Cassone with Scenes from Boccaccio's 'Decameron'
about 1420 - 1425
On Display Scottish National Gallery
The painted panel illustrates a story in three scenes from left to right. One of the main characters, a young man called Ambrogiuolo, appears several times. Bernabo, a merchant from Genoa has boasted of his wife Ginevra's virtue and bets Ambrogiuolo will not succeed in seducing her. Ambrogiuolo bribes an old woman to have him carried into Ginevra's bedroom hidden in a chest. He is then shown looking at Ginevra. He finds a mole under her left breast and will use this information to convince Bernarbo of his mission's success. The rest of the cassone (chest) is a nineteenth-century reconstruction.
Located In See floorplan
