One, No One, and One Hundred Thousand

Characters

Vitangelo Moscarda Vitangelo Moscarda is the narrator of One, No One, and One Hundred Thousand: he is twenty-eight, rich, idle, and married to Dida, heir to the bank his father founded in the provincial town of Richieri, with the business entrusted to two trusted friends,... Dida Dida is Vitangelo Moscarda's wife and the daughter of the man who, in Book VI, comes to demand an accounting from his son-in-law and flees from him, impeccably dressed and always pleased with himself (chapter IV of Book VI). They married when he was... Quantorzo Sebastiano Quantorzo is, together with Firbo, one of the two trusted friends to whom Vitangelo Moscarda handed the business after his father's death (chapter I of Book I), and he ends up as director of the bank his father founded (chapter VIII of Book III).... Anna Rosa Anna Rosa is an orphaned young woman, a friend of Dida's, who lives with an elderly aunt in a house that seems crushed by the towering walls of the Badìa Grande, the old castle where the town's few old nuns still live (chapter II of Book VII). One of these... Firbo Stefano Firbo is, with Quantorzo, one of the two trusted friends to whom Vitangelo Moscarda handed over the business after his father's death (ch. I of Book I), and he appears at the bank as legal adviser (ch. VIII of Book III). In the middle of the crisis,... Marco di Dio Marco di Dio is a former sculptor's assistant who came from the countryside to Richieri, where he learned to rough-cut marble in the workshop of one of the city's finest artists, and one hot day he was caught in an act that condemned him for good (ch. I of... Moscarda's father Francesco Antonio Moscarda is the father of Vitangelo Moscarda, founder of the Richieri bank, and never appears alive in the novel: he is a dead man his son evokes, and the first image of him is that of a tall, fat, bald man with a thick red beard and almost... Monsignor Partanna Monsignor Partanna is the bishop of Richieri, and the man to whom Vitangelo Moscarda goes to ask for protection against the interdiction. It was said in town that he had been elected through the insistence and backroom dealings of powerful prelates in Rome,...

Other characters

Diamante: Marco di Dio's wife, who goes along with his get-rich schemes and screams from the window of the shack during the eviction (Book IV, chapter I, Book IV, chapter VII)
Elpidio Stampa: the notary, fifty-two or fifty-three years old, in whose office on Via del Crocefisso Vitangelo carries out the first experiment (Book IV, chapter III)
Turolla: a bank employee whom his colleagues mock, who vouched for a loan request that Firbo refused, and who later joins the witnesses against Vitangelo (Book IV, chapter V, Book VII, chapter IV)
The father-in-law: Dida's father, never named, dressed like a tailor's dummy, who flees shouting that his son-in-law is mad and afterward helps gather the evidence to have him declared incompetent (Book VI, chapter IV, Book VI, chapter V, Book VII, chapter IV)
Diego and Nina: the household servants, to whom Dida leaves the instruction to collect her things and take them to her father's house (Book I, chapter VI, Book VI, chapter II)
Bibi: Dida's bitch, the only witness to whom Vitangelo confides his fear of being looked at, whom he kicks, and who insists on going into every church (Book V, chapter III, Book V, chapter IV, Book VII, chapter V)
The retired neighbor: the silent, well-dressed tenant of the small apartment made from the rooms of Vitangelo's father, who greets Vitangelo on the stairs and thinks of him inwardly as a perfect imbecile (Book II, chapter II)
Porcu: the Sardinian from Richieri who answers, cleanly and smiling, to anyone who calls him Mr. Porcu, cited to show a name that carries no weight (Book III, chapter II)
Sister Celestina: the nun at the Abbey, aunt of Anna Rosa and thought to be half mad, in whose parlor Vitangelo must wait for her (Book VII, chapter II, Book VII, chapter III)
Monsignor Vivaldi: the previous bishop, of splendor and generous munificence, whose pair-horse carriage the town still remembers (Book VII, chapter VI)
Antonio Sclepis: the canon, director of the Oblates' College, tall and almost diaphanous, who promises to take care of Vitangelo's defense and arranges the donation of everything (Book VII, chapter VII, Book VIII, chapter III)
The madman on the terrace: the man with red hair in the wind, who flies a red blanket on a terrace facing the bishop's palace, and to whom Vitangelo says «Like me» (Book VII, chapter VII)
The examining magistrate: the honest and scrupulous magistrate, with something of a mole about him, who investigates the case against Anna Rosa and visits the convalescent Vitangelo (Book VIII, chapter I, Book VIII, chapter II)