Abstract

Talano d'Imole's tale (Dec., IX 7) is the last novella in the Decameron which tells a truthful dream (indeed, more particularly, a «vision», which very realistically forebodes what is going to happen). The wondrous theme of the dream, which in some previous novellas (fourth day) had already been developed in a sublime/tragic vein, in Talano's tale is set within a bourgeois, rather prosaic setting. Talano relates a story of conjugal unrest which, incidentally, does not end in the solemn epilogue of death. Furthermore, the fact itself that the dream comes true is not explained in terms of transcendent or mysterious causes, but may be related to the climate of mistrust and hostility which characterizes the relationship between man and wife. In other words, man's destiny, as is common in the Decameron, is shaped by the interaction between the characters' will and their individual psychologies.