Mariuccia Colosimo

Mariuccia Colosimo, the midwife from Bagnara, occupies a small but consequential place in the Florio family’s life: she is a local practitioner who responds to women’s private needs and becomes a trusted friend to Giuseppina. When Giuseppina’s pregnancy ends in miscarriage, Mariuccia provides immediate assistance, while the men around them struggle with the consequences. Her role links practical care to a broader network of female solidarity in a world where wives have little power over their own lives.

Identity and Place in the Community

Mariuccia lives in a modest dwelling near the harbor, behind the walls around Piano San Giacomo. Giuseppina knows where to find her when she is troubled by an unwanted pregnancy and uncertain what to do. Mariuccia is identified as the Bagnara midwife, a woman to whom women and girls go for herbs as well as help. Her work places her at a threshold between household privacy and the wider community: women can approach her with matters they cannot readily share with husbands or other men.

The novel situates her in a changing commercial city, but her importance is not that of a merchant or a public figure. The wider economy moves spices from overseas routes through European ports and into Palermo’s markets; the Florios themselves expand their trade and outgrow their original storeroom. Mariuccia’s sphere is more intimate. She attends to the bodily and domestic consequences that commercial ambition and patriarchal family arrangements do not resolve. Her presence makes visible a form of knowledge and service that exists alongside the city’s formal institutions and male-run businesses.

Giuseppina’s Confidante

Giuseppina seeks Mariuccia out when she is pregnant and fears that she cannot accept another child. She hesitates before asking to visit, aware that what she is contemplating conflicts with religious teaching as she understands it. Mariuccia does not interrogate her. Instead, she recognizes the situation and makes clear that Giuseppina may come to her. The exchange establishes their relationship through discretion: Mariuccia understands what Giuseppina cannot easily say and offers a place where the disclosure can be made without judgment.

That support matters in the context of Giuseppina’s marriage. She has been uprooted from Bagnara and brought to Palermo as a young wife, and she has little authority within the household. Her sister Mattia describes women as their husbands’ property, while Giuseppina later says she had no choice when she was married off. Mariuccia cannot alter those social conditions, but she can respond to the needs they produce. Over time, Giuseppina grows fond of her, and Mariuccia becomes the nearest thing she has to a friend.

The Miscarriage and Its Immediate Aftermath

When Giuseppina begins bleeding and collapses, Vittoria runs barefoot through the rain to find Mariuccia. The child knows the midwife’s address and calls urgently for her help, afraid of losing the last family member she feels she has left. Mariuccia comes out with a basket and asks what happened. At the house, she quickly directs the response: she tells Ignazio to help get Giuseppina to bed, setting aside the fact that he is a man because the immediate need is to move her safely.

Mariuccia confirms that Giuseppina had been pregnant and recognizes that there is nothing more to be done for the pregnancy. She tends to Giuseppina, who hides her face against Mariuccia’s arm, and prepares the bed with sheets and towels. Ignazio carries Giuseppina and stays beside her; she tells him that he, rather than Paolo, is the one who is there for her. Mariuccia’s presence makes this painful contrast possible without turning her into its cause: she provides care while the marriage’s estrangement becomes unmistakable. Afterward, Ignazio apologizes to Giuseppina and leaves, carrying his grief privately; Mariuccia remains responsible for the immediate care the household requires.

Ongoing Friendship and Narrative Significance

The miscarriage does not end Mariuccia’s connection to Giuseppina. More than two years later, Ignazio reflects that Giuseppina has slowly resigned herself to her life and grown fond of Mariuccia, who has become her closest available friend. Their bond stands against the distance within Giuseppina’s marriage: she and Paolo share a house but, in Ignazio’s view, have become strangers who neither belong to nor seek one another.

Mariuccia’s significance lies in this sustained, practical solidarity rather than in a large independent plot. She is called upon in a crisis, but her importance also grows through the continuing relationship she offers Giuseppina. In a family shaped by male authority, commercial inheritance, and the demand for heirs, Mariuccia represents care that does not depend on blood ties or marital status. Her work cannot undo Giuseppina’s losses or restore her choices; it does allow her not to face every private difficulty alone.