Tedaldo Returns to Florence Disguised as a Pilgrim and Rescues Aldobrandino

Tedaldo Returns to Florence Disguised as a Pilgrim and Rescues Aldobrandino is the decisive return in Tedaldo Elisei’s story: he comes back to the city he secretly left for love, only to find that a stranger’s murder has made him a dead man in the eyes of his family and placed an innocent husband under sentence of death. His disguise gives him room to investigate, while his knowledge of Ermellina and his composure in the face of danger let him intervene at once in both the private and public crises.

Separation, Exile, and Return

Tedaldo Elisei had been deeply in love with Ermellina, the wife of Aldobrandino Palermini. After she abruptly refused his messages and would no longer see him, he tried in vain to regain her favor. His feelings remained hidden from those around him, but the loss brought him into such melancholy that he resolved to leave rather than let her witness his grief. He departed Florence secretly, confiding in only one friend who knew the whole affair, and took with him what money he could gather.

In Ancona, Tedaldo Elisei assumed the name Filippo di Sanlodeccio and entered the service of a wealthy merchant. His good conduct and business ability won him a generous wage, a share in the merchant’s enterprise, and responsibility for much of its affairs. He managed those duties so well that within a few years he had become a rich and well-known merchant. Yet prosperity did not end the separation: he continued to remember Ermellina and suffer from his love, holding himself away from Florence for seven years.

The return begins with a song Tedaldo Elisei had composed earlier, about the love he and Ermellina had shared and the pleasure he had taken in it. Hearing it sung in Cyprus rekindled his desire to see her. He could no longer endure the distance and resolved to go back. After arranging his business, he travelled to Ancona with one servant and sent his property on to Florence through a friend of his partner. He himself followed secretly, disguised as a pilgrim returning from the Holy Sepulchre.

A City Where He Is Believed Dead

Tedaldo Elisei lodged at a small inn near Ermellina’s house and went first to look for her. Its doors and windows were closed, and he feared she might have died or moved away. Instead, outside the house of his brothers, he saw four of them dressed in black. Because his changed clothing and appearance made recognition unlikely, he questioned a nearby shoemaker. The man explained that the brothers were mourning a sibling believed murdered less than a fortnight earlier. They had persuaded the authorities that Aldobrandino Palermini, as a supposed lover of his wife, had killed him; Aldobrandino was in prison.

The news astonished Tedaldo Elisei. His brothers, he realized, had mourned and buried a stranger in his place, while Aldobrandino faced death for a crime he had not committed. Later that night, sleepless at the inn, Tedaldo heard people come down from the roof. Through a crack in his chamber door he watched a young woman bring them a light. Three men told her that Aldobrandino had confessed to Tedaldo’s murder and that judgment had been entered against him. They also revealed the truth they meant to conceal: they themselves had killed the young man, and feared that discovery would expose them to the same danger as Aldobrandino.

The killers’ confidence in a false conviction sharpened Tedaldo Elisei’s sense of the injustice. He considered how his brothers had mistaken another man for him and how false suspicion and testimony had brought an innocent person close to death. He also condemned, in his thoughts, the severity of rulers and laws that claimed to seek truth but could punish the innocent under its name. Rather than reveal himself immediately, he set about securing Aldobrandino’s release.

The Pilgrim’s Intervention

The next morning Tedaldo Elisei entered Ermellina’s house and found her alone, weeping in a small room on the ground floor. She took him for a stranger and asked how he could know either her distress or her husband’s danger. Still in his pilgrim’s disguise, he claimed to have come from Constantinople and to have been sent by God to turn her tears to laughter and save Aldobrandino. He recounted enough of her history and household affairs to convince her that he possessed extraordinary knowledge, and she fell at his feet, urgently asking him to act before it was too late.

Tedaldo Elisei used her trust to bring her back to the cause of their estrangement. He presented Aldobrandino’s present trouble as a consequence of a past wrong and asked whether she remembered having had a lover. Believing the pilgrim could see hidden truths, Ermellina admitted that she had loved the young man now believed dead. She said she had not stopped loving him even through his long absence and supposed death. Tedaldo corrected her: the dead youth had never been the one she loved; she had loved Tedaldo Elisei. Ermellina explained that a friar, hearing her confession about the affair, had frightened her with threats of damnation until she resolved to end all contact, refusing his letters and messages.

The pilgrim urged Ermellina to acknowledge that she had wrongly withdrawn from Tedaldo Elisei and to promise that, should he return, she would restore her favor and intimacy. She agreed, though she believed the promise could never be fulfilled because Tedaldo was dead. He then assured her that Tedaldo was alive and well. To prove it, he showed her a ring she had once given him. After she recognized it, he removed his pilgrim’s gown and hat and spoke in the Florentine manner she knew. At first she recoiled in fear, as if a dead man had returned from the grave; recognizing his voice, she understood that he was alive. She embraced and welcomed him back.

Their reunion was not allowed to eclipse Aldobrandino’s danger. Tedaldo Elisei told Ermellina that he had to act first for her husband’s safety and promised to return with news. He went to the prison disguised still as a pilgrim and told Aldobrandino that he had come as a friend sent to deliver him. Aldobrandino maintained that he had not committed the murder, while admitting that he had sinned in other ways. In exchange for his rescue, Tedaldo asked him to forgive Tedaldo’s four brothers for having accused him in the belief that he was guilty. Though Aldobrandino recognized the appeal of vengeance, he promised to pardon them.

The True Killers and the Reconciliation

Tedaldo Elisei then approached a gentleman sitting with the Signoria of Florence. He argued that those responsible for discovering the truth should prevent an innocent man from suffering punishment, and declared that Aldobrandino’s conviction was false. He offered to produce the murderers before midnight. The gentleman, already concerned for Aldobrandino, listened and acted on Tedaldo’s information. The two innkeeper brothers and their servant were seized while asleep. When threatened with questioning, they confessed: they had killed the young man, knowing him not, because he had grievously harassed one brother’s wife while the brothers were away and had tried to force her.

With the magistrate’s consent, Tedaldo Elisei returned to Ermellina and told her that Aldobrandino would be safe by the next day. She was overjoyed both that her lover was alive and that her husband would escape the death she had feared for him. They embraced and went to bed together, renewed in their affection. Before dawn Tedaldo left again in his pilgrim’s clothes to attend to Aldobrandino’s case. Once the authorities had sufficient information, they discharged Aldobrandino; a few days later, the actual murderers were beheaded at the place where they had committed the crime.

Aldobrandino publicly acknowledged that the pilgrim had secured his release and honored him in his house. Tedaldo Elisei also sought to complete the reconciliation he had requested in prison. Knowing that his brothers were ashamed by Aldobrandino’s acquittal and went armed for fear of his anger, he asked Aldobrandino to host a banquet for them and their wives. Aldobrandino readily agreed. Tedaldo persuaded the brothers to ask forgiveness and invited them to the meal; they accepted in confidence in his good faith. The return therefore resolves more than the false murder charge: Tedaldo restores the relationship between his beloved and her husband, brings the real killers to justice, and converts the hostility between two families into renewed friendship.