Synopsis

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.