Melchisedech the Jew, with a story about three rings, avoids a dangerous trap laid for him by Saladin (I.3).
Bernabò is tricked by Ambrogiuolo, loses his money and orders his innocent wife to be killed. She escapes, however, and disguising herself as a man, enters the service of the Sultan. Having traced the swindler, she lures her husband to Alexandria, where Ambrogiuolo is punished and she abandons her disguise, after which she and Bernabò return to Genoa, laden with riches (II.9).
Under the pretext of going to confession and being very pure-minded, a lady who is enamored of a young man induces a solemn friar to pave the way unwittingly for the total fulfillment of her desires (III.3).
Lisabetta's brothers murder her lover. He appears in a dream and shows where he is buried. She secretly disinters the head and places it in a pot of basil, over which she weeps for a long time every day. In the end her brothers take it away from her, and shortly thereafter she dies of grief (IV.5).
In his love for a young lady of the Traversari family, Nastagio degli Onesti squanders his wealth without being loved in return. He is entreated by his friends to leave the city, and goes away to Classe, where he sees a girl being hunted down and killed by a horseman, and devoured by a brace of hounds. He then invites his kinsfolk and the lady he loves to a banquet, where this same girl is torn to pieces before the eyes of his beloved, who, fearing a similar fate, accepts Nastagio as her husband (V.8).
A knight offers to take Madonna Oretta riding through the realm of narrative, but makes such a poor job of it that she begs him to put her down (VI.1).
Lodovico discloses to Madonna Beatrice how deeply he loves her, whereupon she persuades her husband, Egano, to impersonate her in a garden, and goes to bed with Lodovico, who in due course gets up, goes into the garden, and gives Egano a hiding (VII.7).
Bruno and Buffalmacco steal a pig from Calandrino. Pretending to help him find it again, they persuade him to submit to a test using ginger sweets and Vernaccia wine. They give him two sweets, one after the other, consisting of dog-stool seasoned with aloes, so that it appears that he has stolen the pig himself. And finally they extract the money from him, by threatening to tell his wife about it (VIII.6).
Madonna Francesca is wooed by a certain Rinuccio and a certain Alessandro, but is not herself in love with either. She therefore induces the one to enter a tomb and poses as a corpse, and the other to go on and fetch him out, and since neither succeeds in completing his allotted task, she discreetly rids herself of both (IX.1).
Sophronia, thinking she has married Gisippus, has really married Titus Qunitus Fulvius, with whom she goes off to Rome, where Gisippus turns up in abject poverty. Believing that Titus has snubbed him, he confesses to a murder so that he himself will be put to death. But Titus recognizes him, and claims that he himself has done the murder, in order to secure Gisippus' release. On perceiving this, the real murderer gives himself up, whereupon all three are released by Octavianus. Titus then bestows his sister upon Gisippus in marriage and shares with him all he possesses (X.8).