tleman, who was for poverty turned merchant and had thriven so well
in commerce that he was grown thereby very rich. He had by his lady
one only son, whom he had named Lodovico, and for that he might
concern himself with his father's nobility and not with trade, he had
willed not to place him in any warehouse, but had sent him to be with
other gentlemen in the service of the King of France, where he learned
store of goodly manners and other fine things. During his sojourn
there, it befell that certain gentlemen, who were returned from
visiting the Holy Sepulchre, coming in upon a conversation between
certain young men, of whom Lodovico was one, and hearing them
discourse among themselves of the fair ladies of France and England
and other parts of the world, one of them began to say that assuredly,
in all the lands he had traversed and for all the ladies he had seen,
he had never beheld the like for beauty of Madam Beatrice, the wife of
Messer Egano de' Gulluzzi of Bologna; to which all his companions, who
had with him seen her at Bologna, agreed.

Lodovico, who had never yet been enamoured of any woman, hearkening to
this, was fired with such longing to see her that he could hold his
thought to nothing else and being altogether resolved to journey to
Bologna for that purpose and there, if she pleased him, to abide
awhile, he feigned to his father that he had a mind to go visit the
Holy Sepulchre, the which with great difficulty he obtained of him.
Accordingly, taking the name of Anichino, he set out for Bologna, and
on the day following [his arrival,] as fortune would have it, he saw
the lady in question at an entertainment, where she seemed to him
fairer far than he had imagined her; wherefore, falling most ardently
enamoured of her, he resolved never to depart Bologna till he should
have gained her love. Then, devising in himself what course he should
take to this end, he bethought himself, leaving be all other means,
that, an he might but avail to become one of her husband's servants,
whereof he entertained many, he might peradventure compass that which
he desired. Accordingly, having sold his horses and disposed as best
might be of his servants, bidding them make a show of knowing him not,
he entered into discourse with his host and told him that he would
fain engage for a servant with some gentleman of condition, could
such an one be found. Quoth the host, 'Thou art the right serving-man
to please a gentleman of th