Le «liete e preste cortesie» di messer Torello e Adalieta (‘Decameron’ X 9)

This article analyses the penultimate novella in the Decameron (the story of Saladin and Messer Torello), showing how the main theme is the noble and courteous behaviour displayed by Torello and his wife Adalieta. The tale marks the culmination of Boccaccio’s reflections on courteous behaviour, present throughout the work. For him, courtesy is the modern virtue that most closely resembles Seneca’s beneficium, and it emerges not so much in love as in everyday life, e.g. in Cisti the baker’s noble gesture and in the generous hospitality that the couple from Lombardy show to the foreigner. Boccaccio takes leave of his readers proposing an exemplary couple and a model of behaviour well within their reach.