Residenza le 6A

Amalia

Amalia is the sister of Emilio Brentani, the protagonist of "As a Man Grows Older".
A caring and considerate woman, she lives a secluded life. She represents middle-class propriety and honorability and illustrates the feminine model of the time: a woman devoted to her family and to the comfort of her man.
Resigned to live a dull life with her brother, Amalia has never considered love, but when she sees Emilio in love, she starts dreaming and nurturing the "crazy hope" to be fancied by sculptor Stefano Balli, a frequent visitor to her house. And she suffers in silence, haunted by nightly raptures.

Italo Svevo describes her as follows:

His family? Just one sister, not cumbersome either physically or morally, small and pale, some years younger than him but older by character and, maybe, by destiny. Of the two, he was the selfish, the young, while she lived for him like a mother, self-forgetful...

Mrs. Amalia had never been beautiful; tall, skinny, colourless ... of a girl she only retained the hands, white and slender, beautifully shaped, to which she devoted all her care.

Image gallery

Le 6A

• Annetta
• Amalia
• Angiolina
• Ada
• Alberta
• Augusta