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Audiobook editionPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What happens to love when rank, money, and family expectations press against the heart?
In La Signorina, Gerolamo Rovetta explores an Italian society of drawing rooms, ambition, and closely guarded feelings. Love meets the demands of rank and family expectation. What people feel in private comes under pressure from the world around them, where money and social standing carry weight.
This is a novel of manners and feeling, set against Italian life in a changing age. Old customs meet new ambitions, while hidden things help shape a life. Rovetta brings social pressure close to the heart, inviting you to notice how speech, dress, and behavior reveal hope and fear.
What you’ll discover
- Love under pressure Explore how private feeling meets the demands of money, class, and duty.
- The drawing room world Enter a society where ambition and social standing press upon personal hopes.
- The weight of secrets Consider how what people keep hidden can shape the course of a life.
- Details that speak Notice how speech, dress, and behavior offer clues to rank, hope, and fear.
- An Italy in change Discover the tensions between old customs and new ambitions in Italian social life.
Who will love it
This book is for readers who love Milan society, witty drawing-room scenes and warm stories of a found family, told with irony and heart.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Vanity makes a fragile love
- Pride turns friendship into danger
- A last cry becomes a duty
- Care gives grief another direction
- The old attraction threatens new bonds
- Growing up brings hidden desires
- A promise needs more than money
- Comedy reveals the divided heart
- Chance brings a family together
Who’s who
- Francesco RoeroA rich young Milanese playwright who loves a baroness, then takes in a dead friend's daughter and must learn what duty means.
- Stefania ArcoleiCalled Fáni, a blonde, devout, clever baroness who rules her admirers and wants to keep her place in society.
- LulùThe dark-eyed daughter of Nespola, first a stubborn child with a battered doll, later a bright young woman called Elena.
- Signora EugeniaA retired teacher with white hair and firm pride, who becomes a mother to Lulù and a friend to Roero.
- OlivieriRoero's lawyer and closest friend, sharp and witty, who guards his friend's affairs and hides his own tender hopes.
- NespolaPippo Savoldi, a loud, reckless journalist just back from America, who calls on Roero for help in a duel.
- Nino MoroThe estate manager's son in Lodignola, full of new political ideas and quietly in love with Elena.
- Don Giulio ArcoleiStefania's clerical, rule-loving husband and city councillor, who wants order in his house and city.
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La Signorina in 25 languages, side by side, paragraph by paragraph, once the book texts are online: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
La Signorina
A playwright waits behind his door for a baroness, and a dying friend's last cry sends him searching for a child.
Medium level5–10 hours to read20 languages
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In short
Francesco Roero stands behind his own half-open door in Milan, watch in hand, listening for the quick steps of a woman who has promised to come. She is Baroness Stefania Arcolei, called Fáni, and his bait is a pair of paintings.
La Signorina at a glance
- Reading time
- About 5 h 25 min4 h 20 min fast, 6 h 30 min slow
- Length
- 77,900 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A secret visit is broken by a pest
The story opens in Milan on a January evening, with a young man pressed against his own door. Francesco Roero is a fashionable playwright, rich and well liked. For three months he has begged Baroness Stefania Arcolei to visit his rooms. He has found her weak spot, which is her love of art, and he promises to show her two paintings.
She arrives late, and he seizes her in a rush of kisses. She is frightened and furious, but his quick apology softens her. She sits in his studio and defines the two painters with delight.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 14 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- Language
- English
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Rovetta, Gerolamo. La Signorina. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/la-signorina.
Rovetta, G. (2026). La signorina. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/la-signorina
Rovetta, Gerolamo. La Signorina. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/la-signorina.
@book{rovetta2026la,
author = {Rovetta, Gerolamo},
title = {La Signorina},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/la-signorina}
}
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What is La Signorina about?
It follows Francesco Roero, a Milanese playwright, who loses a friend in a duel and takes in the man's small daughter Lulù. Over roughly fourteen years it traces his entangled love for a baroness and the family that grows around the child.
Who is Lulù in La Signorina?
Lulù is the nickname of Elena Maria Savoldi, daughter of the journalist Nespola. She is a little girl at first, then a bright eighteen-year-old in the village of Lodignola, still called Lulù by the people who love her.
Who is Stefania Arcolei?
She is the blonde, devout baroness known as Fáni, married to Don Giulio Arcolei. She keeps a court of admirers, including Roero, Faraggiola and Estensi, and uses charm and timing to hold her place in Milanese society.
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