Rinaldo de' Pugliesi

Rinaldo de' Pugliesi is Madam Filippa’s husband and the accuser in a public adultery case that reverses against him. After finding her with Lazzerino de' Guazzagliotri, he seeks her death through Prato’s law. But when Filippa argues that the statute is unjust and asks whether she has always satisfied her husband’s own desires, Rinaldo confirms that she has. The court sides with her, changes the statute, and leaves Rinaldo with shame rather than the punishment he sought.

Identity and Background

Rinaldo appears in a single episode as the husband of Madam Filippa, a noble and beautiful woman in Prato. The story identifies him through this marriage and through his role in the legal action that follows her discovery with her lover, Lazzerino de' Guazzagliotri. It supplies no further account of his life, household, or standing, so his character is drawn chiefly through the choices he makes in this confrontation.

The episode begins with a law that treats adultery by a wife as a capital offense. It also places women found selling their favors for money under the same penalty, without distinction between the cases. That statute gives Rinaldo a route to pursue the death of his wife through the court rather than by private violence.

Discovery and Accusation

Rinaldo finds Madam Filippa in her chamber with Lazzerino, a handsome young man whom she loves. He is enraged and nearly attacks the pair, but restrains himself because he fears what might happen to him if he gave way to his anger. His restraint does not lead him to abandon the aim of punishing her: instead, he turns to the law, seeking from it the death he had not dared to bring about with his own hand.

The next day, without seeking further counsel, he lodges an accusation before the provost. The narrative says he has sufficient evidence to prove her offense. The movement from discovery to prosecution is swift: the private scene becomes a public case, and the statute makes Filippa’s honesty before the magistrate potentially fatal.

Testimony and Reversal

At the hearing, the provost explains that he cannot condemn Filippa unless she confesses. She does not deny what happened. Rather, she challenges the justice of a rule that binds women alone and was made without their consent. She then asks the court to establish whether she has granted Rinaldo his pleasure whenever he requested it.

Rinaldo answers before the provost can put the question to him, confirming that she has always accorded him what he wanted. Filippa uses that admission to argue that, if her husband’s needs have been met, the love remaining to her need not be wasted. Her defense does not depend on disproving the affair; it turns the hearing toward the unequal rule and toward Rinaldo’s own account of their marriage.

The assembled people laugh at her argument and declare that she has spoken well. The provost then has the statute changed so that it applies only to women who are unfaithful to their husbands for money. Rinaldo’s testimony, offered in a prosecution meant to secure his wife’s death, thus helps bring about a narrower law.

Consequences and Narrative Role

Rinaldo leaves the court having gained only shame from what the narrative calls a foolish undertaking. Madam Filippa returns home free and triumphant, while the law that enabled the charge has been altered. The story does not say whether the couple remain together or describe any later consequence for Rinaldo; its stated outcome is his public defeat and her release.

As a character, Rinaldo functions less as a fully developed portrait than as the agent whose prosecution brings the statute into view. His initial refusal to act violently is followed by an attempt to enlist public authority in the same lethal purpose. In court, however, he supplies the testimony that lets Filippa redirect the case. The reversal is precise: the husband who invokes a law to punish his wife publicly confirms that she has fulfilled her obligations to him, and the legal proceeding ends by changing the rule he meant to use.