Decameron Fifth Day, Third Story Summary

Pietro Boccamazza

  • Storyteller: Elissa
  • Pietro Boccamazza is a young gentleman of Rome who falls in love with the beautiful Agnolella.
  • Agnolella's father is respectable but poor, so Pietro's family isn't exactly thrilled about a possible marriage between them.
  • So Pietro and Agnolella take matters into their own hands and elope. But as they're leaving Rome, Pietro forgets to take his GPS and they quickly get lost.
  • As they pass an unknown castle, they're attacked by a group of soldiers. Agnolella is quicker to react and rides deeper into the forest, but Pietro is caught.
  • The soldiers believe that Pietro's a member of a rival family and decide to hang him, but just in time they're attacked by, well, a rival family.
  • Pietro manages to escape in the hubbub, but he can't track his beautiful bride. He's pretty sure she's been smothered by bears or eaten by wolves.
  • He climbs a tree and spends the night crying about Agnolella and his cursed fate.
  • But Agnolella finds a cottage of an elderly couple, who warn her that they'll probably be invaded by thugs during the night (this isn't the nice part of the forest).
  • Sure enough, the thugs show up close to morning. Agnolella hears them and has time to hide in a pile of hay.
  • But hay isn't spear-proof, and one of the gang tosses his through the haystack and barely misses her.
  • The thugs take her horse, so she has to walk with the elderly couple to the nearby castle of the Orsini family. The lady of the house knows Agnolella and takes her in.
  • Meanwhile, Pietro is definitely not having fun. A pack of wolves devours his horse during the night and really would have liked to have Pietro for dessert.
  • In the morning, he runs into a bunch of shepherds that just happen to be wandering around in that forsaken forest and they lead him to the castle where Agnolella is staying.
  • The lady of the house decides that if the couple could defy hanging, rapacious thieves and wild beasts, their marriage was meant to be. She offers her husband's money to pay for the wedding and promises to make peace with Pietro's family.
  • And once the lady talks Pietro's family down, they all live in peace forever after.