La Cuba

La Cuba is a garden in Palermo belonging to Frederick, King of Sicily. In the story of Restituta and Gianni di Procida, it serves first as a place of guarded royal lodging, then as the setting for the lovers’ clandestine reunion, and finally as the scene of their discovery. The garden’s movement from seclusion to exposure shapes the lovers’ fate: a window that briefly enables intimacy also opens the way to the king’s intervention.

Royal Garden and Place of Confinement

After young Sicilian sailors abduct Restituta from the shore of Ischia and carry her to Palermo, they present her to Frederick, King of Sicily. The king is taken with her, but, being infirm at the time, orders her lodged until he has recovered in a handsome pavilion belonging to his garden, La Cuba. The pavilion is to be tended, and Restituta is kept under guard there. Thus the garden is not simply a royal retreat: it is the setting of her enforced separation from Gianni and her confinement within the king’s household.

A Window into Secrecy

Gianni, who has searched the coast and learned that Restituta is being kept at La Cuba, remains in Palermo after sending away his pinnace. Passing the garden repeatedly, he eventually sees her at a window, and she sees him. Their recognition restores the possibility of contact, but only within the limits of a guarded place.

Restituta tells Gianni how he can speak with her again. He studies the arrangements of the place, waits until much of the night has passed, and climbs into the garden where the ascent offers scarcely a foothold. Finding a long pole, he sets it against the window she indicated and climbs to it. The window has been left open, and he enters the chamber quietly. Restituta tells him that she wants him to take her away; he promises to set that plan in motion on his next return. Their meeting turns the pavilion from a place of separation into a temporary refuge, though their escape remains only a promise.

Discovery and Exposure

The secrecy lasts until Frederick, King of Sicily, feeling recovered, remembers Restituta and goes to La Cuba near daybreak with servants. Entering the pavilion, he has the chamber opened and approaches with a large lighted torch. He finds Restituta and Gianni asleep, naked, in each other’s arms. The discovery abruptly changes the garden’s meaning: the private chamber becomes evidence of an affront to royal authority.

The king considers killing the lovers where they lie, but rejects killing two sleeping, naked people as unworthy of a king. Instead, he orders them bound and taken to Palermo, where they are to be tied back to back at a stake in the public square, displayed until the hour of tierce, and then burned. La Cuba is therefore the threshold between hidden intimacy and public spectacle. The account locates the discovery and the order for punishment there; the lovers are then carried away from the garden to face the sentence.