By Isabel Harvey, 26/11/2020.

Protagonists: Roberto Faitani, layman from Rimini and his daughter, Margherita.

Sources: Archivio Apostolico Vaticano, Congregazione dei Vescovi e Regolari, Positiones, 1605, Lett. R-T. Rimini. (See the sources here)

This case of domestic violence took place in 1605 in the Diocese of Rimini. Roberto Faitani wrote to the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars to convince them to overrule the decision of the Bishop, who approved the publication of the wedding banns of his daughter, Margherita, without his authorization. He requested to “not be forced to give his daughter to a person of ill-repute and, by all accounts, inferior to him, an adversary who attempted everything to obtain the consent of the orator’s daughter with the help of some dishonest women and through other illegal ways.”(1) 

This person of bad life, as described by Roberto Faitani, is a certain Alessandro Pellegrini. The Bishop defined the groom in decidedly less aggressive terms: he was 35 years old, a widower,  not lacking for anything and even owning a few businesses, and was once the postmaster of Rimini. Nevertheless, Roberto Faitani, who had no worries about money, still considered Pellegrini as socially inferior. According to Faitani, his daughter was seduced and deceived not only by Pellegrini, but also by a certain Battaglino Battaglini and his wife – it is to her that Faitani referred when he mentioned dishonest women – who tried to organize the marriage and convince Margherita to act without her father’s consent. Made aware of the imminent marriage, Faitani, as he himself confessed to the Congregation, “I went back home really angry and punched my daughter,”(2) to maybe change her mind. Stubbornly, the 17-year-old girl decided to leave her father’s house and found refuge with the Battaglini family, who protected her for several days, refusing to hand her over to her father. In the meantime, the secular authorities, and then the Bishop, got involved in the conflict. Margherita was placed in a convent, waiting for a compromise to satisfy all parties. The Bishop took the opportunity to interrogate the girl several times, allowing a few weeks to pass between each interrogation, to test the strength of her will. During the first interrogation, as well as during the 3^rd and 4^th, Margherita confirmed that she wanted to marry Alessandro Pellegrini. Her will seemed to waver only during the second interrogation, when she maintained that she would follow her father’s will.

When Roberto Faitani wrote to the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars, Margherita had already been at the convent for six months. The young girl seemed to have changed her mind several times, under pressure from her father, who suggested she take the veil, offering her “some clothes as she needed, conforming to the monastic use.”(3) But in the end, after also hearing  from the nuns who had welcomed Margherita, the Bishop, for his part, concluded that she was unfit for monastic life, and that her will to marry Pellegrini remained. The Bishop, in conformity with the Tridentine decrees, could not therefore oppose the will of the girl. It was in this context that Faitani turned to the Congregation, threatening to have to take justice in his own hands – and implying Pellegrini’s assassination – if the marriage should really take place.

The encounter between the young girl and the ecclesiastical power, represented by the Bishop of Rimini, took place in the midst of a family crisis: the Episcopal Justice was called in to protect the will – and the physical safety – of Margherita against her father. Roberto Faitani did not intend to stop there, however, and turned to Rome for an external recourse from a higher court of justice.

(1) AAV, CVR, POS, 1605, Lett. R-S. Rimini. (che il povero oratore non sia forzato à dare la propria figlia à persona di cativissimi costumi vile et in tutti i conti inferiore a lui havendo massime tentato l’adversario di havere il consenso dalla sua figlia con il mozzo di donne disoneste et altre vie illicite)

(2) AAV, CVR, POS, 1605, Lett. R-S. Rimini. (andai in casa sopragiunto della collera dieda a detta mia figliola alcuni pugni)

(3) AAV, CVR, POS, 1605, Lett. R-S. Rimini. (alcuni panni per il suo bisogno, conforme all’uso monacale)

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