Monsignor Partanna

Who He Is

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, and that, after some years at the head of the diocese, he had still not won anyone's sympathy or trust (ch. VI of Book VII). He comes down on foot from the palace, thin and wrapped in a cloak, between two secretaries, in a town that had grown used to the pomp of his predecessor, Monsignor Vivaldi, and to the two-horse carriage of every bishop. What he wants is for the bishopric to be a work, not an honor: he dismissed the servants, the cook and the coachman, retired the carriage, and instituted the strictest economy in one of the richest dioceses in Italy. What he rejects are comforts: the pomp of the court, the sweets and liqueurs of the nuns, the private confessor. What he knows is the letter of each person's duties. Where he is wrong, as Vitangelo sees it: he reads the case as a matter of conscience, and does not see that the problem is the vital point of a man who can no longer be taken for a usurer (ch. VII of Book VII).

Trajectory

In ch. III of Book VII, in the corridor of the Abbey, the old nuns come running and shrieking at the revolver shot, but what terrifies them is not the wound: it is that the Monsignor is about to arrive. In ch. IV of Book VII Anna Rosa explains that she knew he would visit the nuns of the Grand Abbey that morning, as he does every month, and that she wanted Vitangelo to speak with him in time to prevent the interdiction.

The ch. VI of Book VII is the profile. The nuns of the five convents, except the decrepit ones of the Abbey, hate him for his harsh orders: no making or selling sweets and liqueurs, no embroidery, only knitting stockings, no private confessor. Even graver were the orders to canons and beneficed clergy: the strictest observance of all their duties. He visits the diocese in hired carriages, on donkeys and mules. Vitangelo sees in this what suits him:

The predecessor, well liked and accommodating, would have found a way to arrange everything, saving both the bank and conscience, to please Firbo, Quantorzo, and the rest. Vitangelo feels that he can no longer come to terms with anyone:

In ch. VII of Book VII the Monsignor receives him in the vast hall of the old chancery, with a frescoed ceiling covered in dust, walls of portraits of prelates stained with mildew, and two tall windows rattled by the wind. During the discourse on scruples of conscience, Vitangelo sees on the terrace of a house opposite a man who got out of bed with the idea of testing the voluptuousness of flight, exposed to the wind, his red wool blanket flying around his thin body. He interrupts the bishop and points at him, and the Monsignor replies, with a smile that stands in for a sigh, that he is a poor madman, harmless, as he has been for so many years. Vitangelo lets slip, without meaning to:

The Monsignor startles, and Vitangelo explains, with a placid face, that he means harmless in the opinion of those who want to have him interdicted. The bishop returns to scruples of conscience, which seem to him the idea most suited to the case and the only one to set, with spiritual authority, against the enemies' maneuvers. Vitangelo cannot tell him that his is not a case of conscience:

At the end, the Monsignor asks solemnly whether he does not want to found a work of charity, and Vitangelo has to say that he does. The bishop rings an old silver bell, calls a young cleric, and sends for Canon Antonio Sclepis, director of the Oblates College.

Themes Embodied

Monsignor Partanna is God and the divine in its "outside" mode, the one that has the house, the servants, and all the powers constituted in the world. Vitangelo distinguishes him from the God within, the one of the vital point that Dida's laughter wounded, and goes to ask the first for what the other cannot give: an alibi that no Firbo or Quantorzo will dare call mad. The stern bishop plays this role better than the predecessor, because he does not negotiate, and he is also the point where the novel shows what Madness is for power: a framing, not a listening. The madman on the terrace is "harmless" because he has been classified for years.

The dusty hall of the chancery, the portraits of prelates covered in mildew, and the wind at the windows are the image of the Church the book stages: not that of a power that threatens, but of an institution whose religious feeling has been put outside itself, in a house, and which therefore has to be visited to ask for protection. The stern bishop is the only one in the house who wants the opposite, and it is for his sake that Vitangelo takes an interest. The chapter's close, with the silver bell and the canon summoned, shows that even the severest bishop routes the case toward the apparatus.

Divergent Readings

The text supports two readings of the bishop. In the first, he is an upright man: he dismisses the pomp, retires the carriage, demands of nuns and canons what he demands of himself, and the city's lack of sympathy, which misses the predecessor, is the price. It is this integrity that Vitangelo seeks, because a bishop like this is no comfort to those who wanted to put the feeling of God outside themselves (ch. VI of Book VII). In the second, he is God from outside in person: he hears the case, sees the madman on the terrace and classifies him, gives the patient back a scruple of conscience he does not have, and solemnly routes him toward a work of charity, which is the price of having the protection. Whoever reads him the second way sees a power that accepts only what fits in its own house.

The two readings hold together, and the text knows it: the same bishop who turned the Church's habits into a work, not an honor, turns Vitangelo into a work, not a person. The question the scene leaves is whether, between the God within and the God without, there is anyone who hears the first without framing it. The book answers in the last chapter, where the tree and the cloud speak for Vitangelo and no interlocutor frames him.

Relationships

• Vitangelo Moscarda: the man who seeks him out to escape the interdiction (ch. VII of Book VII) and who leaves there thrown into a sea of uncertainty.
• Anna Rosa: the young woman who knows of the visit to the Abbey and wants to put Vitangelo before the bishop (ch. IV of Book VII).
• Firbo and Quantorzo: those the predecessor would have pleased and to whom the stern bishop will not give the same comfort (ch. VI of Book VII).