Decameron Nights

The main story combines bits of Giovanni Boccaccio's own life (maybe and maybe not) with three of his most fabulous stories of love. It has Boccaccio following Fiametta to a country villa where she and five other women---The Contessa, Pampinea and three villa girls are hiding following the rape of their home city, Florance, Italy, by the Duke of Lorenzo. The recently-widowed Fiametta spurns overtures of love offered by the philandering Boccaccio who, in an effort to win her, spins two of his stories: The first is "Paganino the Pirate", a spicy tale of a young wife, married to an elderly gent, who prefers astrology to martial bliss, permits herself to be captured by a young pirate, to teach her husband a lesson. The second tale is "Wager on Virtue", concerning an elderly merchant,who loses faith in his beautiful young wife, on the strength of circumstantial evidence present him by a daring young rogue, who has previously goaded him into a bet on his wife's virtue, or lack thereof. The characters in this segment include Nerina, The Sultan, the Merchant Captain, a Merchant in French Inn and George and Bert Bernard as messengers. The third story, told by Fiametta, is "The Doctor's Daughter," concerning a delicate matter of matrimony when a wife, Isabella , finds herself spurned by the man, Bertrando, who has wed her at the command of his King. Characters include Maria, The Old Witch, Father Francaisco, and Signora Bucca.