# Maria de Vellorno — A Sicilian Romance character guide

> Maria de Vellorno in A Sicilian Romance by Ann Radcliffe.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Maria

**First appearance:** 0004-iii

## Snapshot

Beautiful, pleasure-loving, and dangerously artful, she rules the marquis by seeming to obey him and empties Mazzini of warmth.

## Who they are

As the marquis's second wife, Maria de Vellorno is everything the gentle Louisa was not: vain, volatile, and skilled at bending her husband's violent temper to her own ends. She has no interest in domestic life or in her stepdaughters, preferring the splendours of Naples to the solemn halls of Mazzini. Her concealed influence over the marquis — he believes himself most free when he is most enslaved — makes her a quiet engine of the family's growing coldness and a source of unease for the sisters she ignores.

## In the story

### [I](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_sicilian_romance_se/chapters/i)

The second marchioness, beautiful and artful, who governs the marquis and is devoted to pleasure.

### [Chapter II](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_sicilian_romance_se/chapters/ii)

Becomes the new marchioness; is described as wretched despite the festivities.

### [VI](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_sicilian_romance_se/chapters/vi)

The marchioness, caught in a compromising position with the cavalier, fears exposure and plots to drive Madame de Menon away.

### [Chapter VIII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_sicilian_romance_se/chapters/viii)

Exercises capricious ill-humor on Emilia during the confusion at the castle.

### [XIV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_sicilian_romance_se/chapters/xiv)

Mentioned as the Marquis's new wife, with whom he resided at Naples.

### [XV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_sicilian_romance_se/chapters/xv)

Insinuates against Julia and Madame de Menon, is discovered in an affair with de Vincini, poisons the marquis, and dies by her own hand.

### [Chapter XVI](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_sicilian_romance_se/chapters/xvi)

Not directly mentioned in this chapter.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_sicilian_romance_se/characters/maria_de_vellorno
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_sicilian_romance_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_sicilian_romance_se/characters