La cena delle beffe

Lorenzo de' Medici has ordered Tornaquinci to host a dinner at his house to make peace between Giannetto Malespini and the Chiaramantesi brothers, Neri and Gabriello. Neri had taken Giannetto's mistress, Ginevra, for himself, and as a "joke", both he and his brother had tormented Giannetto by putting him into a sack, pricking him with their swords, and throwing him into the Arno river. Bent on vengeance, Giannetto convinces Neri, who has become drunk at Tornaquinci's dinner, to dress in his full armour and seek out a fight in an unsalubrious quarter of Florence. After rumours spread by Giannetto's servant, Neri is branded as a mad man and is locked up for the night, while Giannetto spends the night with Ginevra, who in the darkness believes him to be Neri. In Ginevra's house the next morning, she learns who her real lover had been the previous night. She is pleased rather than appalled, regretting only that she did not know it at the time as it would have made the tryst all the more exciting. Neri bursts in and is enraged by both Ginevra's reaction and Giannetto's perfidy. The Medici servants enter and drag Neri off again. Neri is tied up in the Medici cellars. Giannetto and a doctor pretend to treat him for his madness by bringing in several people whom he has wronged in the past to taunt him. Lisabetta, one of the women Neri had wronged, is still in love with him and feels pity for him. When the others leave, she urges him to act truly mad, whereupon she will ask for him to…

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