Mattia Florio

Mattia Florio, later known as Mattia Barbaro through her marriage to Paolo Barbaro, is Ignazio Florio’s sister and Giuseppina’s friend and confidante. Her life traces the cost of family decisions made by men: married off as a child, separated from her brother and friend by migration, and eventually rejected when she tries to restore a broken bond. Yet she remains a source of care across the family, even when kinship obligations fail to protect her in return.

Identity and Family Background

Mattia is the wife of Paolo Barbaro and the sister of Ignazio Florio. She is also the sister-in-law and close friend of Giuseppina, whose first difficult months of marriage she helped her navigate. The narrative presents this relationship as more than an in-law connection: Giuseppina remembers Mattia as a friend, a rock, and a guiding voice. Their closeness endures across distance and hardship, becoming a chosen sisterhood that contrasts with the estrangement between Mattia and her brother Paolo.

Mattia’s marriage was not a free choice. When Giuseppina later defends her, she explains that Mattia was fourteen when Paolo’s father arranged her marriage, seeking to be rid of her. The episode places Mattia’s personal history within a social order in which women’s marriages are controlled by male relatives. Giuseppina recognizes the same constraint in her own life: she, too, was brought to Palermo by Paolo without the power to refuse. Mattia’s circumstances therefore illuminate the wider limits shaping the women around the Florio family, rather than appearing as an isolated misfortune.

Separation and Farewell

When the Florio household leaves Bagnara for Palermo, Mattia remains behind with her husband. Giuseppina had hoped that Mattia and Paolo Barbaro would follow, but Paolo Barbaro says he intends to stay in Bagnara and travel to Palermo for trade. He also says that he needs a woman to look after his house and children. Giuseppina suspects that he wants to keep his wife away from her brothers, particularly because he dislikes the closeness between Mattia and Ignazio.

The parting makes the difference between family affection and family authority plain. At the pier beneath King Roger’s Tower, Mattia comforts Giuseppina and urges the two women to keep in touch through letters. She acknowledges that women are treated as their husbands’ property and have little power, but tells Giuseppina to be strong. She then turns to Ignazio, saying she had known the day would come, kisses his forehead, and blesses him. Before they part, she embraces Giuseppina and Ignazio together and asks Ignazio to be patient with Paolo, who is hard on everyone and especially on Giuseppina. Since Paolo will not listen to her, she asks his brother to speak to him as a man and a brother. Mattia’s farewell thus carries both tenderness and a practical appeal for protection she cannot herself secure.

The separation does not erase her from the others’ lives. As the family travels toward Palermo, Ignazio worries about managing alone, having never been alone before. Giuseppina, meanwhile, watches the open sea and remembers Mattia’s embrace and Bagnara. The journey’s destination is also a departure from the friend who had steadied her. Mattia’s absence is felt not as a single lost relationship but as the loss of a familiar source of counsel and support.

A Plea, a Return, and a Refusal

Later, Mattia seeks help for her husband. Giuseppina brings Paolo Florio a letter from Mattia, explaining that Paolo Barbaro is in Palermo, sick and alone, with no one to care for him. She urges Paolo Florio to consider that they are now in a position to help. Paolo does not even read the letter before dismissing his sister: he says she chose the side of the man she married. Giuseppina challenges that account, pointing out that Mattia was married off at fourteen and had no real choice. In this confrontation, Mattia’s earlier powerlessness becomes the basis of a direct argument against the brother who now treats her marriage as a voluntary betrayal.

Mattia eventually arrives from Marsala with her son Raffaele; Ignazio has paid for the journey. The move comes as the family’s circumstances grow harder, while returning to Bagnara is out of the question. Paolo Barbaro is too proud to show how far he has fallen and cannot bear the contrast between his difficulties and the Florios’ success. Mattia has therefore come to the city where her relatives might help, but arrival does not guarantee welcome. Her need and Paolo Florio’s resentment meet within a family divided by old judgments and unequal fortunes.

When Ignazio goes to see Paolo Florio on Mattia’s behalf, he returns with the news that Paolo will not see her. Paolo has shouted, and Ignazio has had to calm him; Mattia is left to understand that her brother’s refusal is not softened by illness. She says she will bear many sins before God but cannot accept this grievance: she loves her brother, fell out with her husband to come, and has now been sent away by Paolo as though she were an outcast. Giuseppina takes her to the bedroom and comforts her. Ignazio recognizes that the women are sisters despite having no blood relationship. Their bond offers Mattia care where the brotherhood she still cherishes offers rejection.

A few days later, Mattia returns to Marsala on Master Salvatore’s skiff. Ignazio gives her money, and Giuseppina embraces her for a long time. Vittoria is tender with her, and Vincenzo says goodbye with a shy smile, but neither gesture can undo the parting. Mattia believes she will never see Paolo again and understands that some wounds can no longer be healed. Her departure ends the attempt at reconciliation without ending her affection: she leaves grieving because the relationship still matters, even as she recognizes that its repair may no longer be possible.

Kinship, Gender, and Inheritance

Mattia’s relationships reveal both the sustaining and destructive sides of kinship. She cares for her brother, supports Giuseppina, and returns to Palermo when Paolo Barbaro is ill; she also asks Ignazio to intervene when she cannot reach Paolo herself. These acts are answered unevenly. Giuseppina and Ignazio respond with practical help and emotional care, while Paolo’s refusal turns sibling loyalty into a source of pain. The family bond is not a guarantee of protection: its force depends on who holds authority and who is permitted to appeal for help.

The story later places the Florio family’s future under the pressure of inheritance. After Ignazio’s death, Giuseppina thinks about the business and legacy that Ignazio and Vincenzo have built, which must be passed on and safeguarded. She believes this requires an heir and a woman raised as a lady for her son. The emphasis on good blood and succession echoes the earlier control exerted over women’s marriages, including Mattia’s. Across the generations, women are treated as central to family continuity but are granted limited control over the decisions that shape their own lives.

Mattia’s narrative significance lies in the contrast between that restricted position and the strength of the relationships she helps sustain. Her advice at the departure from Bagnara, her willingness to travel when her husband needs care, and her grief at Paolo’s rejection show affection persisting without equal power or reciprocal loyalty. Through her, the family’s history is measured not only in migration, trade, and inheritance, but also in the intimate obligations that its members keep, break, or are denied the chance to fulfill.