The story of Ginevra degli Almieri

Florence is full of mysteries and there is no shortage among them of stories about ghosts, witches and devils. Here is an unbelievable story, perhaps the most famous one, and what makes it so disturbing is that it is actually a true story, although several versions exist today.

It is the year 1396. You have to picture the city back in those times, when Piazza della Repubblica is still Piazza del Mercato Vecchio and the Duomo is under construction. The dead are still buried within the city walls and a cemetery lies on the right side of Giotto’s Bell Tower. It is precisely in this place that our history takes a macabre turn.

In a very different Florence than the one we know today, lives Ginevra degli Almieri, a young woman known for her beauty and her gentle disposition.

Her house is near the Mercato Vecchio, and it’s here where she meets the young Antonio Rondinelli and the two fall madly in love with each other. Unfortunately, Ginevra’s father has other plans for his daughter, and he forces her to marry the son of one of his merchant friends, Francesco Agolanti. At that time it was difficult to be able to marry for love, and Geneva knew that her destiny was to reluctantly follow her father's will.

After the marriage, for Ginevra a very unhappy life begins: neglected by a husband she does not love and that is always occupied with his business, she soon starts to refuse food, getting weak and falling into a state of depression. The remedies the doctor prescribes her do nothing to improve her health, so the family begins to suspect she has caught the plague (let’s not forget that in medieval times exterminated a huge part of the population of Florence).
Then one day - it is the first Tuesday of the month - she is found still as a stone in her bed, pale and with her eyes closed shut. She is taken for dead and they quickly organize her funeral. They dress her in a white gown and bury her in the family tomb in the cemetery near Giotto’s Bell Tower.

But Ginevra was not dead, so you can imagine her reaction when the poor girl wakes up that night in a tomb, buried alive!
Full of terror she starts to push on the lid of her tomb, the still fresh lime gives away, and with a great effort she manages to lift the stone and get out of that dreadful place.

However, that nightmare is far from over.
Ginevra runs back to her house and repeatedly knocks on the door in the heart of the night, but seeing her from the window, her husband take her for a ghost and refuses to let her in. Desperate and weak the poor girl decides to go to her paternal house then, but her parents have the same reaction of her husband. Scared out of their wits they shut the door in her face.

Ginevra has almost given up hope, but then she remembers of her beloved Antonio and decides to turn to him as a last resort. The young man recovers from the initial shock of seeing a ghostly figure at his door, he finally recognizes the girl he loves and welcomes her in his house.

Under the care of Antonio and his family Ginevra recovers quickly, and they soon decide to get married. But the story does not end here.

Francesco learns that Ginevra is indeed alive and of her plans to marry Antonio. He asks the latter for money in return for the loss of her wife, and when Antonio refuses to give even a single coin to that avid man, Francesco denounces the fact to the Ecclesiastical Court. The vicar of the bishop calls both party to testimony. Moved to compassion by Ginevra’s terrible experience, he concludes that since the first marriage was interrupted by death, the woman is now free to move to another marriage.

Finally Ginevra and Antonio can crown their dream of love.

This chilling story has a happy ending after all, but the legend continue. It is said that every first Tuesday of the month, the ghost of a woman dressed in white can be seen wandering the streets of the city center, the same streets that have been the stage for the events of that night, so many centuries ago.