In the introduction to his book, the author admits that he wrote it, following "the example of the excellent Florentine poet, Messer Giovanni Boccaccio." “I, the Florentine Franco Sacketgi, a man of ignorance and rude, set out to write the book you are offering, collecting in it stories of all those extraordinary cases that, whether in antiquity or now, have taken place, as well as some of those that I myself observed and with whom he was a witness, and even about some, in which he participated. " In the novels both real and fictional persons act, often this is the next embodiment of some kind of “wandering plot” or moralizing story.
In the story of the fourth Messer Barnabo, the ruler of Milan, a cruel man, but not without a sense of justice, was once angry with the abbot, who did not adequately contain the two cops entrusted to his care. Messer Barnabo demanded the payment of four thousand florins, but when the abbot prayed for mercy, he agreed to forgive him the debt, provided that he answered the following four questions: whether it was far to heaven; how much water is in the sea; what is going on in hell and how much does it cost himself, Messer Barnabo. The abbot, in order to gain time, asked for a reprieve, and Messer Barnabo, taking a promise from him to return, released him until the next day. On the way, the abbot meets a miller, who, seeing how upset he is, asks what is the matter. After hearing the story of the abbot, the miller decides to help him, for which he changes clothes with him, and, having shaved his beard, comes to Messer Barnabo. A dressed-up miller claims that 36 million 854 thousand 72.5 miles and 22 steps to heaven, and when asked how he proves this, he recommends checking, and if he made a mistake, let him hang him. Sea water 25 982 million horse, 7 barrels, 12 mugs and 2 glasses, in any case, according to his calculations. In hell, according to the miller, “they cut, quarter, grab with hooks and hang,” just like on earth. In this case, the miller refers to Dante and suggests contacting him for verification. The miller determines the price of Messer Barnabo as 29 dinars, and Barnabo explains to the angry pitiful amount that this is one less silver than was estimated by Jesus Christ. Guessing that he was not an abbot, Messer Barnabo finds out the truth. After hearing the story of the miller, he tells him to continue to be an abbot, and appoints the abbot as a miller.
The hero of the sixth short story, the Marquis of Aldobrandino, the ruler of Ferrara, wants to have some rare bird to keep it in a cage. With this request, he turns to a certain Florentine Basso de la Penna, who kept a hotel in Ferrara. Basso de la Penna is old, small in stature, and enjoys a reputation as a man of outstanding and great joker. Basso promises the Marquis to fulfill his request. Returning to the hotel, he calls the carpenter and orders him a cage, large and strong, "so that it is suitable for a donkey," if Basso suddenly comes to mind to put him there. Once the cage is ready, Basso enters it and tells the porter to take himself to the marquise. The Marquis, seeing Basso in a cage, asks what this should mean. Basso replies that, considering the request of the marquis, he realized how rare he himself is and decided to give the marquise himself as the most unusual bird in the world. The marquis orders the servants to put the cage on a wide windowsill and swing it. Basso exclaims: "Marquis, I came here to sing, and you want me to cry." The Marquis, holding Basso all day on the window, releases him in the evening, and he returns to his hotel. Since then, the Marquis has been imbued with sympathy for Basso, often invites him to his table, often orders him to sing in a cage and jokes with him.
In the eighth novel, Dante Alighieri acts.It is to him that a certain very learned, but very skinny and short Genoese who specially came for this to Ravenna appeals for advice, His request is this: he is in love with one lady who has never worthy of him even a look. Dante could offer him only one way out: to wait until his beloved lady becomes pregnant, since it is known that in this state women have various quirks, and perhaps she will have a tendency to her timid and ugly admirer. The Genoese was wounded, but realized that his question did not deserve a different answer. Dante and the Genoese become friends. The Genoese is a smart man, but not a philosopher, otherwise, mentally looking at himself, he might understand, “that a beautiful woman, even the most respectable, desires that the one she loves has the appearance of a man, not a bat.”
In the eighty-fourth short story, Sacchetti depicts a love triangle: the wife of the Siena painter Mino makes a lover and takes him home, taking advantage of the absence of her husband. Mino unexpectedly returns, as one of his relatives told him about the disgrace that his wife covers.
