Abstract
E the heroine of Ann Radcliffe’s The Italian (1797), is kidnapped to a convent to prevent her marriage to Vivaldi, a young aristocrat. He finds her and plots a daring rescue, taking advantage of a festive event held one night at the convent. Monks, nuns, pilgrims, and well-dressed dignitaries attend the gathering, a room-length partition segregating them by gender. Vivaldi disguises himself as a pilgrim, while Ellena dons a nun’s habit and veil. In order for the plan to succeed, they must identify each other through their costumes and across the dividing grate. For Ellena, the terror of the moment exceeds the prospect of exposure and punishment: “Though she had taken a station near the grate, she had not courage indecorously to withdraw her veil before so many strangers.” When a man materializes on the other side of the partition, his face “partly muffled in his cloak,” Ellena has no choice but to proceed:
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