Gorlago

Gorlago is the woman involved in an intimate relationship with Girolamo Camin, known as Momi, and whose concealed presence in his Padova home turns private scandal into a tool in the struggle over Lelia’s future. She never appears directly in the supplied scenes, but other characters’ plans and disclosures make her consequential: her reported departure and separation are contradicted by her continued presence, and a proposed encounter with Lelia is treated as essential.

Relationship with Girolamo Camin

When Siora Bettina Fantuzzo arrives unexpectedly, Girolamo Camin is writing to Gorlago. He has separated from her after a quarrel fueled by her jealousy over Teresina, but his letter’s affectionate, playful language shows that the rupture has not ended their intimacy. Caught with the letter, he turns it over to conceal its contents and presents Bettina with a blank page. The gesture gives the affair a comic surface of improvisation, while making clear how carefully Camin keeps his private attachment from view.

The narrative also describes the continuing liaison as discreditable, particularly because it brings disgrace on ecclesiastical associates of Camin. Gorlago is therefore more than the object of his letter: her relationship with him exposes the gap between the religious respectability claimed by the people around him and their private conduct. The evidence does not give her own account of the affair or establish her motives; her presence is filtered through Camin’s letter and the judgments of others.

Concealment and the proposed encounter

Don Emanuele tells Siora Bettina that Gorlago is not, as publicly announced, in Lombardy and separated from Camin. She is instead hidden in the Camin home in Padova. The discrepancy makes her location a secret with immediate consequences: Don Emanuele insists that Lelia must meet the woman who is not supposed to be there.

To arrange the encounter, he instructs Bettina to seek permission from Lelia’s father, then take Lelia on a pilgrimage to Monte Berico. Afterward, Bettina is to change their destination and bring Lelia to Padova, ostensibly to visit the Santo and then to stop at Casa Camin out of regard for her father. Don Emanuele emphasizes that the meeting is necessary but does not tell Bettina why. His plan depends on withholding its purpose from both Lelia and the people who might object; the supplied evidence records the design, not whether the encounter takes place.

Plot significance

Gorlago’s hidden presence gives Don Emanuele a means of intervening in Lelia’s choices. He believes that learning of Camin’s liaison could strengthen the influence of Donna Fedele, whose aim he understands to be a marriage between Lelia and Massimo Alberti. The encounter is thus conceived not as a neutral disclosure, but as a maneuver within competing attempts to direct Lelia—toward marriage, religious life, or the influence of others.

Gorlago’s role remains sharply limited by the evidence: she is neither shown speaking nor given an independent decision in these scenes. Yet the contrast between her supposedly announced departure and her actual concealment makes her absence active. Others use the concealed fact of her presence to manage what Lelia will learn and when, while the affair itself unsettles the moral authority of the people who seek to guide her.