Vittoria Accoramboni

Vittoria Accoramboni, duchess of Bracciano is an account of Stendhal not signed and published in the Revue of the Two Worlds on March 1st 1837, which belongs to the series of the Italian Chroniques .

The text belongs to the principal series of the Italian Chroniques , based on the manuscripts of the Caetani funds, discovered and copied by Stendhal in 1833. Following the example other accounts of this series ( Cenci , the Duchess of Palliano , the Abbess of Castro , Too much keep silent favor and Suora Scolastica ), Stendhal affects to be restricted to translate an Italian text. Thus, Vittoria Accoramboni opens it by a warning:

“Unfortunately for me as for the reader, this is not a novel, but the faithful translation of an extremely serious account writes in Padoue in December 1585”.

This coquettery of writing appears in the case of true Vittoria Accoramboni , chronologically the first text of the series, and more and more forgery with the following texts, where Stendhal moves away very largely from the originals. Stendhal, however, does not give an account of the exact conditions under which it returned in possession of the manuscript but file the history of an old patrician of Mantoue “strong rich person and extremely miserly” agree after force negotiation to let it copy “some historiettes”. After ultimate carefully phrased remarks, inviting the reader not to seek in the text a novel with the mode, with the “style pricking, rapid”, opens the history of Vittoria Accoramboni, duchess of Bracciano .

Vittoria Accoramboni, aristocrat born in the duchy of Urbin, is an young girl with the beauty and the charm extraordinary, object of the devotion of all those which cross it. Among many applicants, the parents of Vittoria choose to marry it in Felix Peretti, nephew of the cardinal Montalto, future pope Sixte Quint. Vittoria is adored by its in-laws, the Montalto cardinal extends his protection and his favors to the three brothers of the young woman.

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