Hearing a knock on the door and seeing her husband, the wife hides her lover in the workshop. Mino mainly painted crucifixes, mostly carved, so the unfaithful wife advises her lover to lie on one of the flat crucifixes, arms outstretched, and covers him with canvas so that he is indistinguishable from other carved crucifixes in the dark. Mino unsuccessfully searches for a lover. Early in the morning he arrives at the workshop and, having noticed two toes protruding from under the canvas, he realizes that this is where the man lies. Mino selects from the tools that he uses, cutting crucifixes, an hatchet and approaches a lover to "chop off from him the main thing that brought him to the house." The young man, having understood Mino’s intentions, jumps off his seat and runs away, shouting: “Don't joke with an ax!” A woman easily manages to transfer clothes to her lover, and when Mino wants to beat her, she herself dealt with him so that he had to tell his neighbors that a crucifix had fallen on him. Mino reconciles with his wife, and thinks to himself: "If a wife wants to be bad, then all the people in the world will not be able to make her good."
In the novella one hundred and thirty-sixth, a debate flares up among several Florentine artists during a meal over who is the best painter after Giotto. Each of the artists calls a name, but all together agree that this skill "has fallen and is falling every day." They are opposed by maestro Alberto, expertly carved from marble. Never before, says Alberto, "human art was at such a height as it is today, especially in painting, and even more in the manufacture of images from a living human body." The interlocutors greet Alberto's speech with laughter, and he explains in detail what he means: “I believe that the best master who ever wrote and created was our Lord God, but it seems to me that many people saw great flaws in the figures he created and are currently correcting them. Who are these contemporary correction artists? These are Florentine women, ”And then Alberto explains that only women (no artist can do it) can swarty girl, plastering here and there, make a“ whiter swan ”. And if a woman is pale and yellow, with the help of paint turn her into a rose. (“Not a single painter, not excluding Giotto, could paint better than them.”) Women can tidy up their donkey’s jaws, lift their sloping shoulders with cotton, “Florentine women are the best brush and cutter masters of all or those that existed in the world, for it is very clear that they are completing what nature has not completed. ” When Alberto addresses the audience, wanting to know their opinion, they all exclaim with one voice:
“Long live the Messer who judged so well!”
In the novel of two hundred and sixteenth, another maestro Alberto acts, “originally from Germany”. Once this worthy and holy man, passing through the Lombard regions, stops in a village on the Po River, at a certain poor man who kept a hotel.
Having entered the house to have dinner and spend the night, maestro Alberto sees many fishing nets and many girls. After questioning the owner, Alberto finds out that it is his daughters, and by fishing he earns his own food.
The next day, before leaving the hotel, maestro Alberto masters the fish from the tree and gives it to the owner. Maestro Alberto orders to tie it to the nets for fishing, so that the catch is large. Indeed, the grateful owner soon becomes convinced that the gift of maestro Alberto leads him to the network a huge amount of fish. He soon becomes a rich man. But once the rope breaks, and the water carries the fish down the river. The owner unsuccessfully searches for wooden fish, then tries to catch without it, but the catch is insignificant. He decides to get to Germany, find Maestro Alberto and ask him to make the same fish again. Once at his place, the innkeeper kneels in front of him and begs, out of pity for him and his daughters, to make another fish, "so that the mercy that he bestowed upon him returned."
But maestro Alberto, looking at him with sadness, replies: “My son, I would gladly do what you ask me to, but I can’t do this, because I must explain to you that when I did the fish that I gave you then , the sky and all the planets were located at that hour so as to tell her this power ... ”And such a minute, according to maestro Alberto, can now happen no earlier than thirty-six thousand years.
The innkeeper bursts into tears and regrets that he did not tie the fish with iron wire - then she would not be lost. Maestro Alberto consoles him: “My dear son, calm down, because you were not the first to fail to hold back the happiness that God sent you; there were many such people, and they not only failed to dispose of and take advantage of the short time that you took advantage of, but did not even manage to catch the minute when she introduced herself to them. ”
After long conversations and comforts, the innkeeper returns to his difficult life, but often glances downstream of the Po River in the hope of seeing the lost fish.
“So fate does: it often seems cheerful to the eye of one who
he knows how to catch her, and often the one who cleverly knows how to grab her remains in one shirt. ” Others grab it, but can only hold it for a short time, as our hotel owner. And hardly anyone succeeds in regaining happiness, unless he can wait thirty-six thousand years, as maestro Alberto said. And this is consistent with what has already been noted by some philosophers, namely: “that in thirty-six thousand years the light will return to the position in which it is currently”.
