Iulia Farnesia - Letters from a Soul E-Book

Roberta Mezzabarba

• Herausgeber: Tektime
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Seitenzahl: 315

Beschreibung

Can the soul of a woman, sold to the highest bidder by her family, find redemption? The real story of Giulia Farnese, a woman far beyond time.

Giulia Farnese, a woman who traverses time to find, in this novel, her redemption.
Her real story is that of a woman who goes far beyond the figure of Sponsa Christi as she was known throughout the world.
The writer traces the profile of a strong woman who, once free from the trammels of a family that raised her to be obedient, rises from her ashes and the damnatio memoriæ to become the mater and the domina of the feud of Carbognano.
With an absorbing prose, and based on an historical plot of true events, the author gives back to La Bella the dignity that historical documentation has always overlooked, preferring to chase after fifth century gossip.

Leseprobe

Title |IULIA FARNESIA – Letters from a soul – The true story of Giulia Farnese

Author | Roberta Mezzabarba

ISBN | ______________________

© 2022 - All rights reserved to the Author

The Author holds all rights of the same exclusively. No part of this book may therefore be reproduced without the prior consent of the Author.

On the cover: detail "Rape of Proserpina" (1621-1622) Gian Lorenzo Bernini

Alamy Stock Photo - Lily heraldic symbol, Fleur de Lis

First editionMarch 2022

Roberta Mezzabarba

IULIA FARNESIA

Letters from a soul

The true story of Giulia Farnese

A Novel

Translator: Barbara Maher

Foreword

Most Revered readers, I want to thank you personally and in advance for the attention you are about to dedicate to reading this work that the talented pen of lady Roberta has been able to turn into reality.

I must be honest, I have wandered the world for many years looking for someone who could tell my story, the real one, without being influenced by all the slander that has been written about me over time.

I came across Roberta by chance on the shores of my beloved Lake Bolsena, when by then I had almost abandoned the search for a pen equipped with intellect and sensitivity that could move it.

At the first encounter I thought it was a mistake, incredulous that I had finally found a soul similar to mine.

Our encounters, casual at first, gradually became more frequent: it often happened that I saw her gazing, lost, towards Isola Bisentina, where my mortal remains are scattered in the dust.

So I started waiting for her, keeping in mind the visits and the routes. Sometimes she went further, under the buttresses of the fortress, and looked up at it from below, sometimes I saw her crouched on the stones of the Mergonara, the mooring for my family's boats, until her shoes and feet became wet, and while she thought she was alone, I listened to her heart. She has written various texts: the first novel, The long shadow of a dream, set for the most part in Capodimonte and on the Isola Bisentina, the second entitled Bonds, and the third that has the title Confessions of a concubine.

The Bisentina and Capodimonte linked to a concubine, or the person that the world believed was such... it could certainly not be a coincidence, I told myself more and more often ...

Her path, her steps inevitably seemed to lead to me: when then, almost as a joke, she wrote a story about my person, and in particular about my testamentary arrangements, winning literary awards everywhere, I understood without a shadow of a doubt that she would be my voice.

From that moment I no longer merely observed her, but I led (or induced) her to retrace my steps: first, on a rainy Sunday in September in the year of the Lord 2019, I guided her to what had been my residence in Bassanello, then in October of the same year I made sure that she was in Carbognano on the only day when the present lords of the Castle allowed visitors.

On those days Donna Roberta busily studied the texts that concerned me and, when she found herself in my last home, I am sure she was able to understand and make her own the message I wanted to convey with the frescoes that I had commissioned.

On that occasion I also put two women from Carbognano in her path and they led her and her kind husband (a nice young man who reminds me a lot of my second husband, Giovanni) through the streets of the village to the church of Santa Maria della Concezione, my church.

In December 2019, I encouraged her to seek access to the Rocca di Capodimonte where I was born: one of the current owners, Ranieri Orlandi Brenciaglia, kindly accepted her request, but he gave her an appointment in late evening, and so due to the onset of a sudden (and fortuitous!) neck pain, she was forced to decline that noctural visit.

The next appointment took her to cross the threshold of the Rocca di Capodimonte in broad daylight and look out of the windows and fill her eyes with that magnificent vision: I am sure that she perceived which openings I looked from most often, also because I saw her lingering at my favorite window for a really long time.

