Violante

Violante names two different heroines in separate tales. The first is the daughter of Gautier of Antwerp, driven into exile as a child and raised under the assumed name Jeannette; the second is the daughter of Messer Amerigo Abate, whose secret love for Teodoro leads through pregnancy, threatened execution, and a last-minute reconciliation. Their stories do not establish that the two women are the same person. Together, however, they make the name recur in tales where family power and concealed identity shape the course of love and survival.

Gautier of Antwerp’s daughter

Violante is about seven when her father flees with her and her brother Louis after a false accusation has turned public opinion and royal authority against him. Reaching London in mean apparel, Gautier teaches the children to endure the poverty into which they have fallen and warns them never to disclose their parentage. To strengthen that concealment, he changes their names: Louis becomes Perrot, and Violante becomes Jeannette. The children grasp the lessons as well as their young ages allow, and their assumed identities become a practical means of staying alive.

At a church door, a marshal’s wife notices the family begging and is taken with the girl’s beauty, manners, and engaging presence. She offers to take Jeannette into her household and, if she proves honorable, eventually arrange a good marriage for her. Gautier accepts with tears, entrusting his daughter to the lady’s care. The separation protects Violante by giving her shelter and a future beyond the precarious life of a fugitive, but it also divides the family for years.

A marriage made under an assumed name

The marshal’s son falls gravely ill, and his mother considers whether Jeannette might be persuaded to give him her love. Jeannette refuses to consent to anything dishonorable, even if the king himself were to use force against her. Her answer impresses the marshal and his wife; when the son worsens, they decide that he should marry her rather than die without a wife. Jeannette accepts the marriage with gratitude, believing that God has not forgotten her, but continues to present herself as the daughter of a man from Picardy. The marriage is therefore both a personal union and a continuation of her guarded identity: she enters a powerful household without disclosing the lineage that could expose her family’s secret.

Meanwhile, Perrot prospers in Wales under another of the king’s marshals. He becomes renowned for his prowess in arms, and when plague kills his lord, the marshal’s wife, and their son, the marshal’s daughter inherits the estate and marries him. The king subsequently appoints him marshal. These reversals restore the exiled siblings to security by different paths: Violante through the London household and marriage, Perrot through military reputation and inheritance.

Recognition without disclosure

Eighteen years after Gautier’s flight from Paris, he returns to England, aged and poor, to discover what has become of his children. He finds Perrot established as a marshal and a great lord, but does not reveal himself to his son before first learning Violante’s circumstances. In London he discovers that Jeannette has married the marshal’s son, Jamy Lamiens, and counts the recovery of both children alive and prosperous as compensation for his adversity.

Gautier approaches his daughter’s home as a beggar. Jamy, moved by the old man’s poverty, has him brought inside and fed. Violante’s young children gather around the stranger, fondling him as though they somehow sensed their grandfather’s kinship; Gautier recognizes them as his grandchildren and returns their affection. When Violante comes out and sharply tells them to obey their governor, neither she nor the children understand who the old man is. Gautier rises to honor her not as a father but as a poor man honoring his mistress. His changed appearance—old, gray-haired, bearded, lean, and darkened—keeps him unrecognized, so the reunion remains emotionally vivid but incomplete in the evidence given.

Messer Amerigo Abate’s daughter

A second Violante grows up in the household of Messer Amerigo Abate in Trapani. Teodoro, whom Amerigo bought among boys captured by Genoese corsairs and believed to be a Turk, is raised with Amerigo’s children. His conduct wins his master’s favor: Amerigo frees him, has him baptized and named Pietro, and places his affairs in his hands. As Violante and Pietro grow up together, they fall mutually in love but keep their feelings unspoken for a long time, each afraid to reveal them.

A sudden hailstorm changes their restraint into intimacy. Returning from a country estate with Violante’s mother and other women, the pair outpace the rest of the company and take shelter in a nearly ruined hut. The small piece of roof still intact forces them close together. Their conversation and touch give way to kissing and a secret sexual relationship; afterward, they continue meeting there discreetly. Violante becomes pregnant. She tries unsuccessfully to end the pregnancy and, when Pietro fears discovery and considers fleeing, threatens to kill herself if he leaves. She argues that her pregnancy may expose her own conduct but that his identity as her lover can remain concealed if he does not confess.

Threat, recognition, and marriage

When Violante can no longer hide her pregnancy, she confides in her mother and invents a story to protect Pietro. Her mother sends her to a country house, but Amerigo discovers the truth when he arrives unexpectedly as Violante gives birth to a son. Holding his naked sword, he demands the lover’s name and threatens his daughter with death. Violante breaks her promise to Pietro under this immediate threat and reveals their relationship. Amerigo has Pietro seized and tortured; Pietro confesses and is sentenced to be flogged through the city and hanged. Amerigo also orders a servant to give Violante the choice of poison or dagger, threatens burning if she will not choose, and commands that the newborn be killed.

The sentence is interrupted when Pietro’s father, Fineo, arrives and reveals his son’s identity. Amerigo, who believes his daughter and grandson are already dead, sends to stop the order and then asks Fineo’s forgiveness. He agrees to give Violante to Teodoro in marriage; Fineo likewise insists that his son marry her or face the sentence already passed. Teodoro welcomes the prospect, and Violante, who has been waiting in terror of death, says that although her own wish is to marry him, she will obey her father. With all parties in agreement, the lovers marry publicly and magnificently, to the satisfaction of the townspeople. Violante recovers, raises her son, and is received by Fineo as a daughter-in-law. She and Teodoro leave with Fineo for Lazistan, where the couple live in peace and happiness for the rest of their lives.

Contrasting narrative roles

The two Violantes face danger within families that hold power over their futures, but their circumstances and outcomes differ. Gautier’s daughter survives through enforced anonymity, an adoptive household, and a marriage that never requires her to reveal her origin; the later scene with her father turns recognition into a quiet, one-sided exchange. Messer Amerigo’s daughter, by contrast, begins with a concealed relationship that becomes impossible to hide once she is pregnant. Her first attempt to protect Teodoro gives way under her father’s direct threat, and the crisis ends not through continued secrecy but through the revelation of Teodoro’s birth and the consent of both fathers. The recurrence of the name links two tales of separation and family authority without erasing the distinct identities of their heroines.