# Puccio di Rinieri — The Decameron character guide

> Puccio di Rinieri in The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio.

**Role:** major

**Also known as:** Rinieri, this Rinieri

**First appearance:** 0078-the-third-story

## Snapshot

A scholar newly returned from Paris, learned in the nature of things yet utterly unlearned in the nature of a beautiful widow.

## Who they are

Rinieri comes home to Florence full of philosophy and hungry for honor, and promptly falls for Elena, a haughty young widow who reads his longing as a trophy. Believing himself the pursuer, he is in fact the pursued — she strings him along with promises and errands while keeping her real lover close. He matters because his humiliation is the Decameron's sharpest lesson on love's blindness: the man who has studied everything has never studied the woman in front of him.

## In the story

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

A devout but gullible tertiary of St. Francis, who is tricked into performing a penance that allows his wife and the monk to cuckold him.

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

A scholar who returns from Paris and falls in love with Elena; he is tricked by her and later exacts a cruel revenge.

## Links

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