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Girolamo
Salvestra appears in Neifile’s fourth tale (IV, 8), as the daughter of a Florentine tailor. Her childhood friendship with Girolamo blossoms into love, but when he goes away to Paris for several years, she marries a man of her own class and pragmatically puts her youthful affections behind her. However, when she views Girolamo’s body in the cathedral after he dies of grief, her former love for him bursts forth and overwhelms her, and she dies of grief on the spot. She is one of Day IV’s unlucky lovers and her death also illustrates how the power of love can extend beyond life and death.
Salvestra Quotes in The Decameron
The The Decameron quotes below are all either spoken by Salvestra or refer to Salvestra. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Day 4: Eighth Tale Quotes
Excellent ladies, to my way of thinking there are those who imagine that they know more than others when in fact they know less, and hence they presume to set this wisdom of theirs against not only the counsels of their fellow men, but also the laws of Nature…Now, there is nothing in the whole of Nature which is less susceptible to advice or interference than Love, whose qualities are such that it is far more likely to burn itself out of its own free will than to be quenched by deliberate pressure. [So I will] tell you a story about a lady who … sought to be wiser than she actually was, and by flaunting her cleverness in a matter that was beyond her competence, succeeded at one and the same time in driving both Love and life from the body of her son.
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Explanation and Analysis:
The Decameron values wit and wisdom as the crowning jewels of humanity, but Neifile’s tale of Girolamo and his mother shows how clever-seeming plans can backfire if they don’t consider the way the world works. This is because Girolamo’s mother tries to match her wits not with another person, but with love, despite its overwhelming power over the lives of humans. In this tale, love is associated with nature. In the Middle Ages, nature was a goddess-like figure who was responsible for procreation. Making babies made love equally the handmaid of God, who commanded humans to be fruitful and multiply Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Sint aperiam consequatur. Minima porro perferendis. Sit neque odit. Tenetur qui dignissimos. Qui et ut. Voluptate labore corporis. Hic tempore laborum.
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Salvestra Character Timeline in The Decameron
The timeline below shows where the character Salvestra appears in The Decameron. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Day 4: Eighth Tale
...of his mother and guardians, but he still falls in love with a neighborhood girl. Salvestra is the daughter of a tailor, and Girolamo’s Mother scolds him for his inappropriate affection....
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When Girolamo returns to Florence after three years, he is still completely in love with Salvestra, who has married another man in his absence. She ignores him when he wanders in...
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...he longs to die. Saying that he’s become cold in the night air, he begs Salvestra to allow him to warm up next to her in the bed, promising to avoid...
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After a while, Salvestra wonders why Girolamo hasn’t left. On discovering that he is dead, she wakes her husband...
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...be found on the body, the doctors correctly hypothesize that Girolamo has died of love. Salvestra and her husband attend his funeral to see if anyone has connected her to the...
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