Ninetta Poisons Restagnone

Ninetta Poisons Restagnone is the fatal reversal in the lovers’ life on Crete: Ninetta, once deeply attached to Restagnone, kills him after his attention shifts to another woman. The death is concealed at first beneath an honorable burial and shared mourning, but the poison-maker’s later confession leads the Duke of Crete to seize Ninetta and uncover her role. The episode is told within the larger narrative by Lauretta.

From shared escape to jealousy

Ninetta and her sisters had fled with their lovers, taking money and jewels from their father’s coffer. After reaching Genoa, the three couples continued to Crete, where they bought estates near Candia and settled into a life of banquets, servants, hounds, hawks, and horses. Their escape had brought them both independence and abundance, but that ease did not preserve the first intensity of their attachments.

Restagnone, who had loved Ninetta, began to tire of a relationship in which he could have her whenever he wished. At an entertainment he saw a young woman of the country, described as fair and noble, and began courting her with lavish entertainments and gallantries. Ninetta learned of this pursuit and responded with reproaches, monitoring even his smallest movements. Whether Restagnone actually obtained the other woman’s favors remained uncertain; Ninetta treated every report as proof that he had.

The poisoning

Ninetta’s grief hardened into rage, and her love became hatred. She resolved to avenge what she regarded as an affront by killing Restagnone. To carry out the plan, she went to an old Greek woman experienced in preparing poisons and secured a deadly liquid with gifts and promises.

One evening, while Restagnone was heated and unsuspecting, Ninetta gave him the poisoned drink. Its strength was such that he was dead before morning. The act converts a quarrel over desire and attention into an irreversible death: the lover who had become available to her without hindrance had grown tiresome, while the rival’s apparent denial sharpened her appetite for revenge.

Burial, discovery, and capture

Folco, Ughetto, and their mistresses did not know that Restagnone had been poisoned. They mourned him bitterly with Ninetta and gave him an honorable burial. Her participation in the mourning helps keep the cause of death hidden; at this point, those around her share grief without suspecting the crime.

The concealment failed through the poison-maker. The old woman was arrested for another offense and, under torture, confessed among her other crimes to preparing the poison for Ninetta. She gave a full account of what had happened. The Duke of Crete then acted without publicly announcing the accusation: one night he surrounded Folco’s palace and carried Ninetta away quietly, without resistance. He did not torture her; he readily obtained from her the information he wanted about Restagnone’s death.

The event’s significance

The episode turns on a contrast between apparent plenty and frustration. The lovers’ wealthy life on Crete seems to offer every comfort, yet Restagnone’s freedom to possess Ninetta at will diminishes his attachment, while her belief that he favors another woman intensifies hers. The narrative makes jealousy the immediate cause of the murder, but gives the crime a practical chain of consequences: the poisoner’s unrelated arrest exposes the method, and Ninetta’s seizure brings her own confession. It ends with that disclosure, not with a stated judgment or punishment for Ninetta.