She then paid her dear friend and painter Francesca Cragnolini di Udine to make a portrait of me, since somebody had taken the trouble over time to make every work of art that depicted me disappear: the artist patiently followed all the instructions and the thousand corrections that Roberta asked for, and I must say that I am very satisfied with the results. With Francesca firstly, and then with with Roberta, I enjoyed smiling or pouting according to the semblances of the painting... So, I finally feel loved, and as had already happened to me in Carbognano, the deepest and most beautiful love came from other women. But unfortunately the people who accompany us for long or short stretches of our lives are not always so well-disposed: I have often had to deal with others of my kind who would have planted a dagger in my back as soon as they had the chance.

But if you are lucky, you meet women like this during your time on earth: supportive, strong, who know no envy.

I made sure that Roberta also met Madonna Felicita Menghini da Capodimonte, a special woman who made my family the center of her existence. Then I put in her path Madonna Patrizia Rosini from Rome, who had lost her sight and countless years searching for all the documents concerning my passage on this earth that survived through the years: the poor girl had searched for traces of me with commitment and tenacity in all public and private archives, until they were finally accepted and saved from oblivion and destruction. Then Roberta started writing, but I must say that after all that studying I saw her looking tired... This petite and explosive woman really has so many commitments, so I let her catch her breath.

But I have to be honest, patience has never been one of the qualities which excel in my character.

So at the beginning of the Year of the Lord 2021 I decided that I had to awaken her pen which had been distracted by an infinity of other things.

On the morning of a Sunday in January they were broadcasting a story about me in that box called television, where you can see images of all kinds, that had the title of my very name ... "Giulia Farnese, La Favorita of Pope Alexander VI".

To tell the truth, just that title had upset me, then when the images began to appear I realized that in addition to being defamed right from the first few minutes, they had used my namejust to capture people’s attention, and then talk about something else... at that point I could no longer contain my anger.

I turned off that contraption, once, twice, three times: the first time poor Sergio, Madonna Roberta’s husband who was sitting next to her, had looked at her perplexed; the second time he had asked her if she was the one who had turned it off, and the third after he said to her: "Darling, this is Giulia, isn't it?"

Yes, it was me...

So after that shock Roberta took up the reins of the manuscript again, which was already almost halfway, disassembled it completely almost with anger, then recomposed it piece by piece with patience and enormous satisfaction.

I thank her so much for having dug through thousands and thousands of words, for having read and been able to go beyond the words, for having listened to what you could not hear, for having restored dignity to my soul that finally free of the dark weight of slander will be able, light, to abandon this world and go to the Father's house.

Iulia Farnesia

A little history

Giulia Farnese, known to most as Giulia La Bella, is a character that even today, almost five centuries after her death, arouses interest and fascination.

Giulia was born in Capodimonte in 1475 to Pierluigi Farnese and Giovannella Caetani, the youngest of three children.

For most of her youth she lived in the Rocca di Capodimonte, and received her education at the College of San Sisto in Rome.

Her father died in 1487 and, thus, the ambitious Giovannella continued to weave the plot of the life of the children for the better glory of the House of Farnese: Angelo, the firstborn, had already married Lella Orsini di Pitigliano; Gerolama had been given in marriage to a prominent Florentine (a certain Puccio Pucci).

Once the first two were settled, Giovannella was left with the future of her last two children, Alessandro and Giulia, and perhaps the meeting with Adriana De Mila, wife of the late Ludovico Orsini Migliorati, opened the doors to the craziest of plans.

Since their two husbands, both deceased, had stipulated a marriage contract years before that pledged their respective children, Giulia and Orsino, the two women intended to bring it to a successful conclusion.

Indeed, they thought they would go beyond the convenience of this union, and went as far imagining that Alessandro, the Farnese family’s favorite, could ascend to the papal throne.

The crazy plan hatched by Caetani and De Mila envisaged two ingredients for its success: Giulia’s beauty and the lasciviousness of Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, De Mila's cousin.

And so it was that Giulia, educated to obedience and enamoured of her family, was married to Orsino Orsini (known as MonoculusOrsinum) and "sold" to the licentious Cardinal Borgia, who took her as a child and made her a woman.

The chronicles of the time often describe an unscrupulous Giulia, a shameless and brazen Giulia in the eyes of the people, who called her Venere Papale or even Sponsa Christi.

Orsino, a hapless boy with a face battered by acne and missing one eye from an early age after a hunting accident, ended up accepting this paradoxical situation thanks to the pressure from his mother. She, levering on his insecure character, also found a way to expand the Orsini family’s estate; it often happened, in fact, that Borgia made "gifts" to Orsino so that the young man let his wife Giulia reside in Rome on a permanent basis and not with him at the Castle of Bassanello (currently Vasanello).

In 1493, at the age of only twenty-five and never having even been ordained a priest, the undisciplined Alessandro Farnese was appointed cardinal by Pope Borgia, and from there his ecclesiastical career was in continuous ascent, under the protection of the Spaniard, who had become Pope AlessandroVIthe previous year.

Giulia gave birth to Laura, her only daughter, that the historians of the time maliciously insinuated was not Orsino’s daughter, but the pontiff’s.

There was never a lie so great.

The following year, when Giulia went to Capodimonte for the death of her brother Angelo, she hesitated in the face of the possibility of returning to Rome, and this indecision sent the jealous Rodrigo Borgia into a rage: in one of the fiery missives that the Pope wrote to Giulia threatening to excommunicate her, he denied the paternity of little Laura, and ordered her not to go to Bassanello otherwise she would return "Impregnated" (pregnant) "by that orbo (transl. note one-eyed)" (Orsino).

Giulia had become a woman, and was increasingly intolerant of the situation in which she was living, but she also respected the commitments made with her family, to facilitate the ecclesiastical career of her brother Alessandro.

So it was that, in 1498, the descent of the French through Italy to reach the Kingdom of Naples, which they claimed as theirs, gave Giulia the opportunity to take control of her life and leave the toxic court life, and all the duplicity. And it was at that point that Giulia, freeing herself from the oppressive cloak that the family had put on her shoulders imposing choices on her that perhaps she would never have made, opened her wings to be reborn from her ashes like the Arab Phoenix. She could have easily clung to the skirts of another cardinal, she lacked neither the art nor the knowledge to do so, but free from family obligations she chose for herself the life she preferred. She returned to the Castle of Bassanello, with her small daughter Laura, and was reunited with her husband Orsino.

Far from the papal court, Giulia and Orsino discovered each other, and their souls tormented by the choices of others seemed to find redemption, even if ephemeral: Orsino went as far as bestowing on her the Castle and the fief of Carbognano, making her lady of that place without third party intermediaries, effectively giving her the dignity of domina {transl. note mistress or ruler} .

In the summer of 1500, the ill-fated Monoculus died when he was crushed by the collapse of the ceiling of the bedroom where he was sleeping: this tragic event too was read by the historians of the time, and by the usual prigs, as a sign that La Bella did not sleep with her husband, and that therefore there was no conjugal idyll.

More infamy for Giulia.

Pain upon pain.

Laura had now reached marriageable age, and Giulia, making use of the acquaintances developed in the years spent at the papal court, stipulated a marriage contract for her daughter with the powerful family of Nicola Franciotti Della Rovere, favorite nephew of Pope Giulio II.

Satisfied with that excellent union, she retired to Carbognano, and it was there that Giulia found her true self.

It was at that point that the metamorphosis of this person took shape: from femina contended by the cravings of shameless men, she took the first step and transformed herself into Mater with the birth of her daughter Laura, and later terminated her existence as Domina. Her second husband, Giovanni Capece Bozzuto, a man she wanted and married for love, will never be the lord of the Castle of Carbognano, but instead will become the husband of "her ladyship", of the domina.

Giulia administered her assets with expertise and made the meager economy of that part of Tuscia flourish with the firm pulse of a capable man. And with that she was entrusted with a much more important task: that of protecting and giving a real, autonomous future to the women who served her, not a transition from the shadow of a father to that of a husband.

Guide to the main characters

It often happens, when you commence the first pages of a novel, that you cannot get your head around the countless characters, and you lose the enjoyment of reading.

In this story, where we delve into the meanders of Renaissance society, it may be difficult for the reader to make head or tail of the many names and kinships that link one character to another.

So I took the liberty of drawing up this small guide to the main characters who, in addition to the protagonist, have a more or less important part in the events narrated.

It can be read or consulted at will as you begin to read this story.

Orsino Orsini Migliorati,aka Monocolus (1473-1500): only child of Ludovico Orsini Migliorati lord of Bassanello (Vasanello – Viterbo in Italy) and Adriana de Mila, and first husband of Giulia Farnese.

Giovanni Maria Capece Bozzuto(?-1517): Neapolitan nobleman, married Giulia (widow of Orsino Orsini) in 1506; the two met in 1496, on the occasion of the arrival of Sancha of Aragon in Rome.

Adriana de Mila(1434-1502): daughter of Perot de Mila, son of Catalina Borgia, sister of Pope Callisto III and sister-in-law of Jofré, father of Rodrigo Borgia (later Pope Alessandro VI), and therefore his second cousin. Wife of Ludovico Orsini, lord of Bassanello (Vasanello – VT) and mother of Orsino Orsini.

Giovannella Caetani(1440-?): mother of Giulia Farnese and her three brothers (Alessandro, Angelo and Geronima), daughter of Onorato Caetani and descendant of Pope Bonifacio VIII.

Angelo Farnese(1465-1494): eldest son of Pierluigi Farnese and Giovannella Caetani; Giulia’s brother, lord of Canino and Montalto, married to Lella Orsini.

Alessandro Farnese(1468-1549): Giulia Farnese’s brother. In 1534 he ascended to the papal throne with the name of Pope Paolo III until his death. In 1540, he authorized the foundation of the Society of Jesus upon the proposal of Ignatius of Loyola and in 1545 he convened the Council of Trent.

Gerolama Farnese(1464-1504): daughter of Pierluigi Farnese and Giulia’s sister. She married Puccio Pucci, with whom she had a daughter, Isabella. Widowed in 1494, in 1495 she married Count Giuliano dell'Anguillara. She was murdered by her stepson.

Isabella of Anguillara(1497-1564): daughter of Giuliano dell'Anguillara and Gerolama Farnese (sister of Giulia Farnese); after the murder of her mother she was raised by Giulia. In 1518, she married Galeazzo Farnese of the Latera branch.

Laura Orsini(1492-1530): only daughter of Giulia Farnese and her husband Orsino Orsini. Married to Nicola Franciotti della Rovere, to whom she bore three children: Giulio, Elena and Lavinia.

Lella Orsini(?-1494): daughter of Niccolò, Count of Pitigliano, married Angelo Farnese in 1488; at his death, she withdrew to the cloistered life in the Florentine monastery of the Murate.

Lucrezia Borgia(1480-1519): illegitimate third daughter of Pope Alessandro VI (born Rodrigo Borgia) and Vannozza Cattanei. Wife of Giovanni Sforza, Alfonzo d'Aragona, and Alfonso d'Este.

Cesare Borgia(1475-1507): son of Rodrigo Borgia (Pope Alessandro VI) and Vannozza Cattanei, he was bishop, archbishop and cardinal-deacon. In 1493, he obtained dispensation from his vows, and in 1498 he was appointed Duke of Valentinois by the King of France.

Camilla Lucrezia Borgia (1502-1573): natural daughter of Cesare Borgia and probably of Drusilla, lady-in-waiting to Lucrezia Borgia, legitimized in 1509.

She took her vows and in 1545 became abbess of the convent of San Bernardino in Ferrara.

Pietro Bembo(1470-1547): Italian cardinal, writer, grammarian, poet and humanist.

The places of the novel

"Life is not what one has lived,

but what you remember

and how you remember it to tell it."(Gabriel García Márquez – Living to tell it)

The return home

The boat had just left the shores of the island, pitching. With its regal pace it seemed to bruise the motionless surface of the body of water, leaving behind, as it passed, ripples like liquid shivers that spread and then dissolved.

The harsh November air crept between the layers of the heavy robes making Giulia shiver, the hood lowered over the pale face. Everything seemed so unreal to her, everything so incredible that it was like a dream, a nightmare really, but in her heart she was happy to have at least been able to fulfill her beloved husband’s last wish, and take his mortal remains to the beloved island. The tramontana wind that was lashing the waters of the lake furiously the day before, when she had arrived from Carbognano with her husband's coffin, seemed to have miraculously calmed.

* * *

Giovanni Capece Bozzuto had died a few days beforehand and Giulia, in execution and out of respect for the wishes of her beloved, had immediately sent a messenger to her brother, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, with the request to be able to bury Giovanni on the Isola Bisentina, in the family sacrarium. But Alessandro's reply had not arrived: perhaps, Giulia thought, her brother was too busy weaving the deep plot around the papal throne to respond to such a silly question.

So that morning, the domina of the Castle of Carbognano had quickly organized the departure for Capodimonte to transport her husband's coffin to his last abode.

Onofria and Berna, sitting opposite her in the carriage, hadn't said a word since they left. The elderly nurse and the young handmaid were watching their lady as she looked out at the passing countryside from the small narrow window of the passenger compartment: only the domina’s regular breathing broke the perfect silence of those moments.

It was already dark when they arrived in Capodimonte, in front of the fortress that overlooked the lake. And while for Onofria it was a return home, for Berna it was the first time she was hearing the lake roar with the tramontana. The girl shivered clutching her shawl and, as soon as she got out of the carriage in the courtyard of the fortress, sought shelter under the portico that ran along the square perimeter of the cavedio1. Onofria lifted her nose to the sky, and inhaled deeply.

Giulia, resolute, gave quick instructions to the men who had carried her husband's coffin.

"Put him in one of the rooms on the ground floor and watch over him all night."

She caressed the coffin with her gloved hand before heading up the stairs.

Onofria and Berna went behind her, as if following a script already written.

In the morning, while preparations for the journey were underway in the rooms of the Rocca di Carbognano, the faithful Onofria had gone down to the stables and had sent a vanguard to the Rocca di Capodimonte, urging the men to be quick, very quick.

When the horses arrived in the palace courtyard they were frothing with fatigue, finally free of the weight of the men. The servants at the fortress thus learned of the domina’s arrival and the cold rooms began to fill with noises, with life: flames crackled in the fireplaces, and clean sheets were laid out in the beds that the lady and her handmaids would occupy.

The faithful nurse had given orders to prepare the room that Giulia occupied as a girl, in that palace where she had been born and raised.

The old woman was well aware that Giulia, as the lady of the fortress, should have stayed in the patronal chamber where her parents had lived for years. But Onofria knew all too well that her Iulia was touched deep down by the bereavement that had struck her in recent days, and she did not want the ghosts of her past life to keep her awake any more than she would have been in any case.

She smiled when he saw her lady head unhesitatingly towards her room, stop briefly on the threshold and then enter and close the door behind her.

* * *

Giulia found herself in her childhood room, the one whose windows looked out towards her beloved Bisentina.

So many memories...

She took off her cloak, resting it on the bed, and with slow steps went to the window from which only the deep darkness of the night could be seen: it was as if she were looking out on her soul, laid bare and whipped by the icy wind.

She remained like that for a few moments, her gaze lost in space, before sitting down at the toilette and letting out a long sigh.

Onofria knocked gently on the door and, hearing no answer, looked inside. Seeing Iulia sitting there, with an almost bewildered air, she went softly towards her.

"Madonna Iulia, shall I help you prepare for the night?" she whispered to her.

Only then did the woman turn around and nod, looking at the elderly nurse. Usually now, that task was entrusted to Berna, but Onofria wanted to be close to her lady, on that evening full of emotions and memories.

"Onofria, I thought this day would never come, but instead here we are... I am a widow again..."

Giulia's eyes became veiled with tears: all her life she had rarely been able to show the emotions that filled her breast, but that evening, in that place, she could not stop herself.

Those walls that had seen her come into the world and grow up conveyed conflicting sensations to her, of love and repulsion: she felt lost without her beloved Giovanni. Tomorrow would be another day, but that evening the emotions overwhelmied her in waves, relentlessly.

"To be sitting here, in this room, in this place, without all the people who have been part of my life, my brothers and sisters, my mother and father, all absent, truly seems unreal."

Onofria's able hands had started to fumble with the braids and pins that held Giulia's hair in place. That touch took her back to her youth, to the carefree hours spent having her hair styled by the patient nurse, to the flirtatious chatter, and to the naivety of her soul which still did not know the intrigues and compromises that this vile world requires.

"My child, this is life, meetings and farewells, arrivals and departures, in which the only certain appointment is death."

"And my brother Alessandro, then, who did not even deign to respond to my letter... as if I really needed his permission to have my husband buried on the Bisentina... "

The buttons slipped out of the buttonholes one by one, under the knowing old hands of Onofria: how many times had she made that gesture...

"Don't be upset, Iulia, your brother will be busy with his commitments, he must certainly not have had time to read your letter..."

The dress slipped to the ground, and the woman stiffened instantly. That sudden change in temperature made her gasp, and she quickly got into the cold nightgown that the old woman was handing her.

"It may be as you say, Onofria, but in any case I'm starting to be tired of all these formalisms, of all these pretences behind which abysmal voids are hidden."

A gust of wind stronger than the others hit the shutters making them vibrate alarmingly. Giulia froze, and then resumed the thread of what she was saying, squeezing the nurse’s hand gently between hers.

"Only you remain, Onofria, of the old days. Just you and a horde of memories that are crowding my mind. Let’s hope that this tramontana eases tomorrow."

And as she said that, she slipped under the blankets where Onofria had put a bedwarmer full of embers.The warm sheets wrapped her in a welcoming and comforting embrace, into which she abandoned herself.

Giulia delighted in the care that her nurse had been devoting to her for a lifetime. Tucking the blankets around her, the woman remembered her as a child inside those same walls and, smiling, withdrew in silence.

* * *

Onofria would gladly have let Berna accompany Giulia to the Bisentina, too many memories bound her to that place, but her ladyship was adamant: she wanted both women to go with her to give the last farewell to her beloved Giovanni.

The local fishermen had made two boats available to her ladyship: the coffin and the two men who would then be carrying it on their shoulders would travel in one, the three women would be in the other.

Clutching the plank where she sat with her nails, Berna was trembling from the cold and the unstable equilibrium she felt she was in: it was the first time she had left the mainland to venture out on a body of water. She looked at her lady, standing up straight at the bow as she watched the island come nearer with each stroke of the oar. The man in command of the boat, his face baked by the sun despite the cold season, sank the wooden shaft into the waters with force, cleaving them with splashes of icy water.

A thousand memories thronged the widow's mind: she thought back to the times she had found refuge on the island, when the motions of her soul were too powerful to control, she thought back to the past and the wreck it had made of the wills and desires of others.

She thought of Giovanni and the respect he had always had for her. She reflected on herself and her path and, absorbed by these thoughts, did not realize that the boat had arrived between the two majestic farnie2 which marked the landing place on the island.

After securing the oars on board, the fisherman who had brought them to the island leapt onto the short walkway where they had docked, making the small boat dance alarmingly.

Berna sank her nails even further into the wooden plank as the man put out his dry calloused hand to Giulia, helping her to get off, followed by Onofria and Bern.

The domina took a few steps towards the depths of the island and caught a glimpse of Berna clawing the arm of the poor man and regaining the mainland, shaken by the crossing. Berna was still clinging to Onofria to walk the last few meters of the jetty, when the other boat arrived with a rustling of water.

A sound of ropes being thrown onto the wood of the jetty made Giulia turn, arousing her from who knows what thoughts: the coffin had been tied with ropes to hoist it onto the dock. Instinctively she raised one hand in the direction of the men of Carbognano, as if asking to respect her husband, but immediately lowered it.

The fisherman who had ferried the women joined the other men too, and all together they lifted the wooden coffin and rested it on their shoulders.

Pushing Berna's hands away, Onofria went to them and with a single gesture placed a black velvet cloth on the coffin, arranging it with her frozen fingers as the biting morning breeze made it move a little.

The funeral procession set off on the grass covered with dew, which quickly soaked the black robes the three women were wearing. The green of the thick vegetation had not yet paled at the first rigors of the cold season, and a few colorful corollas were resisting courageously among the neat hedges. As if going to meet the small funeral procession, the walls of the cloister came closer at every step, ready to defend the monastery and the church from earthly temptations, symbolic bulwark against evil.

Giulia knew that that wall represented a border between her family and their guests and the Friars Minor: when the Farnese were staying on the island, the friars were not permitted to leave the confines of the convent except for religious needs. A group of friars was waiting for them just outside the wall thst day, to officiate the sad event.

Inside the church the aspersory cried tears of holy water onto the velvet that was wrapped around the coffin, as it was lowered into the open mouth of one of the minor altars located along the left side. The friars, chanting with deep voices, prayed for the soul of the deceased.

After that, the sepulchral stone was made to slide and close the jaws that had received Giovanni’s body.

The sound of the stone meeting the floor bounced between the consecrated walls like a crazed moth.

IN VE CHITO

Giulia had not wanted to sleep another night far from Carbognano, as if the Rocca di Capodimonte and her beloved lake bothered her.

Her mind was too cluttered to be able to also bear the memories of a past that, at times, seemed to her that she had not even lived.

So Onofria and Berna, as soon as they arrived at the fortress, hurriedly collected the few things that the domina had wanted to take with her, while the lady remained in the garden that stretched out at the foot of the severe building.

"Onofria, you have been at the service of our lady for many years, haven't you? You move around inside these walls as if it had been your home..."

"And it has been, you curious girl..."

"Then you have toured around the Magna and Spain! I realized it when we got on that boat... you were not afraid at all, but I..."

"Blessed girl, you have a lot to learn!"

The domina’s clothes were folded and stored in the trunk, the bed remade.

The two women were ready to go down to the courtyard and load everything onto the carriage that would take them back to Carbognano.

Berna looked out of one of the windows that had been left open to air the rooms: the cold air caressed her cheeks like an icy hand. She was about to close the shutters, but stopped when she saw her lady in the garden, looking out over the stone parapet, her gaze on the immense expanse of water in the direction of the island where she had just buried the mortal remains of her husband.

"Certainly Madonna Iulia is really unfortunate... they told me that Messer Orsino, her first husband, was crushed to death when the roof of his bedroom collapsed, in the Castle of Bassanello, and now that she had found this good man signor Giovanni, he too has left her alone."

"Berna, empty head, madonna Iulia does not need a man. She is strong even alone, otherwise she would not be where she is and would not govern the fief of Carbognano as domina with such prowess!"

Berna turned around, amazed by the passion she heard in Onofria's words, but the old woman had already left the room and the chest with the lady's clothes had disappeared with her too. She drew the curtains together, after caressing the lake with her gaze once more and, reluctantly, went down to the courtyard to the carriage.

* * *

The return journey seemed, if possible, even longer than the one they had made just a day before: the bumpy road seemed even more uneven, and the silence inside the carriage was so heavy that it almost seemed to thunder.

At the first staging post, where the coachman had the horses watered and rested, Berna took the opportunity to get out of the carriage. It was the first time she had been away from Carbognano, and even a simple stone fountain where the horses were drinking amazed her. The frozen ground creaked under the young woman’s steps as she approached the vehicle.

"Madonna Iulia," she said, addressing her lady, "if you will allow me I would like to continue the journey sitting next to the coachman, to get some air..."

".. and maybe chat a little, is that right Berna?" Giulia could not hide her smile: with her inappropriate and spontaneous remarks, that girl was always able to play down the darkest momentseven unintentionally. She nodded to Berna and then, meeting Onofria’s eyes, she said out loud a thought that had just flashed through her mind.

"I must have saddened that poor girl enough with my long face, but you know very well what it means for me to return to my lake and to the home where I born and raised."

Onofria looked into her eyes, with no fear of reading sadness in them. The carriage started moving again with a slight jump, rocking the two women.

"And now you also know the perilous road that has led me to be the domina of my castle. You have always been by my side... Berna has known me only a few years, and she cannot know... but perhaps it is really better this way."

Giulia saw Onofria lean towards her a little: she closed her eyes and felt the reassuring light dry touch of the warm hand that caressed her face, magically making her feel she was a child again.

"Iulia pulcherrima3, there is not a living soul who can reproach you for the path you have accomplished. You are a strong, capable woman, and your father would be proud to see what you have become just with your own strength!"

Giulia opened her eyes again, and the wise Onofria read in them all the need the domina had to hear those words.

They both smiled.

* * *

The next morning Giulia woke up early, refreshed by a good night’s sleep. She walked through the strangely deserted hall, and enjoyed its silence. She felt full of energy, and decided to go down to the stables immediately, without eating anything first.

She put on her husband Giovanni's trousers held up at best she could with a leather lace. Strangely at ease, she felt herself immersed in a vortex of unparalleled emotions.

Hearing the sound of footsteps the groomsmen, although busy with their duties, looked up: Giulia could see curiosity on their faces. At first she saw them exchange glances with each other, as if they had not recognized her. Then, little by little, the bewilderment and surprise at finding their mistress under those strange clothes was apparent.

"Saddle my horse," Giulia ordered with determination, "and use my husband's saddle."

The woman saw that the groomsmen were stunned by her words, but she did not lower her gaze, on the contrary, she held the astonished looks which the men directed at her with even more conviction.

At that point, the stable came alive: the grooms snapped like springs busily following the domina’s orders, bumping awkwardly into each other, which made her smile. When the work was completed, Camillo, the husband of one of her servants, came to Giulia's rescue. Although the lady was wearing the pants that had belonged to the deceased Giovanni, the leap up into the saddle was difficult.