34. Messing With a Mark’s Head
After a night in jail, things got worse for Manetto’s mental health when the morning brought two “relatives” – the real Matteo’s brothers – to the prison, who claimed him as their kin. They paid his debt and freed him while berating him for his gambling and wastrel ways. More bewildered now than ever, Manetto was escorted to Matteo’s home in the other side of Florence.
There, the cabinet maker’s protests that he was Manetto, and not Matteo, were dismissed with derision. During that day and evening, he was nearly convinced that he had, indeed, morphed into somebody else. Eventually, Manetto was put to sleep with a potion supplied by Brunelleschi, and carried unconscious back to his own home, for the final chapter of the prank.