Calandrino's Personality Analysis

Calandrino’s personality as portrayed by Boccaccio is Docameron VIII, 3 is quite interesting. He shows that he is a man who strongly believes in what appears to come across his nature. Calandrino believes in things even without making any investigations. For instant, Maso Del Saggio who has some knowledge about his weaknesses plans to execute a lie on him. Saggio says that he knows the place one can get the precious stones which make a person rich. This information is totally incorrect. Saggio tries to take advantage of Calandrino’s weakness.

Boccaccio portrays Calondrino as naïve. This is evident as he personally believes that getting hold of the stone called heliotrope makes one unseen by the natural human being.. In this occasion we see him accompanied by his friends, Buffalmacco and Bruno. They go to a place known as Mugnone to collect these stones. He gets the stone and believes that he is invisible, something that prompts his friends to stone him. These friends fool him and inflict him with great body injuries. He forces himself to believe that he is now invisible. It is therefore clear that Calondrino hastily agrees and supports certain information without finding the facts. This is a clear indication that Calondrino puts no decisive judgment on any kind of information that comes across him.

Calondrino naivety is explained by the fact that he believes that the Officers; Buffalmacco and Bruno, cannot not see him while he has the heliotropes in possession.  Boccaccio shows us that is Buffalmacco and Bruno’s plan. They had decided to assume themselves blind on Calondrino. They constantly told him that they could not see him, but this was just a plan. He is so gullible that he does not know that he is being deceived. Those stones could have not hit him if he were invisible. They also successfully convince the officer to assume that they could not see him. Moreover, Calondrino also believes that women are victims of confusion but he forgets that he is the one who was supposed to inform her wife about the magic stone.

It is portrayed that Calondrino is complex. When he gets money to buy land, he engages very many buyers but turn down the offers at the mention of the prices. One does not understand why he does this. People expect him to be very simple to dupe but this ends to be wrong. His friends and fellow painters decide to make him spend on them but he keeps dodging them. This tries to show an awareness of these people’s plans. This makes them wonder of what type of a person this man is. He also beats his wife after discovering that he is visible.

Boccaccio builds the complexity aspect about Calondrino when we learn that Calondrino does not care about anything. When he learns that he is going to get rich soon, he doesn’t look at the cost or the reality of this information. Calondrino is man who believes every information without trying to know well about its source. For example, when he is given the information about the precious stone by Maso Del Saggio, he does not question anything but only believes and implement exactly what he is told. In this reason therefore Boccaccio shows that Maso Del Saggio knew the simplicity character of Calondrino and planned to give that information and let him believe it to be true.

Finally, we learn that Calondrino cannot tell what could be happening about himself. For example, when he picks many stones and gets overloaded but doesn’t ask for any assistance from his friends. In this story Calondrino’s personality is truly naïve and complex.