Suore della Sacra Famiglia di Castelletto

Suore della Sacra Famiglia di Castelletto is a community of nuns based at Castelletto del Garda. The novel gives little information about the community’s internal life, but its members matter to the plot as potential visitors, sources of practical information, and a focus of Don Emanuele Costi de Villata’s plans for a future diocese. A proposed visit to them becomes entangled with the efforts to direct Lelia Camin’s movements and arrange a consequential encounter.

The community and Don Emanuele’s plans

Don Emanuele sees the nuns not only as a religious community to visit but as a possible presence in the diocese he hopes one day to lead. He wants to gather information from them about placing members in asylums within that future diocese. The text does not describe the institutions or establish that this plan is carried out; it presents the prospect as one of his practical ambitions and a reason for seeking contact with the community.

A proposed visit to Castelletto

The nuns enter the immediate plot when Bettina Pagan considers travelling to make her devotions at Monte Berico and then continuing to Castelletto del Garda to visit them. She would prefer company on the journey, and welcomes the possibility that Lelia might accompany her. Don Emanuele encourages the plan, which gives Bettina a reason to hope for both the pilgrimage and the visit to Castelletto.

The proposed excursion is then redirected. Don Emanuele instructs Bettina to seek permission from Lelia’s father, Momi Camin, to offer Lelia the journey, and to set it for the day after next. His actual itinerary sends the women first to Monte Berico, then directly to the station; instead of continuing to Castelletto, Bettina is to say that she feels unwell and propose going to hear Mass in Padua. After Mass, she is to persuade Lelia to stop at the Camin home. Don Emanuele’s stated purpose is to make Lelia meet Carolina Gorlago, who is there despite having reportedly separated from Momi and gone to Lombardy. The visit to the nuns is thus a genuine proposed destination, but it also serves as cover for a journey whose decisive purpose lies elsewhere.

Narrative role and limits

At the villa, Momi Camin approves of Lelia’s proposed visit to the nuns, while Don Emanuele’s companion objects disparagingly to nuns in general. Don Emanuele rebukes him, and Momi invokes an aunt who is a nun; Don Emanuele turns the reference into praise of the blessing such a relative’s memory may be to a family. This exchange shows the religious community’s presence in the characters’ language and plans, but it supplies no account of the nuns’ own views or actions.

The community’s narrative significance rests chiefly on the contrast between the pious appearance of the proposed itinerary and the concealed purpose Don Emanuele assigns to it. The planned pilgrimage and visit provide a respectable framework for directing Lelia toward a meeting with Gorlago. The account does not establish that Lelia or Bettina ultimately visits Suore della Sacra Famiglia di Castelletto, or that Don Emanuele’s hopes for placing the nuns in his future diocese come to fruition.