Tedaldo Returns and Clears Aldobrandino of Murder is a story of mistaken identity turned into a crisis of law, love, and family. Returning to Florence after seven years away, Tedaldo Elisei finds that a stranger has been buried in his place and that Aldobrandino Palermini, the husband of Tedaldo’s former lover, is facing death for the supposed murder. Tedaldo’s return does more than establish that he is alive: by tracing the truth, he saves an innocent man, exposes the actual killers, and brings estranged families together. The tale is narrated by Emilia, and its reversals hinge on how readily grief, accusation, and even an apparent resurrection can be built upon mistaken appearances.

Return to Florence and the False Death

Tedaldo has made a life for himself abroad. After leaving Florence, he entered a merchant’s service in Cyprus; his ability and diligence won him a good wage, a share in the business, and responsibility for much of his employer’s affairs. He became rich and respected, but his success did not extinguish his longing for Ermellina. A song he had composed about their love, heard again in Cyprus, revived his desire to see her. After putting his affairs in order, he sent his property to Florence through a business associate and travelled secretly with one servant, disguised as a pilgrim returning from the Holy Sepulchre.

On reaching Florence, Tedaldo first went to Ermellina’s house, but its doors and windows were closed. At his brothers’ house he saw four men dressed in black. Because his changed clothes and appearance made him difficult to recognize, he asked a nearby shoemaker what had happened. The man explained that the family was mourning a brother who had been murdered less than a fortnight earlier. The court, he said, had established that Aldobrandino, known to have been Ermellina’s admirer, had killed him and was now in prison.

The report astonished Tedaldo: another man had been mistaken for him, and that error had put an innocent person in danger of execution. That night, at the inn where he was staying near Ermellina’s home, he remained awake until around midnight. Through the door he saw a young woman holding a light while three men came down from the roof. One of them said that they could now feel secure because Tedaldo’s death had been proved against Aldobrandino, who had confessed; he warned, however, that their own involvement must remain secret. The men were the killers, and their confidence revealed that the conviction rested on a false account.

The Murder, the Lover, and the Pilgrim’s Disguise

Tedaldo recognized the danger in the men’s conversation. His brothers had mourned and buried a stranger in his place, while Aldobrandino had been falsely accused and brought close to death. The case also exposed the frailty of the proceedings that claimed to establish truth: the wrong man’s identity had been assumed, and an innocent husband faced punishment for a crime he had not committed. Tedaldo resolved to intervene rather than merely announce his return.

The next morning he entered Ermellina’s house and found her weeping in a ground-floor room. He told her, while maintaining his pilgrim persona, that he had come to turn her tears to laughter and free her husband. He seemed to know the history of her household so completely that she took him for a holy man with supernatural insight. Tedaldo used that trust to ask whether she had once loved someone. Ermellina confessed that she had loved the young man whose death was blamed on her husband, and that she had grieved for him. Tedaldo corrected her understanding: the man she had loved was Tedaldo himself, not the stranger whose body had been found.

Ermellina explained why she had broken with Tedaldo. A friar to whom she had confessed their relationship had frightened her with threats of damnation unless she ended it. She had therefore refused Tedaldo’s letters and messages, though she said she had loved him and regretted the separation. Tedaldo, still presenting himself as an interpreter of divine justice, recast her past decision as the sin behind her present tribulation. He told her that, if Tedaldo returned, she should restore him to her favour and their former intimacy. She objected that this was impossible because she had seen him dead, stabbed, and wept over his body. The pilgrim insisted that Tedaldo was alive; she promised that she would welcome him if he returned.

Only then did Tedaldo reveal himself. He produced a ring Ermellina had given him on their last night together. Recognizing it, she watched him remove his pilgrim’s clothing and heard him speak in the Florentine manner. At first she recoiled, afraid that she was seeing a dead man returned from the tomb. When she recognized his voice and understood that he was alive, she embraced and kissed him. Tedaldo postponed a fuller reunion: Aldobrandino still needed to be rescued, and he went at once to the prison.

Clearing Aldobrandino and Finding the Killers

Tedaldo entered Aldobrandino’s prison cell as a spiritual comforter and promised that the prisoner would be acquitted before the following night, if he would grant a small request. Aldobrandino maintained that he had not committed the murder, although he admitted to other sins, and promised to do what was asked if he escaped with his life. Tedaldo asked him to forgive Tedaldo’s four brothers for having pursued the accusation in the belief that Aldobrandino had killed their brother. Aldobrandino agreed, even acknowledging how fiercely a wronged person might desire revenge.

Tedaldo then went to the Signoria and privately told a gentleman sitting in judgment that Aldobrandino was innocent and that the actual murderers could be delivered into the authorities’ hands before midnight. The magistrate, who was concerned for Aldobrandino, acted on the information. He had the two brothers who kept the inn and their servant arrested as they slept. Under questioning, the men confessed, first separately and then together, to killing Tedaldo. They said they had acted because, while they were away, Tedaldo had grievously troubled one brother’s wife and had tried to force her to submit to him. Their confession established both the identity of the real victim and the false basis of Aldobrandino’s conviction.

Tedaldo returned to Ermellina with the news that her husband would be home safely the next day. The Signoria released Aldobrandino after concluding that the case had been established, and a few days later the murderers were beheaded at the place where they had committed the crime. The immediate danger was removed through evidence and confession, not through the supposed revelation that Tedaldo had staged for Ermellina. His disguise had helped him gain her confidence; his knowledge of the actual killers enabled him to bring the case to the authorities.

Reconciliation and Recognition

Aldobrandino welcomed Tedaldo into his home and publicly acknowledged that the pilgrim’s intervention had saved him. Tedaldo then arranged to fulfil the promise Aldobrandino had made in prison. He asked his host to prepare a banquet and invite the four brothers, their wives, and their relations. Tedaldo visited the brothers himself and persuaded them to seek peace with Aldobrandino. They accepted the invitation, though they and their household still wore the black and sombre clothes of mourning.

At the banquet, Aldobrandino’s family received the brothers and their wives. The meal began in silence, the dark clothes making the loss they believed they had suffered still present among them. Tedaldo had noticed the restraint and waited until the guests were eating fruit before rising. He announced that the one thing missing from the feast was Tedaldo himself, whom his family had unknowingly entertained throughout the gathering. He removed the pilgrim’s clothes and stood before them in a green-silk doublet. His relatives stared at him in amazement; when he recalled details of their shared lives and recounted his adventures, his brothers and the other guests embraced him in tears.

Ermellina did not join the other women immediately. When Aldobrandino asked why, she explained that she was more indebted than anyone to Tedaldo because he had restored her husband, but that she had held back because of the harsh things she had once said about the man they believed dead. Aldobrandino rejected the slanders that had circulated and urged her to welcome Tedaldo. She then embraced him. Tedaldo’s brothers’ suspicions were quieted, and the reconciliation became visible in action: he tore the black garments from his brothers and the sombre clothes from their women relatives, had fresh apparel sent for, and the guests turned from a subdued meal to singing, dancing, and several days of feasting.

The Stranger in the Grave and the Limits of Certainty

Even after the banquet, some Florentines—and for a time Tedaldo’s own brothers—still wondered whether the returned man was truly Tedaldo. That doubt ended only when foot soldiers from Lunigiana recognized him as a comrade they called Faziuolo of Pontremoli. They explained that Faziuolo had come to Florence a fortnight or so earlier and had since disappeared. Asked about his clothes, they described the same garments in which the murdered man had been found. Their recognition established that the dead man was Faziuolo, not Tedaldo, and removed the last uncertainty about Tedaldo’s identity.

The identification completes the tale’s sequence of errors: a stranger is buried as Tedaldo, resemblance helps condemn Aldobrandino, and Tedaldo’s genuine return initially looks like a return from the dead. Each mistake is corrected by a different kind of knowledge—witnessed conduct, confession, family memory, and finally the soldiers’ recognition of their missing comrade. Tedaldo returns rich, resumes his love for Ermellina, and the two continue their relationship discreetly. The ending restores him to his family and lover, but its happy resolution depends on exposing how easily a mistaken name and a persuasive accusation can put both affection and justice at risk.