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- Herausgeber: Lipordu
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
The Last Duchess is loosely based on the true story of Ippolita Maria Ruffo, who lived in Maida, a small village of the Kingdom of Naples and one of the homes of the Ruffo Dynasty of Bagnara.
During a period of great change and unrest, Carlo Ruffo the fifth Duke of Bagnara dies in 1761, leaving three young daughters and no male heir for their possessions in the Calabria region of today’s southern Italy. His wife Anna Cavaniglia leaves the children in the care of the sisters at the Convent of Santa Veneranda and of their paternal grandmother Donna Ippolita d’Avalos d’Aragona and goes back to her native San Giovanni Rotondo where she remarries.
Donna Ippolita manages the estate until 1772 when she makes a dramatic decision. In order to keep the Ruffo line in the hands of her first-born’s heirs, she arranges for Carlo’s eldest daughter, the fourteen-year-old Ippolita Maria, to marry her uncle Nicola, Carlo’s younger brother. This decision has the approval of the clergy.
We follow the fascinating story of Ippolita Maria, first in Maida as the Duchess of Bagnara where she tries to grasp the intrigues of the Court and has to renounce love over duty towards her husband. We see Maida and much of Calabria devastated by an earthquake in 1793. Later, we watch Ippolita Maria’s efforts at adapting to a more modern environment in Naples where she transfers after the fall of the Dynasty of Bagnara.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
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Frances G. Fahy
The Last Duchess
A tale of two centuries
INTRODUCTION
RUFFO DI BAGNARA
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
EPILOGUE
About the author
Credits
INTRODUCTION
What's to be learned?
The procession of events and people that we term History is, in theory, a defined time, winding steadily away from us back to an unidentified, misty curiosity known as Prehistory. How difficult it is to grasp this ‘defined’ time. We watch the players who, in turn, seem to be watching us and smiling at our futile efforts at understanding who and what has modelled our past.
RUFFO DI BAGNARA
A Dynasty of over 200 years
CHAPTER 1
Maida, Kingdom of Naples, December 1771
“Ippolita, dear, you are going to your grandmother’s this afternoon, so wear your black and white dress and have your hair fixed. I don’t want to see a strand out of place.”
“Yes, Reverend Mother.”
“I know I needn’t tell you how important it is that you look well and even more so that you speak well and only when you are spoken to.”
Ippolita bowed her head while she kept her bearing erect. As was the rule, she was standing just inside the door of the main parlour in the Convent of Santa Veneranda, a room she or the other pupils were very rarely invited into. She knew the decorum the moment required.
A visit to her grandmother, Donna Ippolita d’Avalos d’Aragona, at the Feudal Castle in her home-town, Maida, when it was neither a holiday nor a special family celebration, was somewhat odd. She hoped there was nothing wrong. More so, she hoped she hadn’t done anything wrong.
“Be at the door near the refectory after lunch and Sister Clemente will accompany you.”
“Yes, Mother.”
“And, please, give my regards to your grandmother.”
Ippolita was glad she would go with Sister Clemente. She was so funny when she spoke in her Neapolitan way! She lilted everything. It was lovely just to listen to her speak. It didn’t matter what they talked about.
In the afternoon they set out. A pale sun was shining and they were well wrapped up against the cold December breeze. As they left the side door of the Santa Veneranda Convent in the little square in the centre of the town they instinctively took each other’s hand. They walked at a brisk pace up the narrow alleyways and along the high towered walls towards the Castle that dominated the town. It stood majestically, the houses clinging to it as if for protection and reassurance.
Very few noticed their passing. Most people were either working in the fields or were indoors resting, having finished their midday meal. Those who did bowed the heads slightly in reverence. Ippolita would have liked to have seen some of the girls who came to the convent every so often for lessons or to work. She knew where some of them lived and what their houses were like. She could barely imagine anyone living in those small, cramped hovels. She herself had never known any home other than the convent since her father had died.
She didn’t remember her father. She was only three when he’d passed away. She barely remembered her mother who had moved back to her home town in Puglia which they told her was very far away. Ippolita had decided that it was easier to consider her in heaven with papà than in some faraway place.
