The Italian

The Italy of Ann Radcliffe’s The Italian is an Italy of high, courtly romance, hierarchy that calls for transgression, pride, and insidious clergy. The Italian takes Naples as its setting, a location with a long history of criminal intentions. The main physical points of focus are Villa Altieri, the palace of the Vivaldis, and the ruins of a Roman fort, as well as the frame narrative that takes place in the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Pianto. The Villa Altieri becomes the stage for a forbidden love and a suspicious death. Likewise, the ruins of the Roman fort become a space where Vincentio Vivaldi encounters a ghostly presence. The Vivaldi palace is a space of precarious power, threatened by the attraction of a sole heir to a marquisate to an orphaned and virtuous beauty. The cathedral occupying the beginning of the story, however, is more interesting. In The Italian, the cathedrals house assassins just as a monk’s robe can hide a duplicitous and foul man. Ultimately, Radcliffe’s text depicts Italy as a dangerous, radical space that threatens to topple a hierarchy based on nobility and the good reputation of the church and its leaders. Italy is thus a deeply sentimental and passionate space in Radcliffe’s The Italian.