Andreuccio di Pietro

Andreuccio arrives in Naples flush with cash and vanity, and his eagerness to be thought a fine young man makes him easy prey for a beautiful woman who calls him brother. His real education begins in Malpertugio, where each misadventure strips away another layer of his innocence — through a latrine, a tomb, and a stolen ring. His story is the Decameron's great comic descent into experience, a provincial boy learning that the world's kindness is rarely free.