Knight-errant

In sunlit Naples, Carlo Donati receives the legal credentials that mark his coming of age, stepping into a future that seems to promise love, freedom, and purpose. By his side is Enrico Ritter, his lifelong friend and skeptical counterweight, whose dry wit and hard realism sharpen the contrast between Carlo's radiant optimism and the world's harsher truths. A chance conversation overheard in a café, along with Enrico's quiet discovery that Madame Merlino is returning to Naples, begins to darken Carlo's happiness and foreshadow the trials ahead. Behind Carlo's hopes lies a family legacy of sacrifice: his grandfather Bruno Donati gave up a brilliant legal career to fight Bourbon tyranny and was executed for it, while Carlo's father followed the same path of duty and renunciation. Raised in an affectionate but morally serious home, Carlo grows into a young man of honesty, tenderness, and public spirit. Friendship, romance, religion, and family all shape him, from his bond with Enrico and the Brittons to Miss Claremont's gentle influence and his eventual move toward the English Church. But as the opera company travels to London, illness, jealousy, and the return of Comerio drive Carlo into despair, ending in a violent outburst that leaves him horrified by his own capacity for anger and self-division. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.