Torello’s magical return to Pavia

Messer Torello’s magical return to Pavia turns a report of disaster and a looming deadline into a sudden homecoming. Believing himself cut off from Madam Adalieta and from the life he left behind, he is carried from Alexandria in a sleep that makes the journey seem miraculous. Saladin’s generosity gives the return its form: Torello reaches Pavia not as a fugitive or a beggar, but asleep amid precious gifts, while the monks who discover him first mistake the scene for something supernatural.

The false report and the approaching deadline

Messer Torello’s return is driven by news that appears to close off every hope of seeing his wife again. In Alexandria, he encounters a man who had sailed with the Genoese ambassadors on the galley bound for Genoa. The man reports that, near Sicily, a violent northerly wind drove the vessel onto the quicksands of the Barbary coast, where no one survived. The disaster is real; the mistaken conclusion is what makes it decisive for Torello.

The shipwreck’s victims include a Provençal gentleman named Messer Torello de Dignes. Because Torello d'Istria is renowned among the Christian host, reports that Messer Torello has died are understood to mean him rather than the lesser-known namesake. Those who return with the report therefore claim to have seen Torello d'Istria dead and buried, although the man who died was another person. The confusion helps explain why Madam Adalieta and her kin have been led to grieve and why Torello’s condition in Alexandria has not reached Pavia.

Torello also remembers that the term he had required of his wife is about to end. With perhaps eight days remaining before Madam Adalieta is expected to go to a new husband, he concludes that nobody in Pavia can know he is alive and that she must have remarried. The news of the shipwreck thus becomes, in his mind, a second loss: the voyage has destroyed the possibility of a timely return, and the deadline has apparently made his wife another man’s. He falls into such distress that he loses sleep and appetite, takes to his bed, and resolves to die.

Saladin’s answer to despair

Saladin, who loves Torello deeply, learns of his illness and presses him to explain its cause. Once Torello reveals his fear, Saladin reproaches him for not speaking sooner, then promises to get him to Pavia by the appointed term if he will take heart. Torello’s willingness to risk anything to reach home gives urgency to the promise: he believes that arriving in time is the only alternative to death.

Saladin calls on a magician whose powers he has previously tested. The magician says that Torello can be transported to Pavia in a single night, but must first be put to sleep for his own safety. The plan makes the return depend on both extraordinary means and deliberate care: the journey will be carried out while Torello cannot witness it, and Saladin must entrust his friend to a process whose success depends on the magician’s skill.

Saladin makes clear that haste is not indifference. He regrets that Torello’s need to leave has prevented him from arranging a public departure with the honor and company Torello deserves. He speaks of the friendship between them and asks Torello to remember him, visit if the opportunity arises, and write to him. Torello answers that Saladin’s actions have already proved his affection. Their parting is therefore not a mere logistical step toward the journey: it is a leave-taking between friends who would rather remain together but accept that Torello must go.

The bed and the gifts

To prepare for the transport, Saladin has a rich bed made ready in a great hall of his palace. Its mattresses are velvet and cloth of gold, and its coverlet is worked with figures and set with valuable pearls and jewels; two pillows match its splendor. Saladin also has Torello dressed in a magnificent robe in the Saracen fashion and a long turban-cloth wound about his head. The preparations give the sleeping traveler the appearance of a magnificently honored guest even as he is about to vanish from Saladin’s court.

Before the magician sends him away, Saladin adds gifts that will travel with Torello. He places a costly crown, marked as intended for Torello’s lady, on the bed. He puts a brilliant carbuncle ring on Torello’s finger and girds him with a sword whose fittings are beyond easy appraisal. A jeweled clasp hangs at his breast, and two large gold basins filled with doubloons stand at his sides. Strings of pearls, rings, girdles, and other valuables are arranged around him. The abundance makes the bed a vehicle of both return and gratitude: Saladin cannot accompany his friend, but can send him home surrounded by tokens of their bond and with a gift for Madam Adalieta.

A physician gives Torello a draught, pretending that it will strengthen him. Torello soon falls asleep; at Saladin’s command, he is carried into the hall and laid on the prepared bed. Saladin kisses him once more and gives the magician the signal to proceed. In Saladin’s presence, the bed, with Torello and all its treasures, is taken away. The passage from palace to destination is sudden, but its human cost has been carefully staged in the farewells and the gifts that precede it.

Arrival at San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro

Torello is set down at San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro at Pavia, exactly where he had asked Saladin to have him carried. He remains asleep, surrounded by the bed’s ornaments and riches. At matins, the church’s sacristan enters with a light, sees the sumptuous bed, and flees in terror. The abbot and monks first question his alarm, then go into the church with several lights and find Torello asleep among the jewels. They look from a distance, fearful and uncertain, before the effect of the draught wears off.

When Torello wakes, he recognizes that he is in the place he requested and is glad to have arrived. His first clear response is to inspect the treasures around him; even though he already knew Saladin’s magnificence, the gifts exceed what he expected. The monks’ fear, meanwhile, has a specific cause: they have been told for months that Torello is dead. He calls the abbot by name and identifies himself as the abbot’s nephew, but this recognition initially frightens the older man even more. Only after the abbot takes assurance from Torello’s voice and other proofs does he approach.

Reversal and significance

The return brings Torello physically back to Pavia, but the scene first presents homecoming as an apparent haunting. The monks see a man believed dead asleep amid an inexplicable display of wealth; Torello sees the church he chose and understands that Saladin has kept his word. The gap between those perceptions preserves the wonder of the arrival while grounding it in concrete details: a sleep-inducing draught, a bed carried by magic, the dawn service, and the abbot’s recognition of his nephew.

The event also makes the mistaken report of death and Torello’s fear of losing Madam Adalieta converge in one night. His return occurs as the promised term is nearly over, and Saladin marks his devotion with a crown expressly sent for Torello’s lady. The sequence therefore carries Torello across more than distance. It reverses the apparent finality of the shipwreck report, interrupts the expected separation from his wife, and returns him to the home from which he had been absent—bearing visible proof of the friendship formed in Alexandria.