Oriole's Daughter, a Novel, Volume 1 (of 3)

A novel written in the late 19th century. Set in Rome’s expatriate circles, it follows Minna Hastings, a young English widow and sculptor, whose disrupted lodgings draw her into the raffish boarding-house Casa Dietrich and the orbit of its proud, learned, and impoverished “manager,” Signor Giuseppe Oriole. The story promises an intimate study of art, independence, class and national temperaments, and the uneasy pull between dignity and necessity in a city saturated with history. The opening of the novel traces Minna’s background—widowed early, self-supporting, and settled in Rome—until her beloved landlady retires, forcing a move. After a rebuff at a respectable pensione, her cousin Hans leads her to Casa Dietrich, a decayed but lively boarding-house whose motley guests (Americans, English, Germans, and Italians) provide comic and telling contrasts. There Minna encounters Giuseppe Oriole: shabby yet magnetic, impulsive, erudite, and fiercely sensitive about his menial duties and Italy’s past, sparring over Nero and even desserts at table. She takes rooms temporarily, endures a string of awkward scenes (her arrival with luggage, a laundry dispute, a botched dinner service), visits a fashionable salon, and, amid amusement and irritation, finds herself increasingly aware of Giuseppe’s pride, knowledge, and hidden burdens.