"Ildegonda", published in 1820, was the most popular of
all these tales, and won Grossi an immense number of admirers, every
one (says his biographer Cantu) of the fair sex, who began to wear
Ildegonda dresses and Ildegonda bonnets. The poem was printed and
reprinted; it is the heart-breaking story of a poor little maiden in
the middle ages, whom her father and brother shut up in a convent
because she is in love with the right person and will not marry the
wrong one--a common thing in all ages. The cruel abbess and wicked
nuns, by the order of Ildegonda's family, try to force her to take the
veil; but she, supported by her own repugnance to the cloister, and,
by the secret counsels of one of the sisters, with whom force
had succeeded, resists persuasion, reproach, starvation, cold,
imprisonment, and chains. Her lover attempts to rescue her by means of
a subterranean vault under the convent; but the plot is discovered,
and the unhappy pair are assailed by armed men at the very moment
of escape. Ildegonda is dragged back to her dungeon; and Rizzardo,
already under accusation of heresy, is quickly convicted and burnt at
the stake. They bring the poor girl word of this, and her sick brain
turns. In her delirium she sees her lover in torment for his heresy,
and, flying from the hideous apparition, she falls and strikes her
head against a stone.
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