Customer Reviews

The Trials of Maria Barbella: The True Story of a 19th-Century Crime of Passion

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2 star:		(1)
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An impressive mixture of immigrant culture, Italian society, women's roles and the US legal system in the late 1800s. Well researched and intelligently presented.

The readability of the book is purely thanks to the humanity of the events themselves.
The author seems mostly to be writing a tribute to her great grandmother, who, in the book, nearly single-handedly saves Maria Barbella from death. To be perfectly clear, I have no reason to doubt the facts presented, but they are relatively few. The author dedicates a significant portion of the book to describing her great grandmother's beauty, noble bearing, and many attributes of character, literally to the extent that her account of the events and circumstances of Maria Barbella's case suffers. I tried to see this as resulting from the relevance of her part in the case, but when Susan B. Anthony only gets a paragraph... I'm presumably reading the book because the proposed subject of the book interests me. Not because I want to know what hotel Cora Slocomb stayed at, where her lace or dresses were made, or whether the author feels everyone was made weak-kneed by her tremendous beauty. For the record, look at the picture of her on page 36 (the only actual photograph in the book other than the one of her husband) and note her one eyebrow.

The account also suffers because the author *extensively* tries to narrate actual dialogue between people and sometimes even their thoughts, which is hardly anything but conjecture when you're describing something that happened that long ago, and which there is no record of. Maria has no real voice or presence in the book, much as she was ignored in her own defense process, so I can't help myself - I doubt the author knows whether Maria actually thought "Who is this beautiful lady?" when said author's great grandmother appeared. But that little bit of info is fairly typical of the content of the book.

So, from one ordinary reader to another, here's my advice:

1. Buy this book if you want. You'll get a rough idea of the story, and you'll get a chuckle from the soft-focus lense treatment I described above. You might even be tempted to find out more about the trial elsewhere.
2. Check out a much more interesting and well-written true story of love gone wrong, called Love on Trial: An American Scandal in Black and White by Earl Lewis and Heidi Ardizzone.

(...)It appears that there is, in fact, a third photograph in the book, aside from that of Cora and that of her husband. You guessed it, a photograph of their house. Rather tenuously related to the stated topic of the book, don't you think?

If you want to look at dry, impersonal statistics, Maria Barbella was the first woman to be sentenced to death in New York after the electric chair replaced hanging as the state's execution method of choice. If you want the bigger story behind her crime, trial, sentence, and rescue, Idanna Pucci's book provides it, courtesy of records left behind by the author's great-grandmother, who was instrumental in Maria's retrial and acquittal.

In April 1895 Italian immigrant Maria Barbella killed Domenico Cataldo for making her his mistress and then refusing to restore her honor by marrying her. An act of vengeance that would have been condoned or even encouraged in Italy saw Maria tried in New York before a hostile judge and all-male jury. Her subsequent death sentence aroused the wrath of feminists everywhere, namely American-born Italian countess Cora Slocombe, who exerted her power and influence to obtain for Maria a retrial and freedom.

Previous reviewers have criticized Pucci's poetic, imaginative writing style, but she packs the entire manuscript with enough verifiable facts to excuse any sporadically injected whimsy. "The Trials of Maria Barbella" is a fascinating examination of an event that brought the feminist, immigrant, and death penalty controversies to the fore.

Aside from the fascinating players in this case, made even most fascinating because we know they were for real, when most of the time they read more like characters in a novelist's saga, this book really surprised me with the accounts on how sleazy and unprofessional the "respectable" print media of the turn of the century was. Not that today's media is any less subjective, nor any less of a tool to serve the powers that be, but it was surprising to read that articles were printed where even the most basic data about people, such as their names, were wrong, never even checked, nor did anyone in the industry or public make a cry about the endless list of gross factual errors that composed the majority of newspaper articles. We can see that today our media has come a long way, they at least now manage to spell people's name correctly. For those who believe in reincarnation, we can see where Jenny Jones (whom I would love to see hanging in a public square) has her metaphysical roots. It was also lovely to read about the wonderful relationship that Cora and her husband enjoyed, we need more historical accounts of great marriages and great loves between a man and a woman such as what this extraordinary couple exchanged in their many years together. Vera

I finished this book with a heavy heart. The ways that inmates were treated in the Tombs and Sing Sing were atrocious and inhumane. This rather depressing book allows a good insight into prison life in the 19th century, thanks to the author's entensive research. The other gripping point is the court proceedings. So is the larger picture of discrimination against immigrants, especially people like Maria Barbella who is illiterate in English and who naively thinks that Italian laws would apply in New York. Such discriminant attitude is, sad to say, still evident in this modern society. I would recommend this book to anyone who would want an appreciation of 19th century criminal trials

In New York City in 1895 Maria Barbella, a young Italian immigrant, cut the throat of the seducer who refused to marry her, Domenico Cataldo. Since she killed him in a public place in front of witnesses, there was no disputing the facts and the judge at her trial all but instructed the jury to find her guilty of first degree murder. Maria became the first woman to be sentenced to death in the new electric chair

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Across the sea, Cora Slocumb, an American married to an Italian count, became swept up in Maria's plight, convinced the girl was a victim of discrimination. Almost 100 years later Idanna Pucci, Cora's great-grandaughter, was also captivated by the story and her antecedent's crusading role. Pucci's passion and thorough research meld in this colorful, vivid social history.

Leaving her hotel suite (a reproduction of Marie Antoinette's Versaille boudoir) for her first visit to the condemned Maria in the Tombs, Cora finds a bewildered girl with the demeanor of 'a young widow in mourning.' As Maria is shipped off to isolation in Sing Sing, Cora marshalls her considerable social forces for a publicity campaign and hires top notch lawyers to mount an appeal, winning Maria a new trial.

Even before Cora's arrival, media attention from New York's many newspapers was intense, embroiled in the controversy over the electric chair (a barber's invention, first used five years earlier), and the issue of executing a woman.

Pucci reviews the arguments leading to replacement of the gallows with the chair and describes in grisly detail the first electric execution, including dialogue and autopsy report.

She quotes liberally from newspapers concerning Maria's case. Heated exchanges all, these range from treacly to rabid and Pucci does not shrink from reprinting the letters from women calling for the death - preferably by murder - of all faithless seducers.

Maria's case becomes a cause for feminists who rail against all-male justice and condemn the patriarchal values which brand a woman "ruined" and drive her to desperate acts.

Meanwhile Maria's home on Sing Sing's death row is more spacious than any she's ever had. Her friends are gracious women who teach her English, reading and writing. Much of her food comes from the warden's own kitchen. A new trial is a mixed blessing.

Maria's second trial brings in phrenologists, psychologists, witnesses kept out of the first trial, and an exhaustive look at Maria's murky family history. It's chiefly interesting for illustrating the timelessness of lawyers' methods and the inexactitude of truth. For the outcome, there is little doubt.

Pucci's indefatigable search for detail brings the story to life - the record-breaking heat wave in the Italian neighborhood, the ubiquitous wax figures of Maria for sale in curio shops, the Mafia's shadowy precursor known as the Black Hand. She writes with an eye for visuals, filling in the whole picture. Pucci succeeds in turning what is a fairly ordinary crime into a portrait of an era and some of its most passionate controversies - crime and execution, prison conditions, women's rights, immigration, media coverage.

A particularly choice irony - one of Maria's hottest opponents, a newspaper editor, ended his days in prison for the murder of his wife.

The trial of Maria Barbella resembled Margaret Atwood's "Alais Grace"; but it had much more information about the justice system in the 1800's. At times it resembled how women are treated in the 20th century regarding relationships with men.
Men still dominate the justice system as they do everything else in this country! Women must fight for equality in every phase of life and have to work twice as hard to achieve what is just handed to men.
I really liked the book and would recommend it!
I read it in one day and I am a busy person!

Regarding the picture of Maria Barbella on page 36, I concur with the reviewer below.