Griselda is a woman whose patience is celebrated by Boccaccio in the Decamerone and by Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales, where the story is told by the Clerk of Oxenford. In a series of cruel tests, her royal husband tries her fidelity, to understand her worthiness as queen. Zeno's libretto was originally set by Antonio Maria Bononcini in 1718 and by his more distinguished brother Giovanni for London in 1722. Vivaldi turned to the same libretto, revised by Carlo Goldoni, in 1735.