Lodovico(Anichino)—Messer Egano de' Gulluzzi

Lodovico (Anichino) and Messer Egano de' Gulluzzi are joined first as master and servant, then by a striking imbalance: Egano entrusts his household and affairs to Lodovico, while Lodovico secretly uses that confidence to pursue an affair with Egano’s wife, Madam Beatrice. The final deception does not break Egano’s trust. Instead, it strengthens it, leaving him convinced that his wife and servant are both faithful.

Entry into Egano’s household

Lodovico’s plan begins when companions praise Madam Beatrice, Egano’s wife, as exceptionally beautiful. He has never before been in love with a woman, but hearing about her fixes his attention on going to Bologna and winning her affection. To approach her, he conceals his identity under the name Anichino and tells his father that he wishes to visit the Holy Sepulchre. Once in Bologna, he sees Beatrice at an entertainment and becomes even more determined to stay until he has gained her love.

He arranges to enter Egano’s service through his host. To present himself as an available servant, Lodovico sells his horses, disposes of his servants, and tells them to act as though they do not know him. Egano hires Anichino, and this assumed identity gives Lodovico access not merely to Beatrice but to the household’s inner workings. The disguise is the beginning of a relationship whose apparent foundation is service and whose hidden purpose is intimacy with the master’s wife.

Service, confidence, and disclosure

Anichino serves Egano so well that his new master comes to value him above the rest of the household. Egano entrusts him not only with personal service but with the management of all his affairs. This confidence gives Anichino the opportunity he sought, while making the eventual deception especially sharp: Egano’s trust is genuine, but it rests on an identity Lodovico has fabricated.

One day, while Egano is out hunting, Beatrice and Anichino play chess. Anichino deliberately lets her win, pleasing her. Once her women leave them alone, he sighs; in response to her questions and assurances of secrecy, he reveals who he is, how he came to Bologna, and that he took service with her husband because he had fallen in love with her. He asks her to have compassion on him and allow him to love her. Beatrice accepts his affection and arranges a meeting in her chamber that night. Their intimacy therefore grows out of the very domestic access and discretion made possible by Egano’s trust in Anichino.

The garden deception

When Anichino comes to Beatrice’s chamber at the appointed hour, she takes his hand and keeps hold of it as Egano wakes. She tells her husband that Anichino solicited her while Egano was out hunting, and claims that she agreed to meet him at midnight in the garden, beneath a pine tree. She proposes that Egano put on one of her gowns and a veil and go there himself to test his servant’s fidelity. Egano accepts the test because he already considers Anichino the most trustworthy and loving of his servants.

Beatrice locks the chamber door after Egano leaves, and she and Anichino spend time together. She then sends Anichino to the garden with a stick, instructing him to treat the disguised Egano as though he were the woman he had supposedly solicited. When Egano approaches the pine, Anichino denounces him as a wicked woman and strikes him. Egano runs away without revealing himself. In the staged scene, Anichino appears to defend his master’s honor; in reality, he is beating the master himself, who has been tricked into wearing his wife’s clothes.

Trust preserved by misreading

Egano returns to the chamber bruised and reports that Anichino beat and scolded him, believing him to be Beatrice. Beatrice interprets the encounter as proof that Anichino tested her with words and Egano with blows. Egano accepts this explanation and concludes that he has the truest wife and most trustworthy servant of any gentleman. The punishment that should expose the deception instead confirms the false story, because Egano understands the blow according to the role he thinks he played in the garden.

The ending preserves all three positions in the household: Egano remains the trusting master, Anichino the honored servant, and Beatrice his secret partner. Egano even makes merry with Anichino about the adventure, unaware of its real meaning. Anichino stays with him in Bologna, and the lovers continue to have the opportunity for their private pleasures. The relationship’s comic reversal depends on the difference between what Egano witnesses and what he understands: his confidence in Anichino survives not despite the deception, but because Beatrice has arranged for the deception to look like a demonstration of loyalty.