She is alone. She touches a book spine reverently. Then, the door creaks.
He quotes the next line of the poem from memory. elisa di rivombrosa 1x01 39
For the first half of the episode, the director, Cinzia TH Torrini, carefully builds the mise-en-scène. We see Elisa’s kindness, her quiet dignity as she endures the snobbery of the head butler, and her innate moral compass. Simultaneously, we see Fabrizio’s disdain for the hypocritical nobility. He is a man who prefers the honesty of the battlefield to the intrigue of the salon. The chemistry between Puccini and Preziosi is palpable from their first glance across a crowded hallway. She is alone
The protagonist, Elisa Scalzi (played by a luminous Vittoria Puccini), is a young, beautiful, and virtuous commoner. She works as a companion to the Countess’s daughter, but her life is thrown into chaos when she crosses paths with the dashing, rebellious cavalry captain Fabrizio Ristori (Alessandro Preziosi). He is the Countess’s son, a man weary of war and cynical about the arranged marriages his mother proposes. Episode 1, titled Il Ritorno del Figliol Prodigo (The Return of the Prodigal Son), establishes their first encounter, the immediate attraction, and the societal barriers that make their love seemingly impossible. The episode opens with Fabrizio returning to the Rivombrosa estate after a long military absence. He is greeted by his mother, Agnese, and his sister, Lucrezia. However, the atmosphere is tense: a servant has been murdered, and suspicion falls unfairly on an innocent man. Meanwhile, Elisa arrives at the palace as a humble replacement for another servant. He quotes the next line of the poem from memory