Ustica

Ustica is a small island opposite Trapani in the Decameron episode of Gerbino and the Tunisian princess. It is the place where Gerbino gives the princess an honorable burial after she is killed aboard the ship carrying her, making the island a final destination in a story otherwise shaped by attempted rescue, violence, and loss.

Setting and Appearance

The narrative identifies Ustica only briefly, as a small island opposite Trapani. It supplies no further description of the island; its significance comes from its position in the final movement of Gerbino’s voyage back toward Sicily.

The Princess’s Burial

After the ship’s crew kills the princess and casts her into the sea, Gerbino boards the vessel and kills many of the Saracens aboard. When the fire forces him to leave, he has the princess’s body recovered from the water. He then sails toward Sicily and buries her honorably at Ustica, weeping for a long time over her body.

Narrative Significance

Ustica becomes the site of the story’s last act of care for the princess. Gerbino cannot save her from her captors, and his violent victory over them cannot undo her death; the burial at Ustica gives his grief a place and a public gesture of honor. From there he returns home described as the most sorrowful man alive, while King Guglielmo II of Sicily, confronted by the Tunisian king’s complaint, condemns Gerbino to death for breaking the pledged faith. The island thus stands at the hinge between the lovers’ deaths and the political consequence that follows.