this limited request on those conditions. Lying beside her, Girolamo gathers together the long love he has borne, her present refusal, and his lost hope, and resolves not to live. The story says that he constricts his vital spirits, clenches his hands, and dies without a word or movement; it does not make the precise physical means of his death clear.

When Salvestra discovers that he is cold and unresponsive, she is devastated. She awakens her husband and describes the situation as though it had happened to another woman, asking what that woman should do. He answers that the dead man should be quietly carried home and that the woman should not be blamed, since she has done nothing wrong. Salvestra then reveals that Girolamo is dead in their house. Her husband dresses the body, carries it on his shoulders to Girolamo’s home, and leaves it at the door. In the morning, examination finds no wound or bruise; those present conclude that Girolamo has died of grief.

Relationships and Narrative Significance

Girolamo’s bond with Salvestra is mutual in childhood, but their reunion exposes the different obligations each now recognizes. He treats their past love as an enduring claim; she treats her marriage as a present duty and fears the consequences that an affair or scandal would bring. Her refusal does not erase her compassion: she permits him to lie beside her, but within limits that preserve her fidelity. The tragedy turns on the gap between his hope for renewed intimacy and her insistence that their former relationship cannot be resumed.

Neifile introduces the tale as a warning against those who presume that judgment can overrule the nature of things. Girolamo’s mother tries to make distance do the work of persuasion, sending him away so that Salvestra will pass from his mind; instead, he returns more deeply attached and finds her married. The story does not suggest that his mother intends his death, but it makes the failed separation the first decisive step in a chain of irreversible consequences. Girolamo’s death from grief, followed by Salvestra’s death at his funeral, gives the story’s critique its starkest form: an attempt to manage love through family calculation does not make the feeling disappear, and the lovers’ final reunion occurs only in death.