, "Gentlest ladies, there is, as methinketh you
may know, nothing, how much soever it may have been talked thereof,
but will still please, provided whoso is minded to speak of it know
duly to choose the time and the place that befit it. Wherefore, having
regard to our intent in being here (for that we are here to make merry
and divert ourselves and not for otherwhat), meseemeth that everything
which may afford mirth and pleasance hath here both due place and due
time; and albeit it may have been a thousand times discoursed thereof,
it should natheless be none the less pleasing, though one speak of it
as much again. Wherefore, notwithstanding it hath been many times
spoken among us of the sayings and doings of Calandrino, I will make
bold, considering, as Filostrato said awhile ago, that these are all
diverting, to tell you yet another story thereof, wherein were I
minded to swerve from the fact, I had very well known to disguise and
recount it under other names; but, for that, in the telling of a
story, to depart from the truth of things betided detracteth greatly
from the listener's pleasure, I will e'en tell it you in its true
shape, moved by the reason aforesaid.

Niccolo Cornacchini was a townsman of ours and a rich man and had,
among his other possessions, a fine estate at Camerata, whereon he let
build a magnificent mansion and agreed with Bruno and Buffalmacco to
paint it all for him; and they, for that the work was great, joined to
themselves Nello and Calandrino and fell to work. Thither, for that
there was none of the family in the house, although there were one or
two chambers furnished with beds and other things needful and an old
serving-woman abode there, as guardian of the place, a son of the said
Niccolo, by name Filippo, being young and without a wife, was wont
bytimes to bring some wench or other for his diversion and keep her
there a day or two and after send her away. It chanced once, among
other times, that he brought thither one called Niccolosa, whom a lewd
fellow, by name Mangione, kept at his disposal in a house at Camaldoli
and let out on hire. She was a woman of a fine person and well clad
and for her kind well enough mannered and spoken.

One day at noontide, she having come forth her chamber in a white
petticoat, with her hair twisted about her head, and being in act to
wash her hands and face at a well that was in the courtyard of the
mansion, it chanced that Calandrino came thither for wa