Guasparrino d'Oria

Guasparrino d'Oria is a Genoese lord whose role in the story of Beritola Caracciola turns captivity into an unexpected path toward family reunion. After learning that the boy he has kept in servitude is the son of Arrighetto Capece, he investigates the claim, recognizes his own unjust treatment, and seeks to make amends by arranging the boy’s marriage to his daughter and helping reunite him with his family.

Identity and Circumstances

Guasparrino enters the story as the owner of a galley who receives the nurse and Beritola Caracciola’s two sons when captured people and other booty are divided among the galley’s owners. The nurse and children are sent to his mansion to serve as slaves. Their separation from Beritola is part of a wider upheaval: the family has been scattered amid the change of power in Sicily and the capture of Arrighetto Capece.

The Children in His Household

The nurse conceals the children’s identity, fearing that discovery could put them in danger. She presents them as her own sons and gives the elder boy the name Giannotto, while retaining Scacciato’s name for the younger. Guasparrino keeps the boy and nurse in his house for fourteen years. When Currado Malespina’s messenger arrives seeking Scacciato and recounts the history of Giusfredi and his mother, Guasparrino responds cautiously: he is willing to please Currado, but warns the messenger not to trust the elder brother’s account without question.

Inquiry and Recognition

Rather than accept the messenger’s story at once, Guasparrino questions the nurse privately. She has learned that a revolt has taken place in Sicily and that Arrighetto is alive; believing that the danger which once required her silence has passed, she explains the children’s true identities and why she concealed them. Her account agrees with the messenger’s, and Guasparrino makes further inquiries. As evidence accumulates, he becomes convinced that the claim is true and ashamed of the mean treatment he has given the boy.

Restitution and Family Reunion

Guasparrino’s response is practical as well as emotional. In amends, he gives Scacciato his fair young daughter, then eleven years old, as a wife, with a substantial dowry. After arranging a great wedding feast, he travels with Scacciato, his daughter, the nurse, and Currado’s messenger to join Currado and the reunited family. The meeting brings Beritola Caracciola together with her son, and the brothers with one another and the nurse who had protected them. At the feast, a further report confirms that Arrighetto has escaped captivity, become a leader in the revolt against Charles I of Anjou, and been restored to his honors and possessions by King Pedro.

Narrative Role

Guasparrino’s part is defined by a reversal: the household that has held Scacciato in slavery becomes the setting for his recognition and marriage, and its lord becomes an agent of restitution. His initial skepticism makes the nurse’s testimony and the subsequent inquiry decisive; his eventual generosity helps convert a long separation into reunion. The ending does not erase the years of captivity, but places Guasparrino’s change of conduct within the story’s larger movement from political defeat and family loss toward recovered status and kinship.