Murders between history and literature: the Nun of Monza

Gertrude, or the well-known “Nun of Monza”, is certainly one of the most interesting and mysterious characters of The Betrothed, the most famous novel of Alessandro Manzoni. Italian students usually don’t really like this part of the school program: the only consider the book’s length or the old italian language, which sometimes makes the reading boring and hard; they feel far from novel’s themes, such as violence, religion, the conflict between riches and poor… 

Nevertheless students begin suddenly to listen to the teacher when she or he arrives to chapters IX-XI, dedicated to the Nun of Monza: since the first description in fact she appears to reader as a weird character, with deep dark eyes, always searching to communicate something. She has also a particular kind of beauty, in italian named sbattuta e sfiorita, translating as tired and suffering.

The protagonist, Lucia, with her mother, Agnese, is looking for protection and safety: Don Rodrigo, the antagonist of the novel, aims to have a relationship with her and separate from her future husband, Renzo. So they’re helped by Friar Christopher, who gives them a letter of introduction for the convent of Monza, to find a refuge in it.

As she’s entrusted to the nun, she immediately has a strange impression, due to her physical aspect and behavior. She’s young and seems to be 25 years old; she’s beautiful, but at the same time she seems to have suffered in the past. Her hands are hanging to the grates separating from the locutory, such as she’d like to escape or maybe to ask help from strangers. 

What does she hide?

In this portrait, the reader step by step understands that she has a particular social position, due to her status: she’s indeed a noblewoman and by her sight we can imagine her looking at Lucia and Agnese with supremacy and pride. She also doesn’t wear as a common nun, because on her head, from the white veil, it can be seen some dark curly hairs, which it would have been forbidden, according to monastery rules (nuns and monks are usually shaved); in addition to this, she wears a sort of belt around her waist, that gives to her an impression of socialite, not religious. 

This portrait makes us wonder about her life and past and if we go on, we can discover some facts about her childhood and, above all, a precedent scandal with Egidio, a young man of no scruples. However, Manzoni doesn’t enrich these pages with details, due to his literature’s choices, such as reticence, in order to create suspense on one hand, but on the other hand not to speak about religion scandals.

Who’s actually the nun of Monza?

We actually have to know that Gertrude, her original name, is not a fictional character, but she’s inspired by a real person, Sister Virginia Maria, born Marianna de Leyva y Marino, an Italian nun lived in the XVII century. Manzoni read a lot of 600’s sources such as Ripamonti’s history chronicles and found information about this female character.

Marianna de Leyva was born in Milan in 1575; she was the daughter of Martino de Leyva, one of the most powerful and rich men of the city. According to ancient customs, second-borns didn’t inherit the family’s heritage and were forced to begin clerical life. 

Everything was going to change…

In spite of what Manzoni tells in his novel, after taking holy orders Sister Virginia was polite and nice with almost everyone. But everything was going to change, when Giovanni Paolo Osio, apparently a highly-respected and rich young man, met her. 

Marianna had a separated apartment from the rest of the nuns, due to her rich family, which was near to Osio’s home: they both began to meet and exchange letters, until they started a real and illicit love-affair. 

Of course they didn’t do it only by themselves, because some other clerical figures helped them, such as Paolo Arrigone, a priest and a close friend to Osio.

This relationship continued until Marianna gave birth to two babies (one of them legally acknowledged later as illegitimate daughter by Osio’s father).

As we can read in The Betrothed, due to this toxic love affair, Sister Virginia started to be unpredictable, irritable and moody too with the other sisters.

The nun of Monza, illustration from the weekly Rivista Illustrata (Illustrated Magazine), No 216, 17 February 1883.

According to Ripamonti, this relationship began to be a threesome between two other nuns: it seemed that Osio had a perverse sex appeal, which dominated other sisters.

Therefore one of them, Caterina Cassini, tired of all of these weird behaviors, threatened her to expose the relationship.

One day in the monastery it was realized that Caterina disappeared. She was immediately thought to have been escaped to Milan or another countryside in Lombardia.

She was sought everywhere all along the monastery and outside it, but no trace of her was found.

After a while, someone found a head in an advanced state of decay in the monastery well and the rest of the body in its henhouse.

In order to shut that nun up forever, Osio, helped by Virginia and other sisters, murdered the woman. They made a hole in the wall of Caterina’s apartment, so that people could have believed that she was escaped. 

When the Archbishop Federigo Borromeo came to know the scandal, Virginia was sentenced to a canonical trial and incarceration afterwards.