Page 44 - THE DECAMERON: 100 Days on 100 Etchings by Petru Rusu

“Andreuccio“
A young horse-dealer from Perugia called Andreuccio decides to
test his horse sense down in Naples. He takes 500 gold florins with
him and brings a couple of other merchant friends. This will turn
out to be a huge mistake. Because Andreuccio had never left home
before, he does a few seriously stupid things. For one, he keeps
pulling out his full purse at the horse market to show the traders
that he means business. But the horse traders weren’t the only
ones to see the purse. A young and beautiful (and unscrupulous)
Sicilian woman also sees it. The young woman, Madonna Fiordaliso,
has an older woman (also Sicilian) with her as a companion. She
recognizes Andreuccio and gives him a hug. It turns out that the
old woman and Andreuccio’s father had lived together for a long
time, and she knows absolutely everything about the boy. So the
young woman uses this information to devise a really wicked plan.
When Andreuccio receives an invitation to Madonna Fiordaliso’s
house, he thinks it’s because he’s so good-looking. He responds so
eagerly that he doesn’t tell his friends where he’s going. Fiordaliso
lives in a part of town called “The Fleshpots.” Yeah, it’s what you
think. But Andreuccio doesn’t know this. When he arrives, Fiordaliso
throws her arms around him and leads him into the bedroom. Then,
she drops a bomb on him: Andreuccio, she says, I’m your sister.
She uses every piece of information from her old companion to
convince Andreuccio that his father and her mother hooked up
in Sicily. Through a series of unfortunate events, so she says, she
and her husband have landed in Naples as refugees. Andreuccio’s
amazed, but he’s also gullible, so he buys her story. Fiordaliso
cleverly arranges that he stay for supper and then for the night. She
pretends to send word to his companions from Perugia to tell them
of his plans. When he goes to bed, he asks the serving boy to show
him where he can answer the call of nature. The boy leads him
through a door. Andreuccio steps onto a loose plank and drops into
the alley below the house. Ah, the classic loose-plank ruse. So now
he’s locked out of her house, standing in the street with only his
“doublet and hose,” and is covered in “filth” from the garbage in the
alleyway. Most importantly, his purse is still in the house with his
“sister.” Andreuccio tries to get back inside, but Fiordaliso unleashes
her bouncer on him. On the advice of smarter people, Andreuccio
decides to give up and head back to his inn. He stinks to high
DECAMERON 44
heaven because he fell into doo-doo in the alley, so he decides to
go down to the sea to wash it off. On the way, he encounters two
men who ask what the heck happened to him. He explains and
they come up with a plan. The two men invite him to come along
on a “job” that will more than pay back what Andreuccio lost. It’s
an offer he can’t refuse. Seems a few hours before, the Archbishop
of Naples had been buried with lots of ecclesiastical loot. The men
have decided that the dead man can’t possibly use it. On their way
to raid the tomb, they realize that Andreuccio still reeks, so they
stop at a well to give him a bath. The men have to lower Andreuccio
into the well on a rope because the bucket’s missing. He’s meant to
tug the rope when he’s done, and the two men at the top will haul
him up. But Fate has other plans. As Andreuccio washes, officers
of the watch came to the well for a drink. The two would-be tomb
raiders freak out and take off, leaving Andreuccio at the bottom of
the well. The officers haul at the rope and up comes Andreuccio,
who has no idea what’s happening. The poor officers think they’ve
seen a ghost and Andreuccio barely has time to grab the rim of
the well before they drop the rope and run away. Andreuccio
encounters his two “friends,” who were coming back to get him,
and they finally go along to the cathedral.
Once the tomb’s pried open, the men argue about who’s going into
the tomb. Guess who loses the argument? Andreuccio robs the
tomb, but he doesn’t trust the two men. He keeps the archbishop’s
ring for himself and hands out the other goodies. But the men want
to know where the ring is. Andreuccio insists that it isn’t there. The
men don’t like that answer, so they shut Andreuccio in the tomb.
Now Andreuccio’s lying on top of the archbishop’s corpse, pretty
sure that he’s not gonna get out of this one. But another group of
grave robbers appears and opens the lid. When the priest (!) who
is robbing the tomb puts his legs through the opening, Andreuccio
grabs them and pulls. The grave robbers think the dead archbishop
is trying to eat them. They leave the tomb open and run away.
Andreuccio finally escapes and gets back to his inn. His friends
have been wondering what happened to him. On the advice of their
innkeeper, Andreuccio and his companions pack up and get out
of town as fast as possible. So in the end, Andreuccio wound up
investing in a ring rather than buying himself some horses.
“Andreuccio” Retrieved from publicly source: shmoop
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