The deaths of Girolamo and Salvestra bring a childhood love, interrupted by family plans and made impossible by marriage, to a tragic conclusion. In Neifile’s story, Girolamo dies quietly beside the woman he has loved since youth; Salvestra, who has refused to resume their affair, dies when grief overtakes her at his funeral. Their story ends with the two laid in one tomb, united in death after circumstance and choice kept them apart in life.

A Love Interrupted

Girolamo is the son of Lionardo Sighieri, a very wealthy merchant. After Lionardo dies, the boy’s mother and guardians manage his affairs. As he grows up among the neighborhood children, he becomes especially close to Salvestra, the daughter of a tailor. Their childhood familiarity deepens into passionate love, and each loves the other. Girolamo is not yet fourteen when his mother notices the attachment and fears its consequences. She worries that his wealth may lead him to marry a girl she considers beneath his station, or that he may pine away if Salvestra is married to someone else.

His mother persuades the guardians to separate the young pair by sending Girolamo abroad. They present a stay in Paris as an opportunity to oversee his wealth and improve his manners among the lords and gentlemen there. Girolamo initially refuses, saying he can do as well in Florence as anyone else. His mother eventually persuades him to go to France for a year. But the separation lasts two: he is repeatedly kept abroad, and his love does not fade.

Return and Rejection

When Girolamo returns, he finds that Salvestra has married an honest young tentmaker. He is devastated but tries to console himself, then watches for her and passes by her home, hoping she remembers him as he remembers her. She appears not to recognize their former attachment, or at least gives him no sign of it. His attempts to bring himself back to her mind fail, and he resolves to speak with her directly.

One evening, after learning how her house is arranged, Girolamo enters while Salvestra and her husband are away at a neighbors’ vigil. He hides among the tent cloths and waits until they have returned to bed and the husband is asleep. Then he approaches Salvestra and softly addresses her as the person he loves. She is awake and, recognizing him, trembles. She tells him to leave: their childhood love belongs to the past, she is now married, and it is her duty to have regard for no man but her husband. She also fears that, if her husband discovers Girolamo, she may lose the peace and affection she presently has in her marriage.

The Death in the Bedchamber

Girolamo recalls their former love and pleads with Salvestra, but she will not yield. At last, he asks only to lie beside her long enough to warm himself, promising not to touch her or speak and to leave once he is warm. Salvestra feels some compassion and grants this request on those conditions. He lies beside her without touching her. As he thinks of the love he has borne for so long, her present refusal, and the hope he has lost, he resolves to die. He contracts his vital spirits and dies without a word or movement.

For a while Salvestra assumes he has fallen asleep. When she tries to wake him, she finds him cold and motionless, and realizes that he is dead. She is overcome with distress and does not know what to do. Rather than immediately disclose what has happened, she asks her husband’s advice by presenting the death as if it had occurred in another woman’s house. He says that the dead man should be quietly carried home and that the woman should not be blamed, since she appears to have done nothing wrong. Salvestra then reveals Girolamo’s body. Her husband does not accuse her: he dresses the corpse, carries it on his shoulders to Girolamo’s home, and leaves it at the door.

Salvestra’s Death and the Shared Tomb

In the morning, Girolamo is found dead outside his own house. Physicians examine his body and find no wound or bruise; people conclude that grief has killed him. As mourners gather at the church where his body is carried, Salvestra’s husband suggests that she cover her head and listen among the women while he listens among the men, so they can learn whether anyone suspects them. She goes, in part because she wishes to see the dead Girolamo whom she had refused even one kiss while he lived.

When Salvestra sees his face, her old love returns with sudden force. She presses through the women, throws herself face down upon him, and dies from grief as soon as she touches him. The women first try to raise her, not knowing who she is; when they find her motionless, they recognize her as Salvestra and discover that she too is dead. Her husband, who has heard the news among the men, weeps and recounts what happened during the night. The two deaths are thus made known, along with the different immediate causes: Girolamo dies after Salvestra refuses him, and Salvestra dies after seeing him dead.

The pair are dressed for burial, placed together on one bier, and buried in the same tomb. Neifile’s closing image gives them in death the inseparable union that their lives never achieved. The story’s reversals are stark: Salvestra’s fidelity prevents a renewed affair, but cannot protect her from grief; the husband, rather than becoming an avenger, helps return Girolamo’s body and ultimately tells the truth. Their shared grave resolves the story’s separation only through the deaths that separation has helped bring about.

Narrative and Significance

Neifile introduces the tale as a warning against trying to overcome love by judgment and separation. The mother’s plan treats distance as a means of making Girolamo forget, but the two years in Paris leave him more deeply attached, not less. The return does not restore the childhood relationship: Salvestra has married, and she insists on the obligations and peace of her present life. The tragedy grows from this collision between enduring desire and changed circumstances, rather than from a successful secret reunion.

The final sequence also changes how the couple’s love is understood. While Girolamo is alive, Salvestra refuses to risk her marriage for him; after his death, she cannot bear the loss. Her grief becomes visible only when the body is before her, and the husband’s account makes the hidden events public. The shared tomb then turns the story’s central separation into a last, irreversible closeness.