Clara Maffei al cospetto di Verdi. Tra storia e finzione

The essay aims at drawing a portrait of Countess Clara Maffei through the pages of her contemporaries and the fictional reconstructions of her life and personality. The lack of documents at our disposal and their fragmentary nature suggest taking into account a diverse corpus of texts, including novels, movies and teleplays dating from mid-Nineteenth century to present time. In these works Clara Maffei is mainly seen as a minor character who is nevertheless essential for the delineation of the intellectual society of her time. Maffei’s portraits are often to be found in biographies of important personalities such as Alessandro Manzoni, Carlo Tenca and Giuseppe Verdi. Her lifelong friendship with Verdi is of high relevance, thanks to the large number of letters written by and to the Italian composer from 1845 to 1886. Thus, in the second part of this essay the author reconstructs the main events regarding the profound and enduring relationship between Verdi and the famous salonnière.