manliobenigni Review of The Lady of Monza

The Lady of Monza (1969)

Disturbing but accurate Italian Chronicle of the XVII century

[8/10 · 22 October 2001]

Disturbing but accurate Italian Chronicle of the XVII century. It depicts the real story of the Spanish nun Virginia de Leyva, a noble forced to take the religious votes in the Italian convent of Monza, where she becomes mother superior, and of her violent affair with an Italian "Signorotto", after which she gives birth to a girl. He gets killed, she ends up buried alive for more than ten years in a tiny cell. Cruel inner plots, corruption, sex hidden behind the walls between nuns and priests, hysteria and general hypocrisy, not to mention tortures and psychological violence, all make up to a disturbing but effective kind-of prequel to Ken Russell's "The Devils". The story of Virginia de Leyva also inspired a famous chapter of the Italian historical novel "I promessi sposi" by Alessandro Manzoni.