The Charterhouse of Parma

Fabrizio del Dongo represents the Italian nobility in a moment of political transition, as well as the larger struggle to forge a new way of life in and after Restoration. He is defined above all by his steady yet adaptable core. As internal or individual as Fabrizio’s solidity seems to be, it is also class-based. Whether officially a del Dongo or not, Fabrizio is a nobleman. This he knows from his youthful reading of the family chronicle, which also imparts to him a Renaissance spirit centuries removed from his time. The chronicle lifts him from 19th-century anxieties, which his aunt is left to negotiate, though she too is compelled by the passionate spontaneity that this spirit captures. Fabrizio is similar to Mosca in his adaptability but distinct in his spontaneous relationship to the present. He maintains a candor quite apart from Mosca’s irony, from his early youth until his death at the age of 27. As a character as immersed in the novel’s world as he is detached from it, Fabrizio is one of the most complex characters of 19th-century literature, embodying his beloved Renaissance heroes in his own unchanging nature, while also serving for others as a template for the revolutionized world that could have been.