The Italian (novel)

The Italian, or the Confessional of the Black Penitents

First edition title page.
Author	Ann Radcliffe
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre	Gothic fiction Sentimental novel
Publication date	1797
Media type	Print

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 (she would go on to write the novel Gaston de Blondeville, which was published posthumously in 1826). The Italian has a dark, mysterious and somber tone, and concerns the themes of love, devotion and persecution by the Holy Inquisition. The novel also 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.

NOTE: Critics pay much attention to Radcliffe's villains, such as Schedoni, who influenced the Byronic characters of Victorian literature.

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 the friar to recall the story of why this assassin is protected in the church, the friar directs their 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 transcribed by a student of Padua, 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.