Jerome—Theodore

Jerome—Theodore is a father-son relationship concealed within the dynastic history of Otranto. Jerome’s final account establishes that Theodore descends from Alfonso through a secret marriage, revealing that the young man’s identity and hereditary claim connect him to the principality’s rightful line.

The concealed ancestry

Jerome explains that Alfonso, while delayed in Sicily for three months, married Victoria. He left her pregnant when he resumed his journey, and she gave birth to a daughter after receiving news that he was believed dead. Jerome later married that daughter; Theodore is their son. The relationship thus joins Jerome’s clerical life to a family history that had remained hidden from the castle’s ruling household.

Recognition and political consequence

The disclosure comes after the supernatural events and deaths that have overturned Manfred’s rule. Jerome supplies the genealogy behind Theodore’s identity, while Manfred accepts the account in the context of the judgments he believes have fallen upon his family. Theodore is recognized as Alfonso’s heir, and Manfred relinquishes Otranto. Jerome’s parentage is therefore more than a private bond: it explains how Theodore belongs to the line whose return changes the succession.

The relationship’s place in the ending

Jerome’s revelation completes the chain of kinship linking Alfonso, Victoria, their daughter, Jerome, and Theodore. He does not merely identify Theodore as his son; he makes the previously obscured ancestry legible to the assembled household, resolving the question of how Theodore can inherit. The pair’s relationship anchors the novel’s final shift from contested possession to acknowledged descent.