Messer Gentile de' Carisendi

Messer Gentile is a distinguished gentleman of Bologna who has long loved a lady now married to another man, and whose generosity of spirit matches his rank. When he discovers her body laid out as dead, he takes her to his home, where she revives, and he tends her with a devotion that could easily become possession. His decision to restore her to her husband rather than keep her for himself makes him the brigata's model of a love that gives rather than takes, and his story tests whether noble feeling can survive the opportunity to satisfy it.