In 'The Italian', what is the name of the heroine?

In Ann Radcliffe’s The Italian, the heroine is Ellena Rosalba. She is a young woman whose love for Vivaldi is threatened by family opposition, religious power and the novel’s atmosphere of persecution and mystery.

Published in 1797, The Italian is one of Radcliffe’s major Gothic novels and is set in eighteenth-century Italy. Ellena is introduced as an orphan raised by a woman named Olivia, and her uncertain origins become part of the story’s larger web of secrets. Vivaldi’s mother, the Marchesa di Vivaldi, opposes the relationship because she considers Ellena socially unsuitable.

The plot carries Ellena through convents, underground passages and dangerous encounters connected with the sinister monk Schedoni. Radcliffe uses suspense and apparent supernatural events, though she often provides rational explanations for them. Ellena is sometimes confused with Emily St. Aubert, the heroine of Radcliffe’s earlier novel The Mysteries of Udolpho; they are different characters in different books.