Don Giacomo

Don Giacomo, the priest at Pascone, briefly opens a door between Giovanna’s sheltered life and a wider world of ideas. He welcomes her into a crowded church gathering where Roberto speaks, remembers her by name when they meet again in Piazza Vanvitelli, and tells her that Roberto will not return and that such initiatives will cease. His later counsel to drive out pride gives their encounters a spiritual afterlife even as the public space he had fostered closes.

Priest of Pascone

Don Giacomo is associated with the church in Pascone, a neighborhood Giovanna comes to know through her visits with Vittoria. Its approach lies through empty streets, weeds and garbage, graffiti-covered walls, and crumbling apartment buildings. The church itself is unexpectedly crowded when Giovanna arrives with Vittoria: Don Giacomo stands behind a table at the end of the nave, speaking emphatically, while Margherita has saved them seats near the front. The setting gathers people who otherwise belong to sharply separate parts of Giovanna’s life, including Giuliana, Tonino, and Roberto.

Giovanna’s account makes the priest a figure of welcome within this unfamiliar setting. He greets their arrival without interrupting what he is saying, and later calls her Giannina when he encounters her again. That remembered name delights her: the chance meeting briefly returns her to the church and to the impression made there by Roberto. Don Giacomo’s informal warmth contrasts with Giovanna’s sudden deference; she begins addressing him formally, but he insists that she use the familiar form.

The church gathering and its closure

The church meeting makes a strong impression on Giovanna. When Don Giacomo calls Roberto to sit beside him, the room seems to fall silent. Giovanna’s perception magnifies the young man’s entrance, but the encounter also has a concrete consequence: she leaves wanting to hear Roberto speak again and thinks of him as more absorbing than any teacher at school.

Some time later, Giovanna meets Don Giacomo by chance in Piazza Vanvitelli as he is going to take the Montesanto funicular. She offers to walk with him and eagerly tells him how much she enjoyed the church experience, then asks when Roberto will return. The priest’s response reverses her expectation: Roberto will not come back, and the church will hold no more initiatives of that kind. Giovanna is upset and asks whether people had liked the meetings. The text establishes the end of those gatherings, but does not explain the decision behind it.

Counsel and narrative significance

Giovanna encounters Don Giacomo again while trying to understand how she might become spiritually beautiful despite her sense that she is inclined toward malicious words and actions. When she asks what she should do to improve, he answers that she must drive out pride. The advice is concise, but it gives her a practical moral direction at a moment when she feels she has found a possible path to salvation without knowing how to follow it or whether she deserves it.

Don Giacomo’s role is defined by the contrast between opening and closure. He helps create a setting in which Giovanna encounters Roberto’s speech, then tells her that the initiatives are over; later, he offers a personal counsel that remains available after the public forum has disappeared. Through these brief encounters, the priest connects religious practice, intellectual curiosity, and Giovanna’s effort to judge her own character without resolving the tensions among them.