Pietro Boccamazza and Agnolella’s Elopement

Pietro Boccamazza and Agnolella’s Elopement is a tale of lovers driven from Rome by family opposition, separated by violence and mischance, and reunited through a chain of rescues. Their flight exposes the danger created by Pietro’s relatives’ refusal to accept his choice, while the ending turns private determination into an accepted marriage, celebrated under the protection of Lionello di Campodifiore’s wife and ultimately reconciled with Pietro’s family.

Background and decision to flee

The story is told by Elisa as an embedded tale. Pietro is a young man of a highly respected Roman family; Agnolella, daughter of Gigliuozzo Saullo, is of plebeian birth but much loved by the Romans. They fall in love with one another, and Pietro asks to marry her. His family responds by scolding him and opposing the match. They also warn Agnolella’s father not to take Pietro’s proposal seriously, threatening that accepting it would cost him their friendship and kinship. The objection is therefore not a lack of affection between the lovers, but the resistance of a family guarding its social standing.

Pietro is so distressed by the blocked marriage that he feels close to despair. If Agnolella’s father had consented, he says he would have married her despite his relatives. Since that path is closed, he asks through an intermediary whether she is willing to leave Rome with him. She agrees. They arrange their departure and set out early one morning on horseback for Anagni, where Pietro has trusted friends. They have no time to hold a wedding: afraid of pursuit, they ride on, speaking lovingly and kissing as they travel. Their escape begins not as a settled journey but as a hurried attempt to make a life together beyond the reach of family opposition.

The wrong turn and their separation

About eight miles from Rome, Pietro takes the wrong path. Instead of keeping right, they turn left; after another two miles, they approach a small castle, and a dozen footmen suddenly emerge. Agnolella notices the danger first and turns her horse toward a nearby wood, urging flight. Her mount gallops into the trees. Pietro, who has been looking more at her face than at the road, realizes what is happening too late. The men seize him, make him dismount, and discuss stripping him of his clothes and horse and hanging him from an oak because they regard him as a friend of their enemies, the Orsini family.

Before they can carry out their plan, an ambush of about twenty-five men attacks them. The captors turn to defend themselves and then flee when they see they are outnumbered. Pietro gathers his belongings and rides into the wood after Agnolella, but cannot find her, a path, or even hoofprints. He spends the day calling and searching, fearful both for himself and for her, and uncertain whether to go forward or turn back. At night he ties his horse to a great oak and climbs into the tree to escape the wild animals he fears may be in the forest.

Agnolella, meanwhile, wanders separately through the wood, also searching and calling. Toward evening her horse finds a path that leads to a small, poor house. An elderly couple tell her that Anagni is more than twelve miles away and that no other lodging is near enough to reach before night. They warn that armed groups, both friends and foes, often pass through the area and that they cannot protect her if she is threatened. She accepts their shelter, judging the risk of human violence less terrible than remaining among wild animals. She spends the night grieving for Pietro and their misfortune.

The house, the haystack, and the castle

At dawn, hearing a troop approaching, Agnolella hides in a heap of hay in the courtyard behind the house. The newcomers are described as a band of rogues. They find her saddled horse and claim it as their own, while the old man says only that the animal arrived the previous evening and that they brought it in to keep the wolves from eating it. One man casts his lance into the hay, and its point passes so close to Agnolella’s left breast that it tears part of her dress. She suppresses a cry and remains hidden until the men leave, taking her horse with them.

When the old couple discover her, they offer to escort her on foot to a nearby castle where she will be safe. She cares little about the stolen horse and asks them to take her there. The castle belongs to Lionello di Campodifiore. His wife recognizes Agnolella, receives her warmly, and listens to her account. Knowing Pietro as well, she is distressed by what has happened and, having heard that he was captured, fears he is dead. She offers Agnolella refuge until she can arrange a safe return to Rome. Her protection turns a chance shelter into a place where the separated lovers may find one another again.

Pietro’s night in the tree has its own ordeal. Around the time of first sleep, wolves gather around his horse. The animal breaks its bridle and fights with its teeth and hooves, but the wolves surround it, kill it, and devour its flesh, leaving only its bones. Pietro loses both his means of travel and the companion he had relied on in his distress. Near daybreak he sees a large fire perhaps a mile away. He climbs down and reaches shepherds gathered around it, who give him food and warmth. When they tell him that Lionello’s castle is about three miles away and that Lionello’s wife is there, Pietro asks for an escort. Two shepherds take him to the castle.

Reunion, marriage, and return

At the castle Pietro is about to ask for help searching the forest when he is summoned to Lionello’s wife. He finds Agnolella there, and the joy of their reunion is immediate, though he restrains himself from embracing her out of respect for their hostess. The lady hears Pietro’s account and rebukes him for acting against his relatives’ wishes. Yet she sees that both lovers remain resolved, that their intention is honorable, and that they have survived successive dangers: Pietro has escaped hanging, Agnolella has escaped the lance, and both have endured the threat of wild animals.

Instead of sending them back into uncertainty, Lionello’s wife gives her consent to their marriage and undertakes to make peace between them and their families. The wedding is celebrated then and there at Lionello’s expense, as honorably as circumstances in the mountains allow. The lovers enjoy the first days of married life before setting out with the lady under a strong escort for Rome. There Pietro’s relatives are still angry at his choice, but Lionello’s wife succeeds in reconciling them with him. Pietro and Agnolella then live together in peace and happiness into old age.

Narrative shape and significance

The lovers’ separation is produced by a small navigational mistake, but the danger that follows is not small: armed men threaten Pietro, Agnolella spends a night exposed to the bandits, a lance nearly strikes her, and wolves kill Pietro’s horse. Their reunion does not depend on either lover mastering the forest alone. It comes through a sequence of other people’s actions: the attackers are driven off by an ambush, the elderly couple shelter Agnolella, shepherds guide Pietro, and Lionello’s wife recognizes the lovers’ need and acts as both host and mediator.

The ending also changes the terms of the lovers’ original escape. They leave Rome without a wedding because they fear pursuit, but they return as spouses, escorted by a powerful ally who helps secure family reconciliation. Pietro’s initial defiance of his relatives is not erased; rather, the final settlement makes the marriage they opposed socially tenable. The story’s movement from flight to refuge, reunion, and escorted return gives its happy ending a concrete shape: love survives the hazards of the journey and gains a place within the family order that first tried to prevent it.