La Signorina: Romanzo

A nervous young man paces the narrow hallway of a modest Milan flat, his heart racing as the clock ticks toward six. He has invited the striking baroness Stefania—known among the city's elite as “the Fáni”—to share a private glimpse of his cherished paintings, works by Segantini and Favretto that he believes capture both alpine serenity and Venetian exuberance. Their tentative conversation unfolds against the backdrop of turn‑of‑the‑century society, where art, class and desire intersect in fragile, sometimes comic, moments.

The story swirls through the first months of an uneasy courtship, tracing Francesco’s desperate pleas and Stefania’s hesitant replies. As each promise and postponement hangs in the air, the narrative paints a vivid portrait of early‑1900s Milan, its glittering salons and quiet apartments, while exploring the tender, often absurd, ways love can make two very different worlds brush against one another.