Italian · Intermediate
Read Storia di una capinera in Italianwith every sentence explained
English title: Story of a Blackcap
Giovanni Verga · 1871
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About the book
Storia di una capinera by Giovanni Verga was first published in 1871. In Passage you read the full text in the original Italian, marked intermediate and filed under historical fiction and romance. It runs to about 30,700 words.
A girl raised behind convent walls. One summer of freedom. A heart that learns to beat.
In 1854 a cholera epidemic sweeps through Catania, and young Maria, who has lived in a convent since childhood and is destined to become a nun, is sent home to her family's cottage on the slopes of Mount Etna. In letters to her friend Marianna, still inside the convent, she describes a world she has never known: open fields, sunsets, chestnut woods, laughter.
For the first time in her life Maria is happy. And then, on a walk through the chestnut woods, there is Nino Valentini, the son of family friends, who keeps offering her his arm. But her father and stepmother have already decided her future, and the convent is waiting for her return.
Giovanni Verga's short, heartbreaking novel in letters was his first great success in 1871. It remains one of the most moving love stories in Italian, filmed by Franco Zeffirelli in 1993.
- Author
- Giovanni Verga
- First published
- 1871
- Language
- Italian
- Level
- Intermediate
- Genre
- Historical Fiction, Romance
- Length
- About 30,700 words
How it opens
Monte Ilice, 3 Settembre 1854.
Mia cara Marianna,
Avevo promesso di scriverti ed ecco come tengo la mia promessa! In venti giorni che son qui, a correr pei campi, sola! tutta sola! intendi? dallo spuntar del sole insino a sera, a sedermi sull’erba sotto questi immensi castagni, ad ascoltare il canto degli uccelletti che sono allegri, saltellano come me, e ringraziano il buon Dio, non ho trovato un minuto, un piccolo minuto, per dirti che ti voglio bene cento volte dippiù adesso che son lontana da te e che non ti ho più accanto ad ogni ora del giorno come laggiù, al convento.
Reading Storia di una capinera in Passage
Passage sets the book as a quiet, paginated reader in Italian. Read at your own pace, and when a sentence stops you, tap it. You get:
- a natural translation of that exact sentence,
- a short note on the grammar, in plain words,
- the key words, which you can save with the sentence they came from,
- all of it in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Turkish or Portuguese, whichever you read best.
It's marked intermediate: comfortable once everyday Italian feels familiar, with the harder sentences one tap away. The words you save come back later in short review games, so the book keeps teaching after you close it.
