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The Italian
or the Confessional of the Black Penitents.
A Romance.
by Ann Radcliffe
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eBooks@Adelaide
2004
This web edition published by eBooks@Adelaide.
For offline reading, the complete set of pages is available for download from http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/r/radcliffe/ann/italian/italian.zip
The complete work is also available as a single file, at http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/r/radcliffe/ann/italian/complete.html
A MARC21 Catalogue record for this edition can be downloaded from http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/r/radcliffe/ann/italian/marc.bib
eBooks@Adelaide
The University of Adelaide Library
University of Adelaide
South Australia 5005
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About the year 1764, some English travellers in Italy, during one of their excursions in the environs of Naples, happened to stop before the portico of the Santa Maria del Pianto, a church belonging to a very ancient convent of the order of the Black Penitents. The magnificence of this portico, though impaired by time, excited so much admiration, that the travellers were curious to survey the structure to which it belonged, and with this intention they ascended the marble steps that led to it.
Within the shade of the portico, a person with folded arms, and eyes directed towards the ground, was pacing behind the pillars the whole extent of the pavement, and was apparently so engaged by his own thoughts, as not to observe that strangers were approaching. He turned, however, suddenly, as if startled by the sound of steps, and then, without further pausing, glided to a door that opened into the c