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Day 10: Third Tale
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Decameron, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Love and Sex
Men and Women
Moderation and Excess
Intelligence
Class and Character
Faith vs. Religion
Summary
Analysis
Everyone agrees that Nathan was certainly more generous than King Alphonso and the Abbot of Cluny. Since the ground of basic generosity has been amply covered, Lauretta turns to tales of love to open new areas. She feels that her protagonist’s actions are all the more striking since love will make men do anything to possess the objects of their affection.
Because it’s hard to top a story in which one character is willing to lay down his life for another’s pleasure, Lauretta shifts the trajectory of the day’s tales towards love, an enduring theme of The Decameron. Earlier stories have amply demonstrated the power of love to drive men to excessive actions; in contrast, this tale suggests that generosity’s power can compete. By extension, this tale thus contributes to the book’s overall argument about the importance of moderation and behaving with temperance rather than excess.
Active
Themes
A noble gentleman named Gentile de’ Carisendi lives in Bologna. Because his love for Madonna Catalina, Niccoluccio Caccianimico’s wife, is unrequited, he finds a position in Moderna. Catalina is pregnant when she unexpectedly falls into a coma so deep that even the physicians think she is dead. Because her ladies affirm that the baby isn’t yet viable, they make no attempt to deliver it. Gentile is heartbroken at this news, but after some consideration, he realizes that in death she can’t reject his advances. He resolves to break into her tomb to steal a kiss from her.
This setup—the happily married couple and the unrequited admirer—is standard in stories of excessive love and it recalls earlier tales, such as Federigo’s love for Monna Giovanna in V, 9. The tale’s happy ending depends on Monna Catalina being buried unharmed. But the question of whether her baby was yet viable points to the use of caesarean section deliveries in the Middle Ages in cases where it was thought that a child’s life might be saved even after a mother died in childbirth (or, as in this case, of other natural causes). Gentile’s plan, on the one hand, indicates the overpowering nature of love, which pushes him to breach social taboos against disturbing the dead (but which recall the willingness of Francesca’s suitors to engage in tomb robbing in IX, 1). On the other hand, it also suggests how vulnerable women were to men’s desires. Gentile will have what he wants from Catalina, even if he must steal it from her cold, dead body.
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Themes
That night, Gentile de’ Carisendi rides to Bologna, enters Madonna Catalina’s tomb, and kisses her many times. But kissing isn’t enough, and after a while he desires to touch her breasts. When he does, he thinks he feels a faint heartbeat, and on more careful inspection, he realizes that she’s still alive. He carries her to the home of his resourceful mother, who restores Catalina with a warm bath and fire.
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Themes
When she recovers consciousness, Madonna Catalina is confused to find herself in a strange home. Gentile de’ Carisendi explains what has happened, and she begs him—out of his love for her—not to dishonor her in his home. Gentile promises to treat her like a sister, asking only that she stay with his mother until he has prepared a suitable celebration to reveal her apparent resurrection. Although she longs to go home, Catalina considers her debt to Gentile great enough to agree. And as soon as she does, she goes into labor and delivers a baby boy.
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Themes
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Gentile de’ Carisendi returns to Moderna to complete his appointment, which takes three months. In Bologna, he arranges a great feast and promises to show his guests (including Niccoluccio Caccianimico) his greatest treasure. But before he does, he presents an interesting dilemma: if a man had a loyal servant and threw him out of the house when he fell ill, but a stranger found him and nursed him back to life, would the man or the stranger have a better claim to keep the servant? After much debate, Niccoluccio speaks for the crowd when he declares that the first man abandoned and cast away his entitlement to the servant when he put him in the street; the stranger has the greater claim.
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Themes
Gentile de’ Carisendi sends for his greatest treasure, Madonna Catalina, who enters the hall beautifully dressed and carrying her baby. She looks familiar to most of the guests, especially Niccoluccio Caccianimico, although they understand Catalina to be dead. He and several others ask her questions, which she refuses to answer (on Gentile’s instructions). Finally, Gentile promises to explain everything if everyone will remain in their seats until he's done.
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Themes
Gentile de’ Carisendi explains that Madonna Catalina is the loyal servant in his scenario. Because of Gentile’s love, God turned her from an entombed and “fearsome corpse” into the “lovely object” his guests see before them. In contrast, her family threw her into the gutter like worthless trash before she was truly dead. Unless Niccoluccio Caccianimico has suddenly changed his mind, everyone has agreed that she belongs to Gentile. Niccoluccio and Catalina begin to cry, but Gentile takes her by the hand and restores both her and her child to Niccoluccio.
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Themes
Niccoluccio Caccianimico joyfully greets Madonna Catalina and his son, while the guests marvel at her miraculous return and the generosity shown by Gentile de’ Carisendi. He remains friendly with her and her husband for the rest of his life. In closing, Lauretta asks the company if he isn’t the most generous example thus far since he was driven to possess Catalina by the power of love and believed himself to be legally entitled to her.
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