Serpico's Mother

The narrative offers no detailed likeness of her. She is shown first as a young household maid during the years of her affair, and later as a woman broken by long sickness, bedridden and no longer recognizing the world around her.

She never made peace with the collapse of her romance with Federico, clinging to it even as her health failed. That fixation deepened as illness clouded her mind, until she mistook her grown son for the lover who had abandoned her. When Serpico entered Vandimion service, she took it as a sign that Federico would at last acknowledge him.

As a young woman she worked in the Vandimion mansion in the Holy City and became involved with Federico III, who eventually discarded her before she bore his son. Poverty and a severe, worsening illness left her bedridden and dependent on the boy, who became her caretaker. In time her body and mind decayed so far that she saw only her husband Federico when she looked at Serpico, and unable to care for her any longer, he placed her in a sanitarium.

Years afterward her senility saw her condemned as a heretic. At her execution Serpico let slip the word mother, drawing suspicion onto himself, and Farnese ordered him to light her stake. To avoid being tied to an accused sinner, he reluctantly obeyed and burned her alive, a moment that scarred him with a lasting terror of fire.