Giovanni Francesco Straparola included his own version as the fourth story of the second night in his Le piacevoli notti (1557).
The Romanian writer and satirist Ion Luca Caragiale wrote a version of the story: in Kir Ianulea, the demon takes the human form of a Greek merchant who arrives in Bucharest.
The story derives from Medieval Slavic folklore (and gave birth to a German and North-European version featuring a Friar Rush).
In Machiavelli's account, Pluto notes that crowds of male souls arrive in Hell blaming their wives for their misery.
Belfagor assumes a human form as one Roderigo of Castile, and comes to Florence with a hundred thousand ducats; he marries a woman named Onesta Donati.