Peronella’s vat

Peronella’s vat is the indispensable prop in a comic reversal: an unwieldy household object that Peronella turns into cover for her lover, a pretext for misleading her husband, and the subject of a sale that leaves all three men’s supposed intentions entangled. The vat’s ordinary uses and inconveniences give the scheme its plausibility; its cramped opening and encrusted interior then make the deception physically possible. What seems merely to take up space in a poor household becomes the center around which Peronella directs the morning’s action.

Household Object and Economic Circumstance

Peronella and her husband live in Naples with little income. He works as a mason, while she earns money by spinning, and together they manage as best they can. The vat has long been an obstruction in their house, a possession whose presence matters precisely because space and money are scarce. The husband says he has found a buyer who will pay five lily-florins for it, presenting the sale as a practical means of securing bread for more than a month.

The object’s condition makes it seem less valuable than Peronella’s account of its sale. When the supposed buyer complains that the vat is crusted with something hard and dry, its neglected interior becomes a concrete obstacle to completing the transaction. The husband accepts the need to scrape it clean rather than question the circumstances. Because the vat is both a cumbersome fixture and a commodity, Peronella can make a domestic problem appear to be a small piece of household business.

The Vat as Hiding Place

The morning’s real danger begins when Peronella’s husband returns unexpectedly, tools in hand, while Giannello Strignario is with her. Her husband normally leaves early to seek work and stays away through the day; his return catches the lovers together. Peronella recognizes his knock and quickly tells Giannello to hide inside the vat while she opens the door. The object’s narrow mouth and enclosing body provide concealment, but they also trap the lover in the very possession her husband is there to sell.

The concealment depends on more than hiding. Peronella meets the unexpected return with anger and complaint, making her husband believe that his early arrival has interrupted her honest labor rather than exposed an affair. She directs his attention to their poverty, her spinning, and the burden of supporting the household. The vat remains present as the apparent subject of the encounter, while the lover within it listens for signs that the situation has become dangerous.

An Invented Sale Becomes the Cover Story

Her husband explains that the day is a feast day and that work has stopped. He also says he has arranged to sell the vat for five lily-florins. Peronella counters with a more profitable version: she claims that she has already sold it for seven florins to an honest buyer who came in to inspect it. The false sale deftly absorbs the husband’s real announcement. Rather than contradict him, she makes his news seem belated and his price too low.

Her husband accepts the story and tells the actual buyer to leave, since his wife has supposedly secured two florins more. Peronella then invites him to settle the matter himself with the buyer. Giannello emerges from the vat as though he had heard nothing of the husband’s return and asks for the woman with whom he made the bargain. The husband identifies himself as her representative. At that moment the lovers’ private arrangement is disguised as a public transaction, and the vat has supplied the setting for the deception as well as its subject.

Cleaning, Use, and Departure

Giannello says he will not take the vat until its hard residue has been removed. The husband agrees to scrape it, lays down his tools, takes off his coat, and climbs inside with a light and scraper. Peronella leans her head and one arm into the opening to point out where he has missed a spot. The arrangement turns the vat into a cramped workplace: the husband is occupied inside it, while Peronella controls what he sees and hears from outside.

While she directs the scraping, Giannello approaches her and takes advantage of the husband’s position inside the vat. The sexual encounter and the cleaning proceed at the same time; the text brings them to completion together. Peronella then withdraws from the opening, and her husband climbs out. She presents the cleaned vat to the buyer for inspection. Giannello declares himself satisfied, pays the seven florins, and has the vat carried away.

Material Comedy and Narrative Function

The vat shapes the episode through its physical properties rather than through any special or magical power. It is large enough to conceal Giannello, narrow enough to keep the husband occupied while he scrapes, and dirty enough to justify the cleaning. Each feature becomes useful at a different stage: first the vat hides the lover, then the supposed sale provides Peronella’s cover, and finally the crusted interior gives the husband a task that prevents him from noticing what is happening around him.

The resolution also depends on the object leaving the house. Peronella does not merely evade discovery; she completes the invented bargain and turns the vat’s removal into the household’s apparent gain. The husband believes he has helped secure a better price, while the buyer pays the amount Peronella claimed to have negotiated. In this seventh-day comic tale, an inconvenient possession becomes an instrument of improvisation: the vat is not a passive backdrop but the material arrangement that lets Peronella coordinate concealment, labor, desire, and money without her husband understanding how they fit together.