Conclusion

Abstract

In Rome, a woman stands on trial for the murder of her husband. In court, her reputation is shredded; she is paraded as a whore and a devil; the contrast between her beautiful physical appearance and her spiritual corruption is a theme her judge-turned-prosecutor Cardinal Monticelso returns to obsessively; he also points to her ‘impudence’ and ‘scorn’ of the court as further evidence of her guilt. Her private letters are scrutinised for more clues and read out in court. Foreign ambassadors looking on voice their unease at the prosecutor’s venomous attack on the defendant in murmured asides to one another: while the French Ambassador notes how ‘She hath lived ill’, the Englishman retorts, ‘True, but the Cardinal’s too bitter’ (The White Devil, 3.2.107–8). Meanwhile, Monticelso points a steady finger at the defendant and concludes: ‘If the devil/Did ever take good shape, behold his picture’ (3.2.216–17). Although attempts to implicate her in the death of her husband Camillo ultimately fail, Vittoria Corombona is convicted of what are, effectively, sex crimes, and is sentenced to imprisonment in a house for penitent whores.