# Gualtieri — The Decameron character guide

> Gualtieri in The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio.

**Role:** major

**First appearance:** 0121-the-tenth-story

## Snapshot

A marquis who weds a poor girl, then tests her devotion with trials so cruel they make his own subjects wince.

## Who they are

Gualtieri is a powerful nobleman who, badgered by his people to marry, chooses the peasant Griselda precisely because she owes him everything. What begins as a display of sovereign whim hardens into a series of escalating ordeals designed to prove her obedience, stripping her of children and status alike. His story anchors the collection's final day, where the question of whether a ruler's cruelty can ever be called love cuts deepest.

## In the story

### [The Ninth Story](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_decameron_se/chapters/the-ninth-story)

Not present in this chapter; no match found.

### [The Tenth Story](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_decameron_se/chapters/the-tenth-story)

The Marquess of Saluzzo who tests his wife's patience through cruel trials.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_decameron_se/characters/gualtieri
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_decameron_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_decameron_se/characters