Character guide

The Gadfly

major

Also known as Gadfly, Felice Rivarez, Signor Rivarez, Rivarez, Signor Felice Rivarez

Rivarez arrives in Italy as a celebrated satirist, all lazy elegance and barbed wit, and quickly becomes the campaign's most feared pen against the Jesuits. Yet in the prison infirmary his composure cracks: he seizes Montanelli's wrist like a vice, then deflects with stammered jokes about opium, courts-martial, and an ounce of lead. That raw, involuntary terror beneath the mockery is the crack through which the whole story's buried history begins to show.

Arthur Burton

major

Also known as Arthur, Burton, IV Arthur, Arthur Burton, a Burton, VI Arthur

Arthur lives on the edges of the Burton family, tolerated by his half-brothers and loathed by Julia, who calls him 'that Popish woman's child' as the gendarmes search his room. He meets the raid with eerie serenity, having burned anything compromising, and answers Thomas's awkward apology with a face 'as serene as a summer morning.' His guileless piety and his secret Young Italy verses sit side by side—the fault line along which his life will split.

Canon Montanelli

major

Also known as Montanelli, Cardinal Montanelli, Cardinal, the Cardinal, The old Cardinal, Monsignor Montanelli, IV Monsignor Montanelli, IV Montanelli, Easter Montanelli, Lorenzo Montanelli, Monsignor Lorenzo Montanelli

Montanelli visits the Gadfly's cell not to threaten but to listen, and answers the prisoner's stammering mockery with the calm reply, 'I prefer to form my own conclusions.' When his hand touches the Gadfly's cheek, the man who laughs at courts-martial and death itself quivers 'from head to foot' and can give no explanation. His refusal to be provoked—and the strange power he holds over his enemy—makes him the story's moral center of gravity.

Gemma Warren

major

Also known as Gemma, Gemma Warren, VI Gemma, VI Hearing

Gemma moves through the Mazzinian underground with exactness and nerve, pouring tea and talking business in the same steady breath, her grave simplicity the brightest thing in Martini's life. To the party she is trustworthy and 'nothing more'; to Martini she is the woman who saved him from despair after Calabria. Her quiet gift for consolation, and her sharp curiosity about the new satirist, quietly braid her private and political selves together.

Martini

supporting

Also known as Signor Martini, January Martini, Cesare, Dear Cesare, Cesare Martini

Martini is the friend who came to Devonshire when Gemma's baby died and her husband was dying, and who has been 'one of the family' ever since—even the cat treats him as furniture. He brings her cluster roses she refuses to wear, teases her about superstition, and frets that the Grassini conversazione will be dull. His unspoken devotion and his plain, dependable presence make him the quiet counterweight to the novel's more brilliant and dangerous men.

Dr. Riccardo

supporting

Also known as Riccardo

Riccardo tends the Gadfly through a rapid recovery, teasing him about calling on the Grassinis and refusing to trade his bottled tapeworm for an Indian dagger. He is the one who announces that Signora Bolla will nurse the patient, and who laughs off the Gadfly's sudden alarm about propriety. Brisk, unsentimental, and thoroughly inside the revolutionary circle, he keeps its bodies and its gossip in working order.

James Burton

supporting

Also known as Mr. Burton, James, II Mr. James Burton, Jim, James Burton

James Burton belongs to the prosperous, Protestant merchant world of the Burton family, where reputation, commerce, and social standing are the measures of a man. He is the elder half-brother of Arthur, and the household he governs with his wife Julia is one in which the boy's religious ardour and political sympathies are tolerated rather than understood. His cautious, respectable outlook sharpens the contrast between the world Arthur is expected to inherit and the dangerous commitments he is beginning to make.

Zita Reni

supporting

Also known as Mme . Zita Reni, Zita, Mme, Reni, Mme . Reni, Zita Reni

Zita Reni moves through the story as a figure of colour and freedom, a dancer whose gypsy heritage places her outside the drawing rooms and committees that dominate the political world. Her connection to the Gadfly is intimate and uneasy, marked by his sardonic reserve and her own unguarded warmth. She matters because she reveals a softer, more vulnerable side of a man who otherwise presents only mockery and steel to the world.

Galli

supporting

Galli belongs to the circle of Italian patriots and pamphleteers who invite the Gadfly to Florence and initially relish his savage satire. He is a practical conspirator rather than a fanatic, and he grows uneasy when the Gadfly's pen turns on Montanelli, whose decency even his political opponents acknowledge. His shifting attitude registers the moral discomfort the Gadfly provokes in allies as well as enemies, and helps measure the cost of the satirist's private war.

Colonel Ferrari

supporting

Also known as Colonel

Colonel Ferrari moves in the official and military circles that surround Montanelli, and he watches the Cardinal with the wary respect of a man who distrusts the amnesty but obeys it. He is a professional enforcer, inclined to see the Gadfly's pamphlets and the Young Italy cells as threats to order rather than expressions of conscience. His presence in the story embodies the machinery of surveillance and coercion against which the revolutionaries measure their risk.

Giovanni Bolla

minor

Also known as Bolla, Evidently Bolla, poor Bolla, Giovanni

A young revolutionary arrested and tortured by the police.

Michele

minor

A fiery and impulsive member of the revolutionary group.

Domenichino

minor

A smuggler who assists the revolutionaries.

Grassini

minor

Also known as Signora Grassini, Poor Grassini, Signor Grassini

A spy and informant for the Austrian police.

Padre

minor

Also known as the Padre

A priest who serves as a father figure to Arthur in his youth.

Julia

minor

James Burton's wife, who dislikes Arthur.

Gladys

minor

A woman Arthur meets in South America.

Father Cardi

minor

Also known as Cardi

A priest who hears Arthur's confession.

Marcone

minor

A smuggler who helps the revolutionaries.

Signora Bolla

minor

Also known as Bolla, Signora

Giovanni Bolla's mother, who pleads for his release.

Katie

minor

A servant in the Burton household who is kind to Arthur.

Enrico

minor

A young revolutionary and friend of Michele.

Carlo Bini

minor

Also known as Bini

A printer and member of the revolutionary group.

Professor Fabrizi

minor

Also known as Fabrizi

An older revolutionary and mentor figure.

Lambruschini

minor

A cardinal and political figure in the Vatican.

Bailey

minor

An English doctor who treats Arthur in South America.

Annette

minor

A servant in the Montanelli household.

Willie

minor

A young boy Arthur befriends in the seminary.

Gino

minor

A young revolutionary and messenger.

Gian Battista

minor

A smuggler who works with Domenichino.

Sacconi

minor

A prisoner and fellow revolutionary of the Gadfly.

Diego

minor

Also known as mad Diego, old Diego

An old servant who accompanies Arthur to South America.

Bianca

minor

A servant in the Montanelli household.

Mariuccia

minor

An old woman who brings food to the Gadfly in prison.

Dr. Warren

minor

Gemma's father, a doctor in the English community.

Louisa Wright

minor

Also known as Louisa

Gemma's friend and confidante.

Mrs. Burton

minor

Arthur's mother, who dies when he is young.

Thomas

minor

Also known as Mr. Thomas

A servant in the Burton household.

Gibbons

minor

A prison guard who shows some kindness to the Gadfly.

Martel

minor

A French revolutionary who visits the group.

Lega

minor

A smuggler who assists the revolutionaries.

Williams

minor

An English sailor who helps Arthur escape.

Pasht

minor

A gypsy associate of Zita Reni.

Duprez

minor

Also known as the Duprez

A Frenchman who runs a gambling house.