ABSTRACT
Beatrice Pisa-Vitri, a handsome, young Roman widow of birth and fortune, had, up to the year 189 –, been noted for her religious zeal, and her munificence toward the ancient Church with which she was connected, both by ties of kindred – her brother being a priest – and by her aristocratic family traditions. But at this date a change – or rather a development – took place gradually in her mind; she was seized by a desire to assert herself in matters hitherto held strictly ecclesiastical. This conduct on her part was met, first with mild remonstrance, then with open displeasure, reproof, and opposition from the clergy. The worse for them; their bigotry was as oil on the flame of Madame Pisa-Vitri’s ambition, and turned her former devotion into a deadly hostility. It did more than that, however: it opened her eyes to the degrading position assigned to her sex in religious matters, and made her, like the heroine of this story, a champion of the cause. One morning the reading world of Rome was surprised by the appearance of a bulky pamphlet bearing her name as authoress, and entitled ‘La Donna e la Chiesa,’ in which doctrines were propounded which might have been taken for a translation into Italian of those summarised by Lesbia’s friend in the preceding chapter. It had a rapid sale, first among her own friends, then among the élite of the society 269of Rome, then among the Italian public at large; eventually it was translated in French, and became the rage in Paris and other cities; finally it was done into English, and cheapened, and there was a heavy run upon it in London, and at all booksellers; and all this in less than a month. The book was a success, and a tremendous slap in the face to clerical authority, and to orthodoxy, clerical and lay.
