The Sisterhood of Ninetta and Maddalena

The Sisterhood of Ninetta and Maddalena is defined by a sharp reversal: the sisters first join in a secret escape and shared new life, then Maddalena risks herself to save Ninetta, only to be killed before the sisters can escape together. Their bond drives the story’s central acts of cooperation and sacrifice, while a lover’s deception turns rescue into an irreversible separation.

Family and Early Entanglements

The sisters belong to a prosperous merchant household in Marseilles. Their father, Narnald Cluada, is away in Spain on business when the story begins. Ninetta and Maddalena, the two eldest daughters, were born together and are both fifteen; their younger sister, Bertella, is fourteen. The family is rich in lands and money, but its daughters’ lives are still organized around marriage arrangements awaiting their father’s return.

Ninetta’s secret relationship with Restagnone draws the sisters’ private lives into a wider alliance. Restagnone is of gentle birth but poor, and he and Ninetta have managed to meet without anyone knowing. Folco, a wealthy young man, loves Maddalena, while Ughetto loves Bertella. Restagnone befriends both suitors and uses their attachment to the sisters as the basis for a plan to take all three couples away together. The sisters’ relationships are distinct, but their escape depends on acting as a group.

Flight and Shared Fortune

Ninetta helps bring her sisters into the plan. Knowing their feelings, she persuades them with gentle words until they are as eager for the venture as she is. On the appointed night, the three sisters open their father’s great coffer and take a large quantity of money and jewels. They leave secretly, meet their lovers, and board the brigantine prepared for the journey.

The sisters’ departure is not merely a flight from home: it depends on wealth taken from their family and on the men’s ability to secure a vessel and destination. After reaching Genoa, where the newly paired lovers first enjoy their relationships openly, the group continues by sea and arrives in Crete before the eighth day. There they buy estates near Candia and build comfortable homes. The three couples live with servants, hounds, hawks, and horses, passing their days in banquets and merrymaking. For a time, the sisters share not only a household of origin but also a chosen life beyond their father’s supervision.

That shared prosperity does not protect them from change within the couples. Restagnone, once deeply devoted to Ninetta, grows tired of having her without hindrance and begins courting a local noblewoman. Ninetta’s jealousy leads her to monitor his movements and reproach him. The sisters’ common escape has given them freedom from one set of constraints, but it has not secured the constancy of the men on whom their new lives also depend.

Maddalena’s Bargain

After Restagnone dies, the Duke has Ninetta seized from Folco’s palace. She is questioned about the death and faces the prospect of being burned. Folco and Ughetto, and through them Maddalena and Bertella, learn privately why she has been taken. They try to save her, but the Duke remains determined to enforce justice.

Maddalena then acts on her sister’s behalf. The Duke has long courted her, without her having consented to satisfy his desire. She now sends word that she will yield to him if he returns Ninetta safe and keeps the bargain secret. The Duke debates the proposal but ultimately agrees. With Maddalena’s consent, he arranges for Folco and Ughetto to be detained under the pretext of questioning them. He then takes Ninetta away in a sack, making a show of intending to sink her in the sea that night, and secretly delivers her to Maddalena the next morning.

The rescue is therefore both successful and costly. Maddalena’s concession secures Ninetta’s release, and the Duke treats Ninetta’s return as payment for the night he has spent with her sister. He asks Maddalena to send the accused woman away so that he will not be blamed or forced to pursue her again. The sisters have been reunited, but only through a bargain that leaves them exposed to the suspicion and anger of the men around them.

Betrayal and Separation

Folco and Ughetto are released the next morning. Believing that Ninetta has been drowned, they return to comfort their lovers over her death. Maddalena attempts to conceal her sister’s presence, but Folco soon discovers that Ninetta is in the palace. Having heard of the Duke’s desire for Maddalena, he suspects what has happened and presses her until she tells him the truth.

Folco responds by drawing his sword and killing Maddalena, despite her pleas for mercy. The rescue that depended on her sacrifice is thus followed by her death at the hands of the man she had hoped to deceive or appease. Ninetta does not witness this killing. Folco approaches her with a pretence of cheerfulness and says they must leave for the place Maddalena had arranged. Believing him, and frightened of falling again into the Duke’s power, Ninetta goes with him without seeking to say goodbye to her sister.

The deception prevents a reunion from becoming a farewell: Ninetta leaves without knowing that Maddalena is dead. Folco and Ninetta take the small amount of money he can gather and board a vessel; their destination is never learned. Meanwhile, Maddalena’s murder is attributed to Ughetto and his lady by people hostile to Ughetto. The Duke arrests them, and, facing death, they bribe their keepers with money hidden for emergencies and escape by night to Rhodes, leaving their possessions behind. The sisters’ escape had once carried the whole group toward shared abundance; the aftermath scatters the survivors into uncertainty and poverty. Maddalena’s sacrifice saves Ninetta from the immediate threat of execution, but cannot save either sister from the violence that follows.