Adelaide Antici

Wife of Monaldo as of 1797, and Giacomo’s mother, Adelaide Antici was born at Recanati in 1778 and died there in 1857. As of 1802 she took over the management of the family patrimony, following her husband’s interdiction. In this capacity she was able to save the household from economic ruin; but at the price of inflexible severity and total lack of sentiments. Her austerity and religious fanaticism are outlined by Giacomo in a terrible portrait in the Zibaldone (353-5, 25^th November 1820):

Quanto anche la religion cristiana sia contraria alla natura ... si può vedere da questo esempio. Io ho conosciuto intimamente una madre di famiglia che non era punto superstiziosa, ma saldissima ed esattissima nella credenza cristiana, e negli esercizi della religione. Questa non solamente non compiangeva quei genitori che perdevano i loro figli bambini, ma gl’invidiava intimamente e sinceramente, perchè questi eran volati al paradiso senza pericoli, e avean liberato i genitori dall’incomodo di mantenerli. Trovandosi più volte in pericolo di perdere i suoi figli nella stessa età, non pregava Dio che li facesse morire, perchè la religione non lo permette, ma gioiva cordialmente; e vedendo piangere o affliggersi il marito, si rannicchiava in se stessa, e provava un vero e sensibile dispetto. ... e il giorno della loro morte, se accadeva, era per lei un giorno allegro ed ameno ... Considerava la bellezza come una vera disgrazia, e vedendo i suoi figli brutti o deformi, ne ringraziava Dio, non per eroismo, ma di tutta voglia. Non proccurava in nessun modo di aiutarli a nascondere i loro difetti, anzi pretendeva che in vista di essi, rinunziassero intieramente alla vita nella loro gioventù ... e non lasciava passare anzi cercava studiosamente l’occasione di rinfacciar loro, e far bene loro conoscere i loro difetti, e le conseguenze che ne dovevano aspettare, e persuaderli della loro inevitabile miseria, con una  veracità spietata e feroce. Sentiva i cattivi successi de’ suoi figli in questo o simili particolari, con vera consolazione, e si tratteneva di preferenza con loro sopra ciò che aveva sentito il loro disfavore.

 How even Christian religion can be contrary to nature ... one can see from this example. I have known intimately a family mother who was absolutely not superstitious but most firm and exact in her Christian belief, and in the exercise of religion. She not only showed no pity for those parents who lost their offspring when still children but envied them intimately and sincerely, as these had flown to paradise without danger, and had freed their parents of the inconvenience of maintaining them. Finding herself in the same position of risking the loss of her young , she did not pray God to not have them die, because religion does not allow it, but was cordially overjoyed; and seeing cry or afflict himself her husband, she closed herself up within herself, and experienced a true and sincere disdain. ... and the day of their death, if this happened, was for her a joyful and convivial day ... She considered beauty as a true sin, and seeing her children ugly or deformed, she thanked God, not out of heroism, but with all her will. She in no way helped them to hide their defects, indeed she insisted that because of them they should have to renounce entirely to life in their youth  ... and she never let pass and indeed searched studiously for the occasion in which to reproach them and have them be well aware of their defects, and the consequences they could expect, and convince them of their inevitable misery, with merciless and fierce veracity. She felt the failures of her children in this and other similar details with true consolation and preferred addressing them on matters that she had heard to their disfavour.