ABSTRACT
This chapter concerns two historical events in which women play a decisive role, and a story that gives an extremely prominent place to women. Love requires a man and a woman, and in the volgare has a narrative form ready to hand. The allegorical implications for Leonora de' Bardi e Ippolito Bondelmonti's story are rather interesting. The strength of will is motivated by love, best portrayed by a leonine woman. The story of Ippolito and Leonora is not a tragic story, for the power of love, and therefore the will of the two lovers, is shown to overcome the fathers' enmity and thus Fortune. Fortune's last trick is to betray Ippolito to the Podesta as he goes to consummate his secret marriage, with rope ladder tucked into his hat. Ippolito refuses to talk, and it is left to Leonora to announce the news of the marriage to Signoria in order to prevent him from being executed as a thief.
