Perugia

Perugia frames Andreuccio di Pietro’s story as both his point of departure and his destination after a night of danger in Naples. He leaves home to buy horses and returns with a ruby ring instead, making the city the endpoint of a journey transformed by misadventure.

Setting in Andreuccio’s Story

Fiammetta introduces Andreuccio as a young horse-courser from Perugia who has never before travelled away from home. Hearing that horses are inexpensive in Naples, he sets out with other merchants and five hundred gold florins in his purse. Perugia thus stands behind his first journey abroad: it is the familiar home from which he enters an unfamiliar marketplace and its dangers.

Departure and Return

The story’s movement away from Perugia is reversed after Andreuccio escapes from the tomb where he has been trapped during a robbery. Near daybreak, he makes his way to the seashore and then back to his inn, where his companions and host have been worried about his disappearance. On the host’s advice, he leaves Naples immediately and returns to Perugia. The outcome sharply differs from his original purpose: instead of buying a horse, he has invested his money in a ring.

Narrative Significance

Perugia gives the episode a homeward boundary. The city is named at the beginning to establish Andreuccio’s origins and reappears at the end as the place to which he returns after three grievous accidents in a single night. His return closes the movement of the tale, while the ruby ring carries back the consequence of his ordeal in place of the horses he had gone to purchase.