Episode from the Story of Griselda

This panel originally formed part of a larger painting in horizontal format, which undoubtedly adorned the front of a cassone (wedding chest). The subject depicted comes from the first part of the “Griselda novella” in Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron. This panel shows one of the first episodes in the tale, in which Gualtieri, the marquis of Saluzzo, receives a delegation of his subjects, who plead with him to marry so as not to leave his people without an heir to the title.