Maso del Saggio

Maso del Saggio is a clever Florentine whose ingenuity gives two comic episodes their shape: he improvises an elaborate marvel to send Calandrino searching for an invisible-making stone, and later helps orchestrate the public humiliation of a judge on the bench. In both scenes, his talent lies not simply in lying, but in reading a setting, recruiting an audience, and making another person’s assumptions do the work. His stories and pranks turn credulity and authority into spectacles for others to enjoy.

Identity and Introduction

Maso is introduced as a young man in Florence, notably humorous, highly capable at whatever he undertakes, astute, and persuasive. He hears about Calandrino’s simplicity and decides to amuse himself by deceiving him or making him believe something extraordinary. The description establishes both the motive and method that define his first appearance: Maso seeks entertainment at another man’s expense, and his plausibility is the instrument that makes the entertainment possible.

The opportunity comes in the church of San Giovanni. Maso finds Calandrino alone, intent on the carved work and paintings of a recently installed pyx. Rather than approach him openly, Maso brings a friend near and pretends not to notice him. The two begin discussing stones as if in private, with Maso speaking with the authority of a famous lapidary. Calandrino overhears, and the staged conversation draws him into the deception of his own accord. Maso has made the setting and the appearance of accidental disclosure part of the trick.

The Heliotrope Deception

When Calandrino asks about marvelous stones, Maso first supplies an extravagant account of the Land of Bengodi: a country of impossible abundance, with sausages used to tie up vines, a mountain of grated Parmesan, and a stream of fine wine. Calandrino takes the account seriously and asks practical questions, including how far away the place is and what happens to the capons used in its broth. Maso answers without betraying the invention, allowing Calandrino’s curiosity to keep the conversation moving.

The fantasy also gives Maso a way to redirect Calandrino from a distant country to a local quarry. He describes two kinds of stones found nearby. One is the ordinary grit used to make millstones; the other is the Heliotrope, which, he claims, makes its bearer invisible so long as the stone is carried. Maso places the supposed source of this powerful object in the Mugnone and describes it as almost black, in varying sizes. The small, specific details give the invented marvel a usable shape and a nearby destination.

Calandrino accepts the claim as truth. He privately resolves to search for the stone, but wants Bruno and Buffalmacco to join him before anyone else can get there first. He abandons his other business, hurries to find them at work at the Ladies’ Convent at Faenza, and presents the search as a chance for the three of them to become the richest men in Florence. His plan depends on the invisible stone allowing them to take money from the moneychangers’ tables without being seen. In the evidence of this episode, Maso’s role is the initiating deception: his performance has supplied both the marvel and the scheme Calandrino now believes to be his own.

The Judge and the Courtroom Prank

Maso appears again as the instigator of a different kind of performance. In Florence, he goes to the law courts looking for a friend and notices Messer Niccola da San Lepidio, a judge brought by a governor from the Marches of Ancona. Maso studies the man’s appearance: his smoke-blackened, greasy miniver bonnet, the poor inkhorn at his girdle, and a gown that sits awkwardly over conspicuously ill-fitting breeches. The judge’s dress, especially the breeches hanging halfway down his legs, strikes Maso as a comic spectacle.

He leaves his original errand to find two companions, Ribi and Matteuzzo, whom he knows to share his mad humour. Maso brings them to see the judge and points out the breeches. Once they have inspected the raised bench, they notice that its boards are broken and that a hand and arm can pass through a gap beneath the judge’s feet. Maso proposes pulling the breeches down, and the three agree on what each will do.

They return the next morning, when the court is full. Matteuzzo hides beneath the bench, while Maso and Ribi approach the judge from opposite sides and pretend to bring rival complaints. Their noisy dispute about saddle-bags and a pair of hose draws the judge forward as he tries to hear them. At that moment Matteuzzo reaches through the broken boards, catches the breeches, and pulls them down. Maso and Ribi keep hold of the judge’s clothes and continue their feigned argument, preventing him from covering himself while the people in court see what has happened. Matteuzzo slips out unseen; Maso and Ribi depart in opposite directions.

The judge pulls up his breeches in full view and asks whether it is customary in Florence to undress judges seated on the bench. The governor makes a stir, but his friends explain that the prank was meant to show that the Florentines recognized the poor quality of the judges he had brought with him. The governor decides to keep silent, and the matter goes no further for the time being. The prank thus becomes more than a physical joke: its target is the appointment of judges regarded as shabby and unfit, and its audience is the court itself.

Methods and Narrative Role

Across the two episodes, Maso’s intelligence is social and theatrical. In the church, he manufactures apparent authority and lets Calandrino overhear a conversation that seems to have no audience. In the courthouse, he and his companions manufacture a dispute that gives the judge a reason to lean forward, while Matteuzzo takes advantage of the bench’s broken boards. One trick makes a false marvel seem credible; the other makes a coordinated assault appear, for a moment, to be an ordinary complaint about theft.

Maso’s recurring role also links comic deception to different kinds of vulnerability. Calandrino is undone by his readiness to believe a tale of wonder and sudden wealth. The judge, by contrast, is exposed through his own conspicuous appearance and the physical arrangement of the court, while the prank carries a civic rebuke about the officials appointed to administer justice. Maso is therefore both a deceiver for private amusement and an organizer of public mockery. His episodes make ingenuity visible in action: an overheard conversation, a well-timed question, a pair of accomplices, and a gap between the boards are enough to turn confidence or dignity into comedy.