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The Italian (Radcliffe novel)

The Italian, or the Confessional of the Black Penitents AuthorAnn RadcliffeCountryUnited KingdomLanguageEnglishGenreGothic fictionSentimental novel1797Media typePrint
The Italian, or the Confessional of the Black Penitents (1797) is a Gothic novel written by the English author Ann Radcliffe. It is the last book Radcliffe published during her lifetime (although she would go on to write the novel Gaston de Blondeville, it was only published posthumously in 1826). The Italian has a dark, mysterious, and somber tone which fixates on the themes of love, devotion, and persecution during the time period of Holy Inquisition. The novel deals with issues prevalent at the time of the French Revolution, such as religion, aristocracy, and nationality. Radcliffe's renowned use of veiled imagery is considered to have reached its height of sophistication and complexity in The Italian; concealment and disguise are central motifs of the novel. In line with late 18th-century sensibility and its parallel fetishisation of the sublime and the sentimentally pastoral, the heightened emotional states of Radcliffe's characters are often reflected through the pathetic fallacy. The novel is noted for its extremely effective antagonist, Father Schedoni, who influenced the Byronic characters of Victorian literature.

Plot
The plot starts in Naples, Italy in the 18th century, in the church of Santa Maria del Pianto, where an English traveller is speaking with an Italian friar. The Englishman notices a man of extraordinary appearance in a shadowy area of the church, who is an assassin, according to the friar. When the Englishman asks why this assassin is protected in the church, an Italian friend travelling with him directs his attention to a famous confessional in the church, which was the scene of a particularly startling confession. He offers to send him a narrative relating this former assassin's confession, and the problems that attended it, to his hotel, and the two retire from the church and go their separate ways. The Englishman reads the story in his hotel room as follows:

It is 1758 in the church of San Lorenzo in Naples where Vincentio di Vivaldi sees the beautiful Ellena di Rosalba with her aunt, Signora Bianchi. Vivaldi is struck with her beauty, and intends to court her, with the hopes that they will end up married. When Vivaldi�s mother, the proud Marchesa, hears about his love for a poor orphan, she appeals to her ambitious and cunning confessor, Father Schedoni, to prevent the marriage, with a promise that she will help him obtain promotion in his order. As Vivaldi continues to visit Signora Bianchi at Villa Altieri, he is approached by a monk, who seems to be an apparition, threatening him to keep away from the villa and Ellena. After each encounter, Vivaldi tries in vain to capture the strange monk, with the help of his friend Bonarmo and his faithful servant Paulo. Vivaldi suspects that the monk is Father Schedoni, and is determined to know why his courtship of Ellena is discouraged. After being promised the hand of Ellena and appointed her guardian by Signora Bianchi before her sudden mysterious death, Vivaldi finds that Ellena has been kidnapped from the villa, and immediately deduces it is by the hand of the Marchesa and Schedoni. Leaving Naples secretly in pursuit of her abductors, Vivaldi and Paulo eventually find Ellena held at the remote convent of San Stefano, at the mercy of a cruel Lady Abbess, and Vivaldi infiltrates the convent disguised as a religious pilgrim to rescue her. In the convent, Ellena befriends a lovely but melancholy nun, Sister Olivia, who helps her escape from the convent into the care of Vivaldi.

While riding towards Naples after the escape, Vivaldi presses Ellena for an immediate marriage, and she finally consents. But moments before they are to take their vows before a priest at a church, agents claiming to work for the Inquisition, informed by Schedoni, interrupt and arrest Vivaldi on the false charge of abducting a nun from a convent. Vivaldi and Paulo are taken to the prisons of the Inquisition in Rome to be questioned and put to trial. They are confused about the circumstances behind their confinement, which their captors will not reveal. Ellena, however, is sent by order of Schedoni to a lone house on the seashore, inhabited only by the villain Spalatro, Schedoni's accomplice in previous crimes, to be murdered. Schedoni comes to the house to assassinate Ellena personally, but becomes convinced from a portrait on her person that she is his daughter. Schedoni has a change of heart, and decides to take Ellena personally back to Naples to hide her from the Marchesa. While on their journey, they once again encounter the dismissed Spalatro, who had followed them with designs of extorting money from Schedoni, but Spalatro is shot in a scuffle and left behind (and shortly after dies of fever). Schedoni and Ellena arrive in Naples, where Schedoni places Ellena in the convent of Santa Maria del Pianto until Vivaldi can be freed. Schedoni returns to the Marchesa, keeping secret his endorsement of the marriage of the Marchesa's son and his daughter, but distracts the Marchesa temporarily with information that Ellena comes from a noble lineage, so a marriage would at least be proper, if not lucrative. Meanwhile, in the prison of the Inquisition, the mysterious monk who had previously eluded Vivaldi, now known to be Nicola di Zampari, appears and narrates to him the guilty crimes of Father Schedoni before he became a monk, and convinces him to formally call Schedoni and Father Ansaldo, to whom Schedoni had previously disclosed his deeds in a confessional booth, to the trial as the accused and witness, respectively, in the crimes. Both are made to appear before the tribunal, where Schedoni is convicted from their testimony of murdering his brother, as well as marrying and later stabbing his brother's wife in a jealous rage, in his former life as the dissolute Count di Bruno, or Count di Marinella. Schedoni is sentenced to death, and before he is led away into confinement, tells Vivaldi his relationship to Ellena and her whereabouts. Vivaldi is also escorted back to his cell, with the knowledge that the charges against him will be dropped. Schedoni, on his deathbed, in the presence of the tribunal, further reveals that he had already fatally poisoned both himself and his betrayer Nicola with poison concealed in his vest. Schedoni also had notified the Marchese of Vivaldi's situation, who hurries to Rome to secure his son's release.

Back at the convent, Ellena distinguishes a voice all too familiar, and sees her dearly loved Sister Olivia in the convent courtyard. While the two recount each other's experiences since they last parted, Ellena�s servant Beatrice comes to report the sudden death of the Marchesa from a long-dormant but natural illness (having Confessed, the Marchesa has also exacted a promise from her husband that he should sanction the marriage of Ellena and Vivaldi). Beatrice and Olivia recognize each other, and elate Ellena with the news that she is the daughter of Olivia, who is revealed to be the Countess di Bruno, whom Schedoni had stabbed in jealous rage and left for dead. This leads Ellena to realize that she is actually not Schedoni�s daughter, but his niece. Since they are of the same lineage, Ellena is still from a noble family, which would allow her to marry Vivaldi with honour. Once it is revealed that Ellena is from an aristocratic family, it is determined that she has the royal blood that allows her to be worthy of marrying Vivaldi.

The ending of the novel is a happy one; Vivaldi and Paulo are released from prison, Ellena is reunited with her mother, and Vivaldi and Ellena are joined in marriage, and all the villains have died. The Marchesa dies shortly before finding out that her son has been freed from prison. Father Schedoni, condemned to die, poisons himself and Nicola di Zampari, and calls a tribunal including the Marchese and Vivaldi to witness their final confessions at his deathbed.